blocking out-of-office

[Rick Chadderdon]

Jethro R Binks wrote:
> On Thu, 3 Aug 2006, Rick Chadderdon wrote:
>> who nowadays doesn't know that a corporate account should not be used 
>> for personal communication?
>>     
>
> The people who have not been told that it shouldn't be used for such, and 
> the people who have been told that it may be used for such.
>   
I guess I wasn't clear at all in my post.  The line you quoted was
intended to refer to situations where there is no established policy. 
The latter group you mention clearly does not apply.  I *do* believe
that, by now, most of the former group should be aware (and are aware)
that unless it is explicitly allowed, most companies do not want you to
use their resources for your own personal needs - and that's what I
meant by the sentence you quoted above.
> And speaking personally, I find such rules oppressive and offensive.  
> One's personal life doesn't end when one walks through the office door.  
> This is the real world.  There are, of course, reasonable limits on how 
> far 'personal use' should extend.
Yes.  Unfortunately, it has been my experience that a seemingly growing
number of people will extend and abuse every tiny privilege you offer
them.  While I would not work for a place with such rules in place and I
do not enforce such rules on my own employees, I can fully understand
why a company would do so.  One of my clients was able to reduce his
bandwidth consumption by about 90% (freeing him from the need to get a
larger pipe than his existing T1) by simply having me block the staff's
access to any website that was not on a list of sites they needed to do
their work.  Amazingly, he was also able to reduce his staff by about
50% once all of his people had to do their jobs rather than "socially
network".

This is entirely a philosophical issue, and I apologize if I appeared to
be attacking your beliefs.

Rick