Judge: Not unreasonable for city workers to surf Web

[DoYouEverWonder]

April 23, 2006

NEW YORK (AP) _ Saying surfing the web is equivalent to reading a newspaper or talking on the phone, an administrative law judge has suggested that only a reprimand is appropriate as punishment for a city worker accused of failing to heed warnings to stay off the Internet.

Administrative Law Judge John Spooner reached his decision in the case of Toquir Choudhri, a 14-year veteran of the Department of Education who had been accused of ignoring supervisors who told him to stop browsing the Internet at work.

The ruling came after Mayor Michael Bloomberg fired a worker in the city's legislative office in Albany earlier this year after he saw the man playing a game of solitaire on his computer.

In his decision, Spooner wrote: "It should be observed that the Internet has become the modern equivalent of a telephone or a daily newspaper, providing a combination of communication and information that most employees use as frequently in their personal lives as for their work."

http://www.newsday.com/news/local/wire/newyork/ny-bc-ny--internetsurfingru0423apr23,0,5454675.story?coll=ny-region-apnewyork

[rodeodance]

1. some sanity is injected into this discussion by the judge.

[Kagemusha]

2. Definitely

But I wouldn't accept someone using the phone 5 hours a day on company time either. Unless that's the job. Sanity is only part 1.

[izzie]

3. Sounds about right to me.

If we had thought any other way we still would not have the funnies or crosswords in the papers.

[droidamus2]

4. Why?

Unless access to the internet is needed for their job why give them access in the first place? If they are not general research people limit what sites they can browse. You should be able to send e-mail without a browser. Same with the games why not take them off the computer then you don't have to worry about people playing solitaire on 'company' time. Management would rather threaten the worker than eliminate the problem. Either modify the system to get rid of the problem or judge the worker by the amount of work they get done. If the internet/games are impacting the amount of work completed or deadlines met that is a problem, on the other hand if you have a worker that meets their deadlines and does good deal of work why harass them for spending a little time on the internet.

[bananas]

5. because it's the workplace standard

He [the Judge] added: "For this reason, city agencies
permit workers to use a telephone for personal calls, so long
as this does not interfere with their overall work
performance. Many agencies apply the same standard to the use
of the Internet for personal purposes."

[Danieljay]

10. they wont eliminate the problem because they are usually as guilty

as the workers they are referring to. I recently made some personal copies on the copy maching at work, it made extra and left them sitting in the tray. I was called in to the office and handed a copy of the handbook and told I needed to pay 10 cents a piece for the copies.

So, I go to accounting, write an IOU, pay them, they write a receipt, give me a dime in change. So now we just spent about $50 minimum in productivity for the cost of a few copies. I asked all three in accounting and none of them had received a penny from anyone before regarding personal copies, including the "director" I report to. I happen to have witnessed several so called directors and managers, including mine, making personal copies of anything from stupid silly emails to home mortgage transactions and evidently not one of them has paid for personal copies, according to accounting.

Anyway, my point I guess is that most everyone is guilty of using the internet on company time. That being said, IF its affecting the employees actual performance and he/she is not reaching their goals or expectations, I agree that they should be reprimanded or worst case, replaced.

[supernova]

12. Because most workplace LANs and WANS

are now built on the Net. The two are no longer separate.

I read the news online, I do my crosswords at lunch, all of it online.

[exlrrp]

6. What does this have to do with their job?

As a former employer, I wonder what this person's job is and how or why they use the internet in it.
is it research? Paper writing? what? If this persons job has nothing to do with the internet then let them surf on thier own time, just like I would expect them to read a newspaper on their own time, unless their job was clipping articles.
I'd also like to know how what sites he was visiting on the taxpayers dime and hwo much time he was spending on them. If they were porno or game sites he should be fired and I mean right now.The taxpayers shouldn't have to support someones addictions when they should be working
The offense here is disobeying orders from supervisors, who obviously were concerned and had warned this person before. His lawyer got him off being fired because he works for a public municipality--out in the private sector he would have been pounding the pavement.
Ok so they reprimand him this time. What should do they do the next time they bust him spending too much time on the net on the taxpayers dime?

[acmejack]

7. A reading of the linked article clearly states the following:

"a search of Choudhri's computer files revealed he had visited several news and travel sites."

http://www.newsday.com/news/local/wire/newyork/ny-bc-ny--internetsurfingru0423apr23,0,5454675.story?coll=ny-region-apnewyork

[skooooo]

8. wow you're really hardcore

...maybe they're doing it on their break time. There are all kinds of jobs that require knowledge of current events. Maybe by being aware of what's going on they will be able to come up with more creative solutions to problems in the workplace.

[DoYouEverWonder]

9. I have mixed feeling about this

Especially since I've had to spend $1000's cleaning up people's computers after they've infected them with viruses.

I don't mind people looking at stuff but don't do your business or download anything on my computers.

[skooooo]

11. on "your computers"?

So you own the computers? or do you just work on them. You hit a nerve by using that phrase cause I've had so many problems with systems people.

[DoYouEverWonder]

13. I'm a small business owner

with 25 - 30 employees.

Yes, I own their computers.

[Brazenly Liberal]

14. self delete

self delete