A News Story That Caught My Attention

Job losses over eBay 'addiction'

Three council workers have lost their jobs for spending too long on the internet auction site eBay. One was sacked and two resigned after managers at Neath Port Talbot Council found some staff were spending up to two hours a day on the website. Union officials have blamed bosses for "putting temptation in their way" - by allowing access to the internet. The council said it carried out an investigation after officials spent a "significant time" on the internet.
It said another two cases were being investigated while another member of staff had been given a warning. Union officials said in all, over an 18 month period, up to six council staff had lost their jobs.

The council highlighted "an unacceptable level of usage of shopping, entertainment".
Graham Jones, personnel chief at the council, said: "We have a policy of allowing employees to use the internet in their own time. "But we clearly don't want them to use it in council time - at the end of the day they are employed to do a job of work not be shopping online."
The council, which employs 7,500 staff, had security software in place to prevent access to inappropriate websites such as porn sites but not eBay sites. Andrew Woodman, regional organiser for Unison said they had asked for an urgent review. "The council have gone completely over the top on this issue. The internet is part of our working lives, whether we like it or not." Unison welfare officer Mark Fisher said people got "addicted" to certain websites. "People get very involved in eBay, Sky Sports and their favourite soccer teams. It happens in many, many offices," he said.

The council has software to prevent staff accessing some sites"Obviously we cannot justify people spending a couple of hours of working time looking at these sites - but temptation was put in their way," he added. "We plan to push for the authority to make changes to its IT system, to help prevent workers landing themselves in hot water." He called for internet access be limited to lunch break and that web access should be filtered at other times.
"We want them to take temptation out of people's hands," Mr Fisher said. "These were decent well-paid jobs in admin earning between £20,000 and £25,000 a year. "It is personally devastating to them to lose their jobs over this." Employment solicitor Bethan Darwin, of Cardiff-based Darwin Gray Solicitors, said she regularly advised on excessive use of the internet which was a "constant problem for all employers". She said some policies for companies also concerned the use of telephones for personal calls, mobile telephones and e-mail, and had become more commonplace in the last five years. Ms Darwin said: "Technology is changing all the time, consequently workplace policies and procedures have to change alongside those developments."

It's a difficult issue really. I think I got sacked (let go because they were reviewing the role - of course!) from my last temporary job for overuse of the internet! Or maybe it was because I couldn't be bothered to get everybody elses tea's from the kitchin area. At that company, people were regularly going on facebook through the day. Here at Swinton, I currently have web messenger up, I check my e-mails, I look at my favourite websites, in between doing a bit of work. I think that is where the discussion lies, going on for two hours a day is probably a bit extreme, half an hour to an hour should probably be accepted. But because there are so many internet addicts out there (me included) now due to the growth of internet use at home and the variety of websites available to browse, it is almost impossible to not go on the internet whilst at work. The trick is to not get caught! I think if I was in a job though that I really cared about, I wouldn't use the internet for personal use because I would not want to risk losing it having gone through interviews etc to get that far. But in a temporary job where I process stationary orders all day, I don't actually worry about it all that much. Really, it depends how much you want to stay in your job in relation to how much time you use on the internet. Or maybe companies should just restrict all sites except for the ones needed to produce the work you're doing. If they did though, I wouldn't be happy!

Update: I did not pass the online tests for John Laing. Back to square 1. I really don't think they are a good way of judging whether someone is right for the role. Especially when the questions are worded badly and I haven't done maths since I passed the intermediate exam at GCSE!

Guess I should get back to inputting numbers on excel now...