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How much do employers know where you spend your internet time?
Talka
Registered User regular
Registered User regular
So I have an internship at a Japanese company. I'm really lucky to have it; I'm able to observe the Japanese work culture, I get exposed to the way a law firm runs, and I can write a more impressive resume after I finish my three months here.
However, I don't actually have all that much to do. Almost everything the lawyers could need help with would require legal expertise, which I don't have. I search everyday for tasks I could assist with--editing English documents, doing basic legal research, even just helping with mundane office/secretary work. But even still, I only really have maybe two hours a day tops of "work." I've been filling in the time by asking some of the lawyers for materials to read on my own, just to familiarize myself with the different fields of law. But hours and hours a day of meaningless reading (which is becoming less and less helpful as the lawyers become forced to give me more and more useless material) is not only painfully boring and sleep-inducing, it's still not enough to fill the day.
So I've been surfing the internet.
At first it was always directly related to law. I might fill the remaining hours with an online Lawrence Lessig book on intellectual property, for example. With time it's moved further and further away from law. I've progressed to researching law schools and the LSATs, to researching more general-Japan-oriented topics, to essentially just reading the whole of the NYT, WSJ, and WaPo everyday. Sometimes I venture into even less reputable areas: Slate, or various blogs. Of course, I never check my personal email, facebook, youtube, or porn. And I never do online chats or listen to music. I have my own cubicle, so nobody can physically see me browsing and slacking off. I'm more worried about how companies monitor internet usage.
I don't have much experience with office jobs, much less Japanese ones.
1) How irresponsible is it for an employee to browse the internet during work hours?
2) How irresponsible is it given that I'm reaching out to the best of my ability for some sort of job to help out with?
3) Are there special considerations given that this is a Japanese company?
4) Are there special considerations given that I'm just an intern?
5) How do companies monitor internet usage? Is there some tech worker upstairs who gets a ticker of every website I visit? Every website I visit that's suspiciously not work-related? Do they just get the URLs? The page titles? Will my boss know what I'm browsing?
I ask because there have been a few recent incidents that have made that me paranoid my boss (who, while definitely my real "boss," is actually closer to a secretary that manages and assists interns) knows what I've been surfing. Like I'll read an article on the solar eclipse, and she'll send me an e-mail within fifteen minutes asking if I saw the eclipse today. Or I'll read a particularly egregiously non-work-related article (say, a Newsweek article on the "ideal" Facebook profile) and within thirty minutes she'll make a stop at my cubicle and ask if I've run out of work.
So, am I being paranoid or irresponsible or what?
However, I don't actually have all that much to do. Almost everything the lawyers could need help with would require legal expertise, which I don't have. I search everyday for tasks I could assist with--editing English documents, doing basic legal research, even just helping with mundane office/secretary work. But even still, I only really have maybe two hours a day tops of "work." I've been filling in the time by asking some of the lawyers for materials to read on my own, just to familiarize myself with the different fields of law. But hours and hours a day of meaningless reading (which is becoming less and less helpful as the lawyers become forced to give me more and more useless material) is not only painfully boring and sleep-inducing, it's still not enough to fill the day.
So I've been surfing the internet.
At first it was always directly related to law. I might fill the remaining hours with an online Lawrence Lessig book on intellectual property, for example. With time it's moved further and further away from law. I've progressed to researching law schools and the LSATs, to researching more general-Japan-oriented topics, to essentially just reading the whole of the NYT, WSJ, and WaPo everyday. Sometimes I venture into even less reputable areas: Slate, or various blogs. Of course, I never check my personal email, facebook, youtube, or porn. And I never do online chats or listen to music. I have my own cubicle, so nobody can physically see me browsing and slacking off. I'm more worried about how companies monitor internet usage.
I don't have much experience with office jobs, much less Japanese ones.
1) How irresponsible is it for an employee to browse the internet during work hours?
2) How irresponsible is it given that I'm reaching out to the best of my ability for some sort of job to help out with?
3) Are there special considerations given that this is a Japanese company?
4) Are there special considerations given that I'm just an intern?
5) How do companies monitor internet usage? Is there some tech worker upstairs who gets a ticker of every website I visit? Every website I visit that's suspiciously not work-related? Do they just get the URLs? The page titles? Will my boss know what I'm browsing?
I ask because there have been a few recent incidents that have made that me paranoid my boss (who, while definitely my real "boss," is actually closer to a secretary that manages and assists interns) knows what I've been surfing. Like I'll read an article on the solar eclipse, and she'll send me an e-mail within fifteen minutes asking if I saw the eclipse today. Or I'll read a particularly egregiously non-work-related article (say, a Newsweek article on the "ideal" Facebook profile) and within thirty minutes she'll make a stop at my cubicle and ask if I've run out of work.
So, am I being paranoid or irresponsible or what?
Talka on
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Unless it's through an encrypted channel, we can read every damned thing. Including your post here.
Expect an email re: wangs shortly.
Can trade TF2 items or whatever else you're interested in. PM me.
Perhaps when you are at home sometime do some thinking/research on crafting busy work
Let me tell you something, as an intern spending your free time surfing the internet is an extremly stupid thing to do. If you run out of work, ask for something else to do. Even if it is something completely mindless or barely-work related. Even if it means making up your own projects to do that will benefit the company.
The last thing you want is to get negative marks for slacking off when you're not even a real employee.
I'll buckle down from here on out, but I admit I've been caught off guard by this. I've been applying myself about as hard as I can in as many ways as I can figure out, and I'm still completely out of ideas for what else I can do to fill my time. I always imagined that a significant chunk of work time was spent browsing the internet, though there would obviously be variation depending on the job. I just never imagined companies expected you to sit in a chair and work straight through, non-stop, for nine hours. Seems counter-productive.
Guess this is what internships are for =/.
How an employer cares about what you're doing with your time depends greatly on who your employer is and what your job description is. If your job is dependent on other people's work-flow; i.e. you have a set role in an assembly-line like process, and you're waiting for other things to come through, then an employer isn't going to care. What are you doing for the firm? If they're not staffing you on matters, it's not like you can go "seize the initiative" and start randomly photocopying documents.
I'd be asking for more work to do continually. Lots of paralegals in major cities, when there was legal work to be done, either got to sleep in little cots under their desk or the firm paid for hotel rooms next to their office bldg.
That said, most companies care just as much about how much time you're working or not working and being paid for it as they do how much work you actually got done. If you're only working 2 hours a day and the guy the next cubicle over is only working 4 hours/day and the next guy is also only working 2 hours, clearly they could save some money by getting rid of 2 of you (under the assumption that whoever was left could do the work of the other 2 in roughly the same amount of time).
At some level, someone is also likely seeing this who only sees the numbers. They don't see how often you've asked for work (and may not care if they have seen it) or that your work is done, they don't know you to know your work ethic. They see a number and that number is a lot of web pages being loaded all day and so clearly you are not working for whatever reason.
See #1
It all depends on the company, again. A place I used to work recorded the time and url of every single request to a website. Some managers had access to this real time and many more were sent a daily report of the web browsing habits of all of their employees.
I've been in a similar situation to yours.
1) Quit fucking around on the internet. Yep, it sucks ass just sitting at a computer with nothing to do. Maybe try bringing in a book or something, especially if it's related to your job.
2) Make sure your manager and co-workers are aware that you're looking for more work. Don't assume they know. Don't ask just once. Ask right when you get in. Ask after you complete your normal work. Ask again after lunch. Ask again later. Tell them directly "I'm concerned. I'm getting my duties done very quickly every day and there usually isn't much extra work given to me when I ask for it. I don't want to get in trouble over this, so please help me stay busy and useful". Don't just say you want to do more, tell them that you're aware that there's a potential problem and that you're doing your best to resolve it. I can tell you that saved my job where I was in a similar situation several times and kept me employed for months after upper managers who only saw numbers had decided they weren't getting their money's worth out of me due to my manager and co-workers coming to my defense.
Seriously? Really truly seriously? Wow.
Well, like I said, I don't have much office job experience. I mean, most of my preconceptions come from Dilbert cartoons. But if I ever had to put in like ten to twelve hours a day at college for my thesis, I'd always be an order of magnitude more productive if I spent twenty minutes every other hour stretching and mindlessly browsing than those times I tried to willpower my way through a ten hour non-stop work session.
It's just the way the business world is.
Can someone answer question #5 please?
Not that I care or am worried or anything, but just for my general knowledge. You know, like if someone asks me at a party "hey, how do companies monitor internet usage? Is there some tech worker upstairs who gets a ticker of every website I visit? Every website I visit that's suspiciously not work-related? Do they just get the URLs? The page titles? Will my boss know what I'm browsing?". Then I will be able to answer them with authority.
Definitely not because I'm worried.
Real life is not a Dilbert cartoon. You should be glad that you're getting the "warning" from your boss to cut that shit out, instead of just being shown the door.
Corollary; Yes, I know that I'm at work now. I'm waiting for a VM to bounce on one side, running a few scripts on a UNIX box on the other monitor, and posting on #3. :P
Can trade TF2 items or whatever else you're interested in. PM me.
It depends on the company. Many companies will run a ticker, but they aren't actively looking at logs unless requested by a manager (and then they will just get a report).
Well, now that I'm sufficiently paranoid that my boss hates me I'm going to go in tomorrow and give as clear a signal as possible that I'm looking for work and not getting any. And after asking everyone, if nothing comes of it today (as nothing has in the past few weeks), I'll reread some of the binders I've been lent =/.
Man, I'm capable of working hard for ten hours a day. On those rare days where I've had stuff to do I've performed admirably and even stayed late (way late) to make my work top-notch. But with nothing to do the day crawls by and I go crazy.
That said, everyone has a different experience and different work environments produce different expectations.
I work in non-profit exactly because of stuff like this. You're getting a message. Quit the internet browsing. Amazing how it's easier to get away with reading a comic than it is to check the NYTimes.
Many companies are obsessed with "dead time" and "time theft" right now because it's so easy to be Big Brother and say "Hey! He's reading Penny Arcade!" One large company (IBM? Microsoft?) actually encourages its employees to spend a little time browsing the web each day, as long as your time spent browsing isn't above a certain percentage. Better safe than sorry, try talking to a co-worker you trust to get a better idea.
Oh, and when you finish everything you have take a 10-15 minute breather and always ask for more. The Japanese like this.
They typically will employ a device that has all web traffic routed through it for filtering purposes.
If they are using something such as BlueCoat, it records just about everything you can imagine. BlueCoat will also display it in a nice clean interface with lots and lots of juicy details.
So, yes - we know everything. We know everytime you've gone to that little proxy site to try and circumvent the device.
EDIT: Of course I'm going to work as hard as possible from here on out, but I'm just being honest about how little these relationships actually mean to me beyond next month.
This is such a terrible thing to do. You really never know how much a work relationship can benefit you in the future until you are put in a position where you say "Man, I really wish I kept in touch with those dudes."
Jimmy King answered above:
And it's pretty much this. Various depths of logging and frequency of review happen - most run a web proxy (WebSense, etc) to block the really bad sites, and just have a "raise a flag if these ones are visited above a certain threshold" to stop employees from surfing Facebook for eight hours a day.
Edit - And yeah, people trying to bypass via a proxy usually get a fake-drop of the filtering, followed by a period of intense monitoring so we can see exactly what they're hiding.
Can trade TF2 items or whatever else you're interested in. PM me.
Well, the four people I would ask (my boss, her boss, and the two lawyers I've gotten to know) don't speak any English. I hadn't contemplated asking for a Japanese letter of recommendation since I'm so certain I won't be coming back, but I guess you're right that it won't hurt.
The simple fact that the letter would be in a different language is going to raise an eyebrow for an interviewer, and they will ask you about it, your internship, what the experience is like etc. Having something like that as a discussion point in a job interview is awesome.
Letters of recommendation are not for your current job, they're for future jobs in other companies...
Yeah, you're pretty much right =(. I can still salvage a letter of recommendation (I'm framing my situation in a worst-case light; it's very likely my boss doesn't actually know anything). I'm just upset and shaken at the possibility that my boss now thinks I'm a huge slacker when I feel like I've done everything possible to find a way to fill my time given my language and legal training restraints.
I meant I'm never coming back to Japan. I've had my fill. So I figured a Japanese letter of recommendation would be pretty meaningless since no future employers could read it, but now somebody's pointed out the rather obvious point that it would actually be really awesome in an interview to be able to pull out a letter of recommendation in Japanese (even if I'll have forgotten how to read it in a year or two).
Remind me again why you would forget how to read it in a year or two?
I'm not in the legal profession but I imagine having "can read/write Japanese" on your resume would look pretty fucking awesome.
I would keep up on that dude.
and to Q5, there are lots of different ways. Typically EVERYTHING is kept/logged, but company to company depends on what is actually looked at and how often. Some look at everything you do, some only get involved if you go to bad sites and some only after multiple bad visits.
I'm not that good. I can only read conversational-level Japanese, and that's with a dictionary and ridiculous amounts of time.
On the other hand, if I'm going to graduate on time and also not work myself to death I need to drop my daily Japanese courses.
So, yeah, I've kind of made up my mind to be done with the whole thing. I'm also just exhausted of the country and the language from a personal perspective. It was always supposed to be for fun, but I got too good and so it became too serious, and now I'm sweating over it everyday at this internship and I stopped enjoying the country months ago. I'll graduate with a minor in Japanese and a notation marking my proficiency at the language, not to mention the two months internship at a Japanese law firm. I've gotten my money's worth from what used to be just a hobby. I'm going to be a happier person once I shelve the whole thing.
If you are going around and asking people for work and not getting any, why not sit down at your desk with a dictionary and start practicing translating random stuff around the office into english?
*note: don't do this if you are dealing with confidential infomation
A language is like a lover. If you do not spend time with her, she will leave you.
I tried to imagine someone doing this and lol'd so hard.
The general consensus is correct though, sometimes you have to be more proactive about finding work. It might very well be that the paralegals or attorneys do have stuff you can help them on, but get so caught up in what they're doing they don't remember to ask. Just be sure to make yourself visible.
1: You could ask for one written in Japanese and then pay someone else for a professional translation. It's a bit of an additional expense, but it would actually give some weight to the letter outside of a 'wow, he's got a reference written in Japanese!' factor.
2: You could offer to write your reccomendation in English and just have them sign it. This sounds shady, but it's not as uncommon as you'd think. It would, however, require you have a very good relationship with your supervisor though.
Both of these approaches are better than simply getting a letter in Japanese, and all three are better than getting nothing, I'd say.
that way you can staple your "translation" to the back of the real letter, providing future employers with an interesting, and readable deal!
I was reading an article in D&D a few days ago that said that employees who intersperse work with internet reading/etc. were actually more productive than employees that worked non-stop.
Not to be a party-pooper, but I want you to realize that your problem has nothing to do with Japan. This problem is just going to crop up again when you start working in your home country, "down-time" is part of any job.
This is really fucking good advice right here.