Strange days…
The Employer announced last week that they’d be blocking access to Facebook and MySpace, due to some unspecified virus activity. That took effect immediately. Can’t speak for MySpace, but Facebook access seems to have been restored yesterday (haven’t checked yet today).
This morning, a strange combination of “Personal and Social Networking Sites” are also blocked, with no warning.
Included are Flickr, any site hosted at wordpress.org (some sites merely powered by WordPress software), and blogger.com — but not blogspot.com. (Or maybe vice-versa, hard to tell.)
Still, during the workday — so far — I can see all your blog postings via Google Reader. (Even though I can’t see any images from the blocked sites.)
But I can’t actually get to (i.e., comment at) many of them.
(Aside: If your blog posts use those little “– more –” gizmos which restrict viewing to just the first portion of a post, Google Reader likewise will show me only the first portion: I can’t click through to read what follows.)
Anyhow, please don’t be alarmed (or insulted) if I seem to have gone all silent and unidirectional all of a sudden. If the blockade continues, I’ll try to figure out a way to visit more during off-hours
The Interwebs are our Precious. We hates the nasty hobbitses downstairs, we do — nasty hobbitses who steals from us the Precious.
Update: Nope, the doors are locked to Facebook, too. Also Twitter. I experimented a little last week with something called Posterous.com, which would allow me to update FB/Twitter status… but not to read/comment on anyone else’s status, which (for me) is 80% of the attraction. Sigh.
I don’t do any of the stuff at work. I always assume I’m being watched. Orwellian and all.
switched my blog over to “full” from “short” read b/c I’m narcissisticly certain you were talking about me. ;)
The company I’m contracted to recently issued a memo to the effect that all such sites are blocked. I’m exempt (by my own declaration) as I work from home on my own computer and only bill for the time I actually work. However pretty much anywhere I’ve worked as a staffy issued this kind of dictat years ago. Personally I don’t see anything wrong with access as long as work is also being done in line with deadlines, budgets etc and staff aren’t abusing the privelege by spending hours surfing.
Unfortunately trust is something employers find difficult and that is one of the reasons that people feel devalued in their workplace. We are social beings, not automatons. It would do for large corporations to remember that sometimes, I think.
Squirrel: Sigh. Yes, I know, I know. Cynicism, sadly, seldom has to wait around for validation.
Eileen: Well, not just about your blog. But now that you mention it…
Misssy: The Employer is actually quite open-minded and non-heavy-handed, as a rule. So when people (as they inevitably do) take advantage of Its good nature, It tends to overreact.
The thing about abusing the Internet and social-interaction privileges in general — like the older abuse of (say) Windows Solitaire and such — is that I don’t think people really want to spend their work days goofing off. (Some exceptions, obviously.) But if it becomes a problem, it’s not a problem of the policy which allows it; it’s a problem of management, which clearly is too preoccupied with God-knows-what to be sure the workforce is busy. Not that they need to be overworked, for sure, but if things are out of balance either way then taking a hammer to the workers doesn’t strike me (ha ha) as sound management practice.
(reCaptcha: back-to bassi. My point exactly.)
Our students would transfer to other schools if we blocked anything. Our Masters get around this problem by having not quite good enough computers and dodgy wifi connection and slow DSL. Works just enough to keep everyone trying!
My condolences. Again. That must be very frustrating. And you know how I feel about your commenting, so …yeah, I hope they unblock soon. If not, you do what you have to do. It’s hard to keep up with blogs. We (as in, your blog readers) know you’ll be reading, and we hope you’ll keep blogging.
Well well, kiddies — for today, anyway, Mr. Gorbachev has torn down the wall separating me from FB and all your wonderful sites. We’ll see if it holds!