Forget Porn, Your Boss Is Now Worried About Basketball, Apparently

from the nothing-sells-like-timeliness dept

CBS’ decision to stream NCAA tournament games for free, rather than charging for subscriptions, looks to be paying off, as it says it’s delivered more than 14 million streams since the tournament began last week. But despite the excitement of March Madness, and the success of the online offering, somebody’s got to rain on the parade, and this time it’s somebody decrying all the “lost productivity” businesses suffer due to employees watching online. Of course, this guy happens to sell equipment to companies that want to block their employees from accessing particular kinds of online content, so he probably doesn’t have a bias.


Rate this comment as insightful
Rate this comment as funny
You have rated this comment as insightful
You have rated this comment as funny
Flag this comment as abusive/trolling/spam
You have flagged this comment
The first word has already been claimed
The last word has already been claimed
Insightful Lightbulb icon Funny Laughing icon Abusive/trolling/spam Flag icon Insightful badge Lightbulb icon Funny badge Laughing icon Comments icon

Comments on “Forget Porn, Your Boss Is Now Worried About Basketball, Apparently”

Subscribe: RSS Leave a comment
27 Comments
LukeD says:

Re: Will it never end!?

If your employees are gettting there work finished on time, and clearly have the companies best interest at heart; then who cares if they take a brake to play cards or watch basketball. Let em’…I think if you keep people happy at work, they’ll be a lot more productive.

Plus they’ll want to be productive instead of, “oh I guess I should be productive, so that my micro-managing, tight-ass boss doesn’t get on my case.”

Dbeard says:

Something about stones and glass houses

It is kind of hard for me to tell my people to stop streaming the basketball games on their computers when I’m watching the games myself. As a boss(which I’m not), I would rather have people send a little bit watching the games on their computers than calling in sick to watch them at home.

Tyshaun says:

from a low level team leads perspective...

I have a very simple set of rules for my employees when it comes to internet use.

1. If you say you worked 8 hours, that’s what I expect. If you spent 2 hours working on your blog or surfing, don’t charge the company. I shouldn’t be paying for you to surf but I understand that at times you need to get things done that can’t wait until the work day is over.
2. Unless its obscene (porn) or objectionable material, I really don’t care what my employees look at on the web.

Da Boss says:

NCAA @ work

I’ve just put up a tv in the office with the basketball on and it gives the employees a chance to watch on and off, they instant message scores back and forth, but productivity is still coming through @ the end of the day. I don’t have time to search through logs of accessed sites, we get everyone cheering through the day, time flies, and my employees are happy.

Devin says:

The average person in the US works 60 hours a week. Most other countries work less than 40. Output has never been higher in history not because we work smarter or more efficiently but we just work longer and harder. Instead of 10 people doing 10 different jobs we have 2 people doing the work of 5 people each.

Making money has become an obessesion that is decreasing lifespan and causing disease.

Andrea says:

Why would one care about it?

It seems a better – perfect and legal – solution to cut productivity than computer viruses. It could be treated as an act of economic terrorism against employers.

On the other side 60 work hour week. Does someone know how long can this last. 70, 80, 100?

If you are at work for so much time, you actualy need multimedia connection with home, children, … and against stress program. Next thing is a bed, basketballgame, video and sex on demand. Some future ……

robert says:

the problem

seeing as I am a network administrator I do see the problem with this.

1. I now know where my bandwidth went yesterday :/

2. nothing is ever the users fault its mine becuase I didnt block it

3. well i cant think of a third but it looks better

anyway it really isnt that huge but i do see a small issue… at least you cant file a sexual harrasment case for watching basketball unlike porn… well those guys do wear short shorts sometimes 😡

Realistic Phil says:

This country is crazy. We forget the importance of life and family and spending time enjoying all of whats out there. Everyone wants their employee to work work work.. everyone wants more for less.. this is where i raise my middle finger and say f**k you… all of you corporate managers and high paid brown nosers.

Work – life balance doesnt not exist in the US… Greedy damn country

road says:

Does it really effect?

Alright any distractions in the work place cause a hit in productivity is there any difference if you employee is watching a sports game or if he’s surfing the net constantly looking for score updates or emailing friends or chatting online???? You can blame all online activity on productivity downfall. There are so many distractions on the net that you can’t blame just this one. For most of us, that sit at a computer all day a little entertainment in the corner of the screen isn’t the end of the world. I know if I was watching some streaming video or tv right now I wouldn’t be on here. I believe there was a article that was on here yesturday about multi tasking? I’ll tell you what staring at code alll day gets boring quick and if I don’t have a few distractions I would probably run through a window screaming… That is if there was a window. A few distractions actualy keep the moral of your workers higher and in my opinion if they can handle it responsibly makes for a better work place.

And who here honestly can say they don’t listen to the radio or music or talk to ppl in the work place. It’s not human to sit in a little box all day with no entertainment and be productive.

Leave a Reply to robert Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Have a Techdirt Account? Sign in now. Want one? Register here

Comment Options:

Make this the or (get credits or sign in to see balance) what's this?

What's this?

Techdirt community members with Techdirt Credits can spotlight a comment as either the "First Word" or "Last Word" on a particular comment thread. Credits can be purchased at the Techdirt Insider Shop »

Follow Techdirt

Techdirt Daily Newsletter

Ctrl-Alt-Speech

A weekly news podcast from
Mike Masnick & Ben Whitelaw

Subscribe now to Ctrl-Alt-Speech »
Techdirt Deals
Techdirt Insider Discord
The latest chatter on the Techdirt Insider Discord channel...
Loading...