R.I.P
heidikins
Who became dead April 1, 2009.
(This is not a joke. Stop laughing.)
Ages ago, before I started slaving working here, the Internet Monitoring Bots at my company blocked all the fun sites like YouTube, and Facebook, and Flickr. It is annoying to not be able to check out the tunes from last night’s American Idol, but I understand the amount of time clickity-click-clicked away with status updates and possible inappropriate searches. I get it. It’s annoying, but I get it.
The Internet Monitoring Bots (IMB) have hit a new low. Blogspot blogs are inaccessible on about half of the company computers (luckily, I wasn’t included in that half). Gchat has been spotty for months now with my random “hanging up” on persons I’m chatting with…which is just rude and I apologize if it has happened to you. It’s not you, it’s me. Well, no, it’s not me either, it’s those damn IMB. However, the IMB have hit a new low. Gmail has been blocked completely. Ditto on Google Reader.
Let me repeat that, I can no longer access Gmail. I can no longer access Google Reader. What. The. Hell. What am I supposed to do all day? I realize their idea is that I will work all day. Here’s what. I make somewhere north of 65 phone calls a day. I am on the phone constantly. Which means, I am on hold constantly. Which means, I have three and four minute chunks of time to catch up on a blog or two. It’s either that or draw pictures on my company-issued notepad and proceed to use this “wallpaper” to beautify my cube. Which one do you think H.R. would be more upset about? Wasting paper (my company is on the Green Bandwagon)? Or harmlessly check up on my friends? That’s right. Option B. I leave a smaller carbon footprint by using my already-running (WimpySauce) P.C. to peruse the virtuous nuggets of wisdom left for me on The Internets–via Google Reader–than if I were to use reams of paper to redecorate my desk.
You know what I need…I need an Undercover Google Reader. One that looks like Outlook or something. That way IMB won’t know what’s going on, I will look to be the Most Productive Employee…I mean, I am productive, but Outlook Reader would make me even MORE productive. And I can prove it. Now if someone Super Smart would invent that, stat. Then we can all go along our daily Google-fueled business and pretend like this IMB-coupe never happened. Mmmmkay?
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Just use a proxy, and be really careful.
Comment by sov 2009 April 1 @ 10:54 pmi hope it was just a cruel april fool’s joke…dang, george orwell wasn’t kidding around. big brother is indeed watching.
i’ll bet someone has made a reader that looks like outlook, you just have to google it.
Comment by julochka 2009 April 2 @ 12:44 amTime for an iphone at least that was my solution!
Comment by grungedandy 2009 April 2 @ 2:07 amYep that happened to me! I can’t even access my own blog to update it hence why I’ve been so absent used to do this in my lunch time! Now I’m too tired or busy to do it!
Good luck! Seeya Hugya *G*
Ack! Death indeed!!!!!
Comment by Janssen 2009 April 2 @ 5:02 amWhat about switching to Bloglines or something similar? I don’t know, my school tried to ban Firefox over IE and I did not rest until I figure out a way around it. I NEED MY TABS, PEOPLE.
Comment by nancypearlwannabe 2009 April 2 @ 5:58 amOoh, that makes me so mad. If my computer at work did that, I think my life would effectively be over too. I honestly don’t know WHAT I’d do all day without the internet. Have fun beautifying your cube!
Comment by Noelle 2009 April 2 @ 5:58 amThere used to be a service that e-mailed blog posts to you, but I think that was before RSS feeds were developed.
Comment by PomJob 2009 April 2 @ 6:08 amIf my company did that to me, I’d start working from home a lot more. Ha. I wonder if Bloglines is also blocked? (It’s the same concept as Google Reader.) If not, maybe you migrate your daily reads over there?
Comment by SoMi's Nilsa 2009 April 2 @ 7:13 amThis is awful! What about Bloglines? Or maybe this is the push you need to get an iPhone!
Comment by Jess 2009 April 2 @ 7:22 amOh man… my deepest condolences. That is truly terrible. Would switching to a lesser known feed reader work?
I was crushed when I started working at my current job and IM was banned. CRUSHED. I felt stupid for being so sad about something so insignificant, but I really felt totally cut off from the rest of the world. This was before Facebook and GChat, of course. I’ve been waiting for the day when GChat is banned, but thankfully it hasn’t arrived yet.
Comment by Operation Pink Herring 2009 April 2 @ 7:46 amI’m of the mind that as long as employees get their work done with the expected quality, how they get it done doesn’t matter. If I didn’t spend at least 2 hours per day reading blogs, I’d have to stab myself in the eye with my scissors for boredom. My job simply isn’t that hard, and it doesn’t take 8 hours to do, and I get everything done well, so there’s no need for complaints. Besides, they gain in employee morale when I get to intellectually stimulate myself.
Your IMBs are bitches, and they can suck it. If I were you, I’d bring in books and magazines and flip through those during hold time.
Comment by Sra 2009 April 2 @ 8:57 amdo you have igoogle? you can access whatever you need as long as you can get there….if you need a tutorial, please send me an email with the subject reading “please to help kthxbai”
xoxo
Comment by Steph 2009 April 2 @ 9:02 amThat sucks! I have iChat, which I somehow managed to download even though I supposedly can’t download stuff on my work computer. Maybe try that.
Comment by Lou 2009 April 2 @ 9:38 amSpeak of the devil, here’s an article about a study that indicates that employees who use the internet for personal reasons at work are more productive. Maybe you can anonymously shove this under the IMBs eyes.
Comment by Sra 2009 April 2 @ 11:53 amSra beat me to it. I was just about to post that article, but she got there before me. Of course, this wouldn’t have been possible had she not had access to the Internets and it’s wonderful offings at her place of work. Just throwing that out there…
Comment by sov 2009 April 2 @ 1:51 pm…note: Please ignore my poor use of grammar in that last comment. Egad!
Comment by sov 2009 April 2 @ 1:52 pmoh man i would die if gmail and google reader were blocked. yikes!
Comment by katelin 2009 April 2 @ 2:01 pmSad day. My handy Google reader (still working, thank goodness) had this article today about how internet browsing increases your productivity. Maybe it’ll help your case, should you choose to fight “the man.”
http://freakonomics.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/04/03/if-youre-reading-this-at-work/
Comment by bo 2009 April 3 @ 10:04 amHa, totally should’ve read the earlier comments.
Comment by bo 2009 April 3 @ 10:05 amI have a trick or two up my sleeve for you, could solve your problems.
Comment by Nate 2009 April 3 @ 10:25 amI remember the day this happened to me… IT SUCKED! My solution was to have a kid and stay home. I don’t necessarily recommend it
Comment by Britt 2009 April 5 @ 2:06 pmI second the proxy server thing. You know, I was actually reading a news article the other day that said that people who take breaks to play online while at work are actually more productive. I’m actually on vacation right now (long weekend) but I’ll have to try to find it when I get home. Feel free to shoot me an email to remind me if I forget.
Good luck!
Comment by Caryn Caldwell 2009 April 5 @ 4:11 pmI would quit.
Comment by lauren 2009 May 21 @ 1:54 pm