One of the reasons that I stopped being a service engineer is that the company was about to fit trackers to the company cars we used.  They could then see exactly where you where and when, even in your own time. How's that for an intrusion into your privacy ?

beak wrote:

It's not so much the corporate mentality that disturbs, since a corporate mind is usually beyond shame, but the compliance shown by the majority of my colleagues.  I presume the latter feeds the former.

We're all living on fear at the moment. Everyone's scared of something and the technology is seen as they way to beat it. No politics on here but the ramifications are massive.

Confrontation is a very underused tool, I find.

Yes, and I find you can keep it quite mild and still shock people. It can be simply pointing out the obvious. 'Um, the Emperor looks a bit cold...'

By the way, Beak, no Londoner would use those asterisks! There's another conversation there and one I've often had on Facebook, like the time my kid said everyone he worked with was a c*** and my mother was just actually really UPSET, and I had to use ALL my skills and powers to persuade her that not only do they all say it, it's almost like an endearment (especially in the East End - that's the other thing, London geography) and his colleagues will have just laughed and told him to shut the f*** up. (It helps of course that as a web developer he works with a lot of other young men. ;) ) The language in this place could make your average North American's hair stand on end permanently. 

GAAD, bring on the typewriter insurgency, right??

The way the matter was introduced handled by the company, and the way they avoided honest answers about my questions (because they clearly did not know the answers) was completely inept.  I found it alarming that they had not even thought through what they were demanding - I think too much compliance had made them lazy totalitarians, thinking they could do whatever seemed good that hour without the bother of constructing sound methods and principles.  They deserved a thrashing for that alone, IMO.

The Large US Based Multinational Corporation for which I work as a contractor allows me to remote into my corporate desktop, so I can work for free from home when the mood hits me. The primary interface on my home computer uses a web browser and Java, but they developed a special client that could be installed to speed things up. I was ready to install it until I got to the step where I was to click OK to their IT department updating the client and possibly other things on my computer at any time in the background without asking. They also gave me a device so I can read my email when I am out and work for free when I have no access to my home PC. It's their device, but they've locked it up or down so it's impossible to use it for about any other useful function, including listening to my own music on their device while I am reading their email on my time.

I might have refused but I am stupid enough to feel important enough for them to want me to carry the thing - but I found a work around so I could put music on it anyway. I showed them, I guess!