Thought about this from the office door thread. Do any of ya'll have companies or bosses that are cool with streaming TV at work? Radio is a lot less distracting, but does your company also actively discourage watching shows? As an aside, what about social networking?

As to the answer for both personally, we don't filter streaming traffic, and my boss has said my coworker and I are allowed to do it when we are in the office, because we have desktops with dual screens and laptops, so we can multitask. Its never been a problem before, but a contractor across the office for the last few days has been watching Batman cartoons and not doing shit. Abusing privileges is going to get all of us fucked on this, I'm afraid.

And with social networking we block that shit outright, but I bypass the filter. We don't pursue employees/students too much unless its something inappropriate.

10/12/2010 9:34:23 PM

it's dumb as fuck to block facebook but allow streaming through netflix/hulu.

10/12/2010 9:37:32 PM

I stream netflix on my ipad at work sometimes....nobody knows however.

sometimes i'll stream through my office PC through one of my dual monitors....nobody nows this either.

10/12/2010 9:40:26 PM

Streaming stuff at lunch would be fine... but how engaged can you be in your work if you're also watching a TV show? I'll stream soccer games in the afternoons but keep it minimized most of the time and just listen to it like its the radio.

Listening to the radio is one thing but watching something AND working? Seems like you're just asking for somebody to abuse the policy to me.

10/12/2010 9:43:03 PM

^^^Yea, I get what you mean, but 99% of the students don't have their parents Netflix account info, whereas every damn one of them has a Facebook, and they check it enough through the proxies already. That one is pretty much a losing battle. Hell we apparently don't block Facebook mobile b/c my Touch can get online at work just fine through the FB App and check updates all day long. But the kids don't have the WEP key, and we can't do shit about it if they have a data package on their phone.

As to streaming and working, its more to just have background stuff going. The other guy that does it a lot puts on old shows he's seen before, so he's not really paying attention. Since I have 30 minute commute, I have nowhere to go for lunch but my desk, so that is when I get the majority of my streaming done, because I like to watch new shit and pay attention to it.

10/12/2010 10:25:19 PM

People at my work stream sports, baseball, worldcup, us open etc on the reg. If you get your shit done and arent bothering anyone else whats it matter?

10/12/2010 10:31:34 PM

bandwidth

10/12/2010 11:07:22 PM

I watch netflix pretty much the entire time I am there. So long as I meet quotas no one cares.

I actually do more work with netflix in the background. Without it I tend to do more forum lurking or flash game playing. A crappy movie just makes noise in the background.

[Edited on October 13, 2010 at 8:02 AM. Reason : ]

10/13/2010 8:00:47 AM

we streamed the world cup on espn3 for the entire month

we stream major tech events most of the time as well

10/13/2010 8:23:55 AM

I'll do it whenever there's a decent sporting event on...or the occasional movie

10/13/2010 8:27:20 AM

I was about to post something about my last job bust decided against it because you guys are assholes. Main point being... I'll never work at a job that blocks websites. Never, ever. And I feel sorry for people who have to deal with that crap.

10/13/2010 8:42:05 AM

meh...it's not something that is important enough to turn down a job over unless they are just SUPER strict about it imo. I wouldn't feel sorry for anyone as I don't think it is a very big deal at all.

Great pay? check
Awesome work schedule? check
great benefits and vacation? check
websites unblocked? aw man...youtube and facebook blocked...looks like this jobs not for me...

Just doesn't seem that important in the grand scheme of things. We have a lot of stuff blocked here...but this isn't, espn isn't, etc. Besides I have a phone if I really want to access facebook or youtube while here.

Now with that being said, I can definitely understand netflix and hulu not being allowed at work (once again if I really wanted to watch something I have my phone). I listen to my ipod or pandora on my phone almost constantly at work and that doesn't bother my productivity at all (perhaps it increases it even). However, I can't imagine I could say the same for streaming movies all day at work. We do have multiple monitor setups as well, but both screens are almost constantly utilized for work related stuff.

[Edited on October 13, 2010 at 9:16 AM. Reason : .]

10/13/2010 9:06:55 AM