Sometimes I despise technology.
After two years, the web filter at work has finally caught up with me. This website is now blocked from work, and the MIS guys are telling me that because of the nature of the filter (it blocks whole categories, not individual sites), they can’t whitelist just my site. They also blocked Meebo.
It’s killing me.
So basically that means that I can only post from home in the evenings. I can’t comment throughout the day anymore. I’m honestly not sure what that will do to my content level. I’ll try to keep it up with where it’s been, but we’ll see.
It’s so frustrating because everything I like to go to during the day has been blocked. There are no websites left that I can go to to take a “brain break” from work. I wouldn’t be surprised if this seriously affects my productivity level at work.
So… see you this evening, rather than later in the day.
*sigh*
I’ve thought this and not said it before, and I don’t mean to sound like a jerk..but….
I’m not sure what you do….but if I found out that one of my employees was spending as much time doing non-work related things as you do (and I do currently…more on that later) while at work, I would be none too pleased.
I’ve never heard of a system that can’t whitelist things. Are you sure they haven’t simply looked at your history and just blocked out most of that and are currently just giving you some lame excuses?
I work for myself, I work intermittently throughout the day, playing with my daughter when she is awake, reading and posting, doing errands if needed, etc. but my work gets done over a 16 hour period. Its a method I prefer (obviously you do to), but I don’t have a boss who pays me to come to work for 8 hours and expect 8 hours of work.
If your company does not frown on your extra activities, one of the things that you could do is consider writing posts in notepad or some other offline media and then sync them up when you’re home. Schedule the posts to fire during the day so you keep the discussion going.
With WordPress you can also post via e-mail and it probably wouldn’t be impossible to rig up something that comments to a blog via e-mail (there may even be a plugin out there to do this).
In any case, best to comply and do the best you can with the rules in place– and as tech said, make sure that the group you work for gets what they’re paying for.
That’s pretty typical these days. More and more employers are blocking sites that have streaming video or media. While it doesn’t seem fair…just think about those people who don’t even have computers when their at work!!
My husband’s employer has blocked myspace.com, all blogging sites, youtube and web-based email. It becomes “unblocked” in the hours BEFORE work and AFTER work (and occassionally during lunch hours) for those that don’t have computer access at home. They just don’t want to use the bandwith during operating hours!!
That stinks. Sounds like it’s time for an i-phone.
Hug!
So sorry!
I could become the business-hours overlord of your blog, if you’d like. J/K O:D
Just wanted to stick this out there, because I realize my post came off as jerky.
I was just trying to show that a generic employer may be pissed at a generic employee who spends a lot of time on the internet doing non business related things. I didn’t mean to say that this was exactly the case for you.
I tried (poorly) to caveat what i was saying with the “I dont know what you do…” part, to show that I thought there was a possibility that what you did allowed for your activities like what I do, and how I work, allows for mine.
On those occasions when I come off as a snotty, asshole. Please try to remember I have no reason to even want to be mean to you. It is usually my poor writing skills that cause it.
If that Dean idiot decided to troll around here, that wouldn’t be the case.
Gah, the horror of the nonspecific filter. I’ve had wonderful fun with these at work. I’m supposed to be studying for an actuarial qualification, so when I have a chunk of spare time I sometimes spend it reading up on the relevant math (yes, I know I’m a geek). The problem is that many of the best math resources are on the “personal” pages of math professors round the world.
I’m sure you can see where I’m going with this. The first time was ironic. The second time was irritating. The fifth time… aaaanyway.
Techskeptic: the overly general filter that doesn’t have an associated whitelist is a common syndrome resulting from outsourcing of web filtering functionality. You get a kind of policy laundering effect - the ISP can avoid customising its blacklists by claiming to be doing what it was told to do, and the HR dept that set the policy can blame any issues on the ISP being inflexible.
The one at my office used to have a rather good system where you could override the block for a site as long as you didn’t mind your supervisor being informed that you were possibly abusing the connection. That way, my line manager could look down the list of suspect site visits, see that I’d downloaded FinancialStochasticCalculus.pdf from http://www.cam.ac.uk/homepage, and infer that I was probably not downloading porn on company time. Sadly, this system appears to have been disabled - apparently inflexibility is more cost-effective for someone.
right, but in your description here, it is not the technology that prevents white listing, its the policy that does it.