Crank up the paranoia

There was an article on the Wall Street Journal web site last week that gave me pause. I get a subscription via work, and exercise my right to read it. Several times per day if it's a tad slow.

They were discussing the lack of privacy in the workplace. That it's an illusion. Something like over half of all employers are keeping track of emails and web usage. What they're doing with that information wasn't specified. Just that there is no privacy.

This is why I don't visit blogs or any of my favorite sites (with a couple of singular exceptions) while I'm at work. And I never use my corporate email account for personal things if I can avoid it. Too scaredy pants. I really don't think that I would get fired for buying say, an orchid, online. But for blogging? Depends. I just don't want to lead a trail back home. Not of breadcrumbs or nanowhatevers. When rabbit goes to ground, rabbit wants to stay grounded.

I know for a fact that there was an IT person at the bank I worked at who monitored online usage. My boss heard about my eBay use. She didn't have a problem, though. Reportedly saying, "if she gets her work done, I don't give a damn." And that's why I loved her. Well, that and she was one of the last of a breed of banker that has pretty much died out. The handshake, and your word is good, kind of banker. The kind who used to be a fixture of smaller towns everywhere. The kind who made the Merican dream something accessable to more people than the kind who depend on paper and numbers to make the call. She had the most refined bullshit meter that I have EVER seen. And given a couple of amazing practitioners in my family, that is really saying something.

Anyway, remember. Someone is likely watching. It's just the way it is. And I guarantee it where I work. Because if it weren't the case, I would be absolutely boondoggled.