There is an old quote attributed to a worker under communism. “They pretend to pay us, and we pretend to work.” The quote comes to mind when reading the Vatican’s new policy and various reactions to it. That policy is the banning of Facebook and MySpace from within the Vatican firewall. The typical reaction from the Type A personality types is that it should be the person’s responsibility to manage their time, not the boss’s. I regret to inform folks that workplaces generally aren’t filled with their types.
One doesn’t have to be a Type A personality to do good work. While many are shocked to learn this, most people actually don’t enjoy their jobs. Most people don’t believe their skills are being utilized properly. Most people don’t believe they are being fairly compensated for their contribution to the workplace. Since this is a Catholic web site, I’ll clean up the attitude that can start to pervade: just forget about it. Not doing work is just one of those small acts of rebellion. Looking at the stats for VN, we receive half as many visits on weekend days as we do on week days. When we look at the daily numbers, there is curve stretching from 7:00 AM until 7:00 PM.
Now, I ain’t here to condemn anyone. The last thing I’m going to tell anyone is that there aren’t enough people slavishly devoted to work. I’m saddened and find it quite pathetic how much devotion people give to a work place that has little to no devotion to them. I feel like I’m watching a freshman girl pine over the football team captain at times. Except for those led easily to depression, it is a good practice every time you receive your pay check to remember that this could be your last day of work. If you don’t have a contract you aren’t worth anything. But hey, be sure you keep your cell phone on this weekend and check your work email from home several times.
Such isn’t to claim it is right to waste hours at work surfing the web, commenting on blogs, posting topless photos of yourself on facebook for your 1000 friends to see, etc. Of course it isn’t right. And your employer not only has the right to block it, they are stupid if they don’t block it. For security reasons alone, blogs and basically any site with advertising should be banned. That’s the door most viruses go through today anyway. As for those that claim they need it for work purposes, fill out the form and let your supervisor decide. In most places, I would actually advocate making a green list of sites rather than black list.
Update: To improve the morale of the people reading this post, I offer the following:
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