CNET Demands End to Boss Buttons
FILED UNDER: Opinion. Lifestyle, Sports.
Jim Kerstetter of C|Net has written an essay demanding the abolishment of Boss Buttons. What's a Boss Button? Usually it's a simple press on your keyboard that immediately hides whatever you're gazing at on the monitor and replaces the image with something work-related.
The reason this subject is coming up is because millions of people are watching the NCAA tournament via video stream while at work.
Come every March, thanks to office pools on the NCAA college basketball tournament, boss buttons are as common on desktop computers as personal e-mails and photos of your friends: They're probably not supposed to be there, but we all have them. NCAA.com has even provided a helpful boss button on its Web site.
Jim argues that it's time we finally abolish this illusion and remove the shackles from office-workers to watch what they want to watch.
Here's a thought: Let's stop all the silly shenanigans and make boss buttons a thing of the past. Get it out in the open and let people keep track of the office pools without worrying about getting into trouble. The average American is spending more time in the office than ever. And the average tech worker spends even more time than that. There's a reason all those Silicon Valley companies offer free food, subsidized child care, laundry, auto-detailing, and swanky gyms: So you never have an excuse to go home.
If I were in a position to employ people at an old-school, tangible location, I'd probably have a television set up for people to watch and just nip it in the bud. Besides, all that video-streaming has to be killing the corporate bandwidth.
Read More (Source: C|Net)
