On Thu, 12 Jun 1997 09:39:43 GMT Prof. Charles Oppenheim wrote:
> I have been following the discussion on this topic with some
degree
> of bewilderment.
>
> On the question of "nobody tampers with my work station" -
that's
> fine if it really *is* your work station - i.e. you paid for
it. If
> your employer paid for it, it's not yours at all, and your
employer is
> perfectly entitled to do things to it, or authorise that
someone else
> does things to it, and you, the employee, have no say in the
matter
> at all.
>
That is certainly the bottom line. However, in the context of
the jobs we are employed to do we are required to protect the
contents of our workstations from unauthorised access. There is,
of course, nothing special about this, it is just part of the
general responsibility to protect any of our employers' property
against theft, damage or whatever.
In any job requiring a degree of creative intellectual effort
there is a need for some privacy for the work to be done
properly.
This need for a degree of privacy should be respected not just
for the mental well-being of the employee, but also in the wider
interests of the employer. It is all part of giving people
working conditions necessary for them to do their work to the
best of their ability.
A minor example: this e-mail message has gone through a process
of revision - cut & paste, deletion, rewording, etc. since I
pressed the Reply button a few minutes ago. It would have been
much more difficult to have produced the message if every
revision had been open to scrutiny, or if I had had to compose
the final version in my head and then key it without error.
Peter.
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Peter W Duncanson E-mail: [log in to unmask]
Principal Analyst Fax: +44 (0) 1232 230592
Computing Services Phone: +44 (0) 1232 273410
The Queen's University Of Belfast or: +44 (0) 1232 335375
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