[Brittni]

OMG!!! Because other workers in my office are abusing the internet here in the office they are trying to block all social networking sites on our computers as well as shopping sites and blogs!!! This is crazy it punishes those of us that can multi-task!!!

[New Mama]

Try working in a school! When I was teaching EVERYTHING was blocked! To the point of the kids not even being able to properly research legitimate topics for classwork. And even though I could access JM, I never visited any site that wasn't school/curriculum related since people in our district had been fired over misuse of the internet (much worse than JM, but still). I was just overly cautious! Most of the time employers can monitor everything their employees are doing even read their emails!

It only takes one to ruin it for everyone.

[eli's momma]

it's funny i see all these people talking about being on here at work...i've never had a job where that was allowed. our computers were for work use only, we couldn't go on any sites just for fun.

[Lori B.]

At my last job, I had full access to anything I wanted because I figured out a way to bypass the network. I didn't have much actual work to do, I was just supervising everything, so I spent hours a day surfing the net for 5 yrs and never got in any trouble. I wasn't looking at porn or anything, but I was able to look at whatever I wanted.

[chloe12]

I agree with Lindsay...I've never had a job where surfing the internet was allowed. I always think that if I owned a company, would I want to pay people to go on the internet...no, even if they were getting all their work done. But I guess if it's something you are used to, then it would take some adjustment.

[Brittni]

I work in a callcenter for a utility and cable company. We have EXTREMELY busy times and then we have EXTREMLY slow times and very few in between. We are allowed to get online and go pretty much anywhere except porn, myspace, facebook, and such on our work computers. But b/c some people are getting on facebook on their personal laptops and being all loud and commenting inapproriate things while working they are talking about blocking all social networking things from our work computers as well as making them take their laptops home. They say it is causing a distraction and they are using this as the excuse for poor work performance in those employees when in all acctuality they had poor work performance BEFORE they were getting online!

[Nick n Nate's Mom]

Schools SUCK for that.

But guess who got around our filter ME!

[Judy M]

I've had two professional jobs since college and for both I could surf pretty much anywhere.

My first job was in computer forensics and E-discovery, and you would not believe how much porn people have on the computers they use FOR WORK!! We used to image (make a copy of the hard drive) and I was always grossed out touching other people's computers. It always also surprised me how much personal email people would send/receive on their work email accounts.

My second job was in online advertising, so we kind of needed freedom in internet browsing to look stuff up and test things on our sites.

[eli's momma]

i worked in a cingular call center and we were nonstop taking calls from the time we clocked in until the shift was over. i never remember having more than 30 seconds in b/t calls. sometimes we'd have to put our phone on hold just to breathe for a minute or take a sip of water.

but another job i had where i was on the phone lots, we may have a minute or two in b/t calls but if so, we were supposed to be reviewing our company catalog to familiarize ourselves with item numbers. boooooring. lol.

[New Mama]

Originally Posted by Judy M

It always also surprised me how much personal email people would send/receive on their work email accounts.

Isn't this the truth?! Because I worked in a public setting anyone can request (due to the Freedom of Information Act) any emails that were sent from my account. I don't think people realize how much their employers (or others) are privy too!

And I'm not sure about other places, but even if you could go outside the filter, the computer still tracks anything you visit, so you might be able to access the site, but our tech people could see that you used the filter to go...wherever. I always thought it was the best policy to stick to work related sites at work, it's not worth losing a job over web surfing!

But I think if your workplace allows it and then changes their policy, that would be an adjustment for sure.

[Judy M]

The other thing we used at one job was Sametime. It is a Lotus Notes chat application, like AIM. Anyway, the company told employees they saved all Sametime conversations, but they actually did not. It was way too expensive for them to do it, and I think it would have been a liability if they did do it.

[Alicia W.]

I've never had a job where I was allowed to get on the internet either. In fact..... I worked as a barista for the hospital for 2 years. It was 10 hour days and TONS of downtime since my main customers were hospital employees..... I wasn't even allowed to read a freaking book while I sat there! It was horrible.