Does your workplace permit you to listen to streaming audio over its Internet connection?

[G+_Mohsin Qazi]

Does your workplace permit you to listen to streaming audio over its Internet connection?  What do you think is the right policy, as a business?  Does it enhance morale, quality of life, work/life balance, and productivity, or does it simply clog up the Internet connection?

[G+_scott nigro]

Enhances my quality of life but I can see where they might want to throttle it back.

[G+_David Wilson]

"I was told I could listen to my radio at a reasonable volume" lol

[G+_John Maloney]

With NMCI, they think that streaming media slows down thier network, so everything streaming is blocked. Thier network is so poorly managed, it's a wonder we can even get to sites we need to do our jobs.

[G+_Joe Morrison]

We have had past problems where employee streaming consumed so much bandwidth that it interfered with business Internet use. This lead to a blanket ban. I work around this by streaming on my phone. Last billing cycle I used about 14GB browsing, video and audio streaming and tethering.

[G+_marc vought]

That's a great question. Looking forward to these responses.

[G+_Chuckie Canuckie]

I heard somewhere that if you play the right music the cows milk production goes up. Just about 2:00 PM I darken the room and stream some ambient tunes. A good power nap seems to help my creative side for the rest of the day.

[G+_Mel Cruzado]

My situation may be a bit different than most, I work for a large corporation, but my job allows me to work from a home office. I do stream music from the iphone they provided, and they reimburse me for a portion of my internet cost. So probably not a big deal to them.

[G+_marc vought]

It is all relative .

[G+_Dave Trautman]

We thought we had a problem with this once. Our eight programmers variously played music from disc, iPods, and streaming radio. I discussed it with them and we came to an agreement. Late hours did not matter, but the decorum of the daytime shop meant low levels and headphones for the really strong stuff. When Clients visited they were really good about stuffing the phones away and being good little soldiers.

 

Later analysis of the data use across the whole operation revealed the bulk of bandwidth over use came from one Animator who ran nearly non-stop video streams in a window as he worked. This was back in 2000 and we had dual T-1 lines. Once it was pointed out that just one guy was jamming up the line we had our solution. If you've ever done animation (at that time) there was a lot of rendering and mapping delay so it was common to do something at your desk while waiting. So, his habit was to watch video while waiting for the render farm to notify him.

 

The other 7 animators did not engage in this sort of thing. After he was singled out his name could be heard loudly called out (in jest) from all corners of the operation whenever our network slowed down. Peer pressure. Gotta love it. "Bob's watching video again!"

 

As a project manager I agree with the previous comment about professionalism. No amount of policing can help lower usage because it turns into a game for those without scruples. As management we decided punishment was less effective than education. Our cohesiveness was grounded in a transparency and shared responsibility (coupled with plenty of humour) so everyone felt they contributed. They wanted to succeed and they wanted the code and project to be truly great. So they all found a place where the respect and the liberty balanced. I didn't have to impose policy or reprimand or harp on anyone because they all wanted us to succeed.

 

I have also been in other shops where the levels of music playing were quite distracting and forced others to put on headphones in defense. It was not a good working environment and often duisputes escalated between staff (not just over music) to the point a manager intervention was required.

 

I was really, heck still am, proud of my guys on the streaming issue.

[G+_marc vought]

Well said sir.

, From one of the little ppl.

[G+_Jeff Stevens]

There are circumstances in which the expectation of professional conduct is not sufficient to dissuade.  Think task workers.

[G+_Dave Trautman]

Jeff Stevens

  What would your approach be in the instance you describe?

[G+_Dave Trautman]

I would not recommend this strategy for everyone, but I have a friend who shot two films in China. In order to keep his crew from behaving badly he would hire a few extra people just to fire them any time he needed to enforce more productivity. It works in China but I don't think workplace practices here would let us do that too often.

 

I have fired someone for both using bandwidth for non-work purposes and for being subversive with others and obstructing our progress. One such person was the son of a senior partner and none of the other managers really wanted to fire the guy. I walked into the partner's office, explained everything we had done to help his son and told him he was going to be let go. Dad said it might be good for him. Was happy to see were were focussed on getting the work done and not in political favours.

 

I'm not really clear at this point what a "task worker" is by your use of the term but I found keeping the subcontracting staff away from the regular staff helped a lot. We had some who parachuted in to work on some aspect of the project and then they left. Some did a lot of the work from home. But we set up a row of offices which would be shared between a number of contractors. They worked it out between themselves about when they would be 'in the office' and their work habits were contained in a separated space so as not to disrupt the larger group. Our layout was without walls for the most part, so it kind of appeared that contract workers were isolated and not part of the bigger atmosphere we had created. We had three main open areas and the attitude was great. Exclusion was not seen, by the regular staff, as a good thing or a superior situation. One contractor wanted so badly to join in that he applied for full time and was put in the pool with the others. He was never happier and stayed a long time after I left.

 

I'm not entirely sure it would work the same way today. But it did help us to manage the streaming needs of the office at that time.?