At work, they've recently installed a draconian firewall that forces you to visit the most boring websites on the internet. Most everything worth visiting has been blocked, including blogs and gmail chat. As a resort, I've had to disable the hardwired connection to our corporate LAN and connect to the internet wirelessly with the Verizon air card they provided to me for business travel. This circumvents the firewall and allows me to get the good stuff. Unfortunately, I have to periodically re-connect to the corporate LAN to get access to certain things.
In trying to decide what my opinion is on these types of restrictive firewalls, I find myself wondering about how work would have been like 20+ years ago without the perceived distractions of the internet and cell phones. Did people get more work done back then than we do now? Were they more focused? As an experiment, I think that this coming work week, I will attempt to refrain from browsing the internet (for non-work related material), chatting, or text-ing during business hours. Will I be uber-productive? Will I crack or just simply fall asleep at my desk? Stay tuned for updates.
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I often wonder the same thing. I mean, I think I've really only done about a week's worth of work over the past 3 months.
ReplyDeleteHave you seen the show Mad Men on AMC? That was like 40 years ago....but definitely different. Alcohol in the office, 3 martini lunches, and smoking in the office. I often wonder what it would be like to have a bottle wine at my desk...hmmmmmm
ReplyDeleteI guess every generation has their vice.
ReplyDeleteChris -- you may have me beat... but just barely. ;)
ReplyDeleteAdrienne -- Haven't seen that show yet, but I think I read some article about how the office furniture in that show is awesome. Authentic, solid wood type stuff (as opposed to the engineered veneer junk you see a lot of these days.) I'll have to check it out. A 3 martini lunch would make for an enjoyable, albeit unproductive work day. A fair trade, if you ask me :)