Week Four

The readings this week had mentioned a lot about being prepared with new information and to not get surprised when we encounter the situation the following day at work. As Bradwall stated, "technologies do not exist in a vacuum", therefore the flow of information is constantly being passed around. It is wide opened out there, where it's easily possible for everyone to retrieve it. Nowadays, "employees have and want more control over their work", it seems like employees are demanding for more with their employers. Besides that, they're also trying to get their work to compromise with them, rather then compromising with work. 

I have to agree with the reading written by Gregg, it is easy to relate to. The reason why, is because the people around me does it all the time, therefore it's nothing new to me that is surprising. "... flexible work practices new media devices enable increase work hours for many employees by invading personal and leisure time (cf Towers et al., 2006). Without blaming the technology, I would say that situations like these are somehow a cause-and-effect kind of thing. We build the internet, invent mobile phones, laptop, and everything else that connects us to the internet, and then with all these that we own individually, it slowly affects our daily life without even realizing it. 

It's interesting how often we're unable to distinguish how much time should we be spending as 'work time' and having the rest as leisure in the internet. I'm sure we all would at least know a person who is like that. My mum working in HSBC as an IT Executive, most of the time she brings work back home. Everytime I take a peek on her laptop screen, it's always on Outlook Express, forever checking her emails. I have always wondered why does she have endless loads of emails coming through her inbox. Sometimes she gets to work from home, but it wasn't such a big difference than working at the office. She usually gets off work at 5pm, but she would stay online at least a quarter pass 5 to make sure she gets all her email responses, and to feel like she's satisfied with the work she's done that day.  

Funny, why would people say they get distractions while working in the office? Unless, instead of working, people are fooling around? Something to be observed. It's common that employees get extra workload almost everyday, but why, and how? Even before starting the day at work, we already have a 'pre-work' to do. Is this what we call efficiency, by replying emails an hour before work starts? Or to be able to get more work done, so that we could leave the office earlier? Another thing that I find absurd is why do we email colleagues who sits 10 steps away from you with a short question? Sure, it's efficiency, but where are all the face-to-face interactions? Then, you'll get a one word reply from the other person, isn't that just increasing the number of emails you'll get everyday? It's hard to argue, because we demand people for being efficient, but then we lose physical contact and social interactions. Next generation will be anti-social people. 

Natalie