This kind of thing is why I EXCLUSIVELY browse the Internet on my phone while at work (without using work wifi, of course). I also never use my work email for personal correspondence, ever.
Granted, I work at a remarkably lax institution that cares more about getting the job done and less about managing our lives, but these are habits I picked up working in Silicon Valley and I couldn't even imagine the kinds of perpetual monitoring that some of my friends from college have to put up with.
Nobody cares about how long I'm in the bathroom. They like the software I write. And then we all go home at 5.
Yeah, I am always shocked when I see people logged in to services and stuff at work. I use my phone, never on work wifi, to check e-mail, and if something comes up that needs a real interface, I use my laptop (on work wifi, but with a VPN to my home router). Doing anything else seems like madness to me.
Eh, I figured everything I did on the corp network was visible to my employer, but I also didn't care for the most part. If I'm going to post on Hacker News or Reddit, it's on the public Internet, and so having corporate network monitoring catch it is the least of my worries.
I just figured that the best defense against getting fired is delivering value to my employer; they didn't care if I take a HN break as long as my overall productivity stayed high. The same applies now that I'm self-employed, too.
I did tend to use my phone for personal IMs & emails, but that was because we also used GMail for work, and I didn't want to bother with having an incognito window open all the time.
I have friends who not only login to all of the services at work, but use their employer-provided laptop as their ONLY computer. It kind of blows my mind. I'm not as strict about the separation as some, but I can't fathom using my work computer for all of my personal stuff outside of work.
This was sort of understandable in the '90s when decent (for then) laptops were expensive. It is baffling today now that laptops are cheaper than many phones.
If you are part of a conglomerate you also have to consider the possibility that another IT group is snarfing your traffic for employee monitoring and IDS purposes. I've actually seen an overeager IDS I didn't even know existed shut down network access for legitimate services.
Granted, I work at a remarkably lax institution that cares more about getting the job done and less about managing our lives, but these are habits I picked up working in Silicon Valley and I couldn't even imagine the kinds of perpetual monitoring that some of my friends from college have to put up with.
Nobody cares about how long I'm in the bathroom. They like the software I write. And then we all go home at 5.