 Online Radio In The Workplace
© 2008 Max Lent
This article is dedicated to everyone who lives in cubeland.
Your network systems administrator is not going to appreciate what I
am about tell you. In fact, if you attempt to do some of the things I am
about to tell you about, you could get fired. Use your own judgment and
don't blame me for the consequences.
In a previous job I was assigned a cubicle next to an administrative
assistant who spent most of the day working out her marital problems and
gossiping about other employees by phone. I admit it, I couldn't
stop listening. I am a voyeur. If there is a conversation
going on nearby I will listen to it. I was later assigned to a
cubicle in a particularly noisy area where my cube mates frequently
participated in loud conference calls using their speaker phones, had
very loud conversations, and played music with portable radios. I
don't want to suggest that this was an unpleasant environment. I enjoyed
most of the noise, but I had a problem. Most of my work involved writing
and programming. There is a reason that writers isolate themselves
when they write. They need quiet. I needed quiet.
Actually what I really needed was freedom from listening to the noise
which is not the same as quiet.
At home I block out ambient noise by putting on my stereo headphones,
plugging them into my computer's sound card, and listening to new age
music on the Web using a browser and a media player. The players
that I used were
Microsoft's Media Player and
RealAudio's player. My favorite sources for content are
NetRadio.com and
Shoutcast.com which have a wide variety of
instrumental music broadcasting 24/7. Wanting to get work done and
knowing that I had to block out the ambient noise at work, I started
plotting how I could listen to online radio at work.
I could have and did bring Audio CDs to play through my computer's
CDROM drive. Unfortunately, I don't own and can't afford to buy
enough CDs to play eight hours a day for years to keep the content
fresh. I could have and did use a portable radio with headphones
to listen to local radio stations. Unfortunately, Rochester, NY
only has one classical music station and their programming didn't match
my tastes. What I needed was lots of randomized, non-repeating,
instrumental music content. Internet radio was what I needed.
The first thing I did was to download and install RealAudio's player.
Both of these actions were forbidden by our IT organization. Next,
I tried to access an online media source. It didn't work. I
cruised over to the cube of one of the IT gurus I knew and found him
using RealAudio player to listen to music. Being a guru he was way
ahead of me. He was using wireless stereo headphones to listen to
the several hundred Megs of MP3 files he had downloaded. He gave
me a port number to use with RealAudio and the address of a proxy server
that few knew about. I input the information into the RealAudio
player and I was listening to music within minutes.
My productivity went up. I was writing and programming more.
At the end of the day I felt less tired and more relaxed. I also
noticed that fewer people bothered me when I was wearing the stereo
headphones. The experiment was a success. It may have been
too successful. More and more colleagues started buying
headphones, installing audio players and listening to online music.
The IT and security organizations were not impressed at the amount of
bandwidth being used or that people were downloading and installing
unapproved software. Our managers were an enlightened group that
suggested that IT simply look the other way and not support problems
resulting from the installation of unapproved software.
The story didn't end with everyone gaining access to online radio.
Some people abused the freedom as they always will. I used self
control to limit my listening to content that was instrumental or sung
in a language that I didn't understand. I did this so that I could
concentrate on my work. It would have been impossible for me to
listen to talk radio and write at the same time. The same goes for
songs with lyrics I could understand. Some employees used the
technology to listen to talk radio and popular music. The ones
that listened to this kind of content when they should have been reading
or writing were, in my opinion, stealing from the company.
Internet radio usage became ubiquitous and IT didn't address it use.
The performance of the proxy server became an issue. Net
congestion messages and drop outs became the norm. In response to
the drop outs I found myself changing stations every few songs looking
for more reliable throughput. This ate up time that cost the
company productivity. Installing a better proxy server or
upgrading hardware would have cost less than a few thousand dollars.
More than amount was lost every few days as a result of employees taking
time to unsuccessfully fiddle with their computers while looking for a
stable source of content.
Employees steal from companies all of the time. When employees
were given windows they looked at the outside world and daydreamed.
When employees were first given phones it wasn't long until they were
calling home or other employees for reasons having nothing to do with
work. How many times have you been in meetings that were disrupted
by someone taking a personal call? When employees were given
access to photocopy machines they started photocopying parts of their
anatomies when they weren't making copies of recipes, tax forms,
and you know what. When employees were given access to the
Internet, one of the first places they visited were the early publishers
of online information, sex Web sites. I know of one case where a
male employee was caught viewing sex Web sites and warned to cease that
activity. This happened several times. Eventually, his
Internet access was eliminated. He then brought in erotic images
on floppy disks and installed them as screen savers. Surprise, he
was fired. Although I thought his actions were stupid beyond
belief I felt sympathy for him. Sex is a strong temptation that
has ruined the lives of many. Presidents, religious leaders, and
others have risked their careers for sex and paid a serious price.
Not many managers will admit it, but a great deal of time of
productivity is lost to employees not thinking about their work.
Taking away windows, phones, photocopy machines, Internet access, and
online radio will not solve the problem. The real issue is whether
some people will become so seduced by options not to work that they will
behave in such a way that will get them fired. The answer is an
obvious yes. The problem will not be solved by restricting
freedoms. The problem will be solved by addressing the problem
directly and educating employees how to use emerging technologies.
My method for dealing with employees who want to listen to online
radio would be to hold workshops on how to use the technology and the
medium to help them do their job better. I would show employees
how to set up their computers, suggest what kind of headphones to use,
and instruct them how to use the medium to help them work better.
I might even set up some experiments where employees would be asked to
complete tasks while listening to different kinds of music at different
sound levels and have them grade their own productivity. By
"legalizing" Internet radio it would be possible to regulate its usage
by establishing policies about its use. For example, not taking a
business telephone call because and employee wanted to listen to the
last few minutes of radio content would become automatic grounds for
dismissal. I would stress to employees that increased freedom
brings with it increased responsibility.
Online radio works in better in some work environments than others.
Busy call centers, customer support centers, and sales desks are
examples of areas where online radio would probably not work well.
However, programming, writing, and other areas of contemplative work are
ideal candidates for online radio. Abuse of the resource will
occur. Education and training will reduce, but not eliminate the
abuse. The return on investment is measurable, but the cost of the
measurement may be greater than its value.
My favorite multimedia links. |
