Internet Pin-up Girls (and Guys)

Is it acceptable for City government employees to use the City government's Internet connection at work for personal web browsing?

At first I'm tempted to say "no, absolutely not". Abuses are not only newsworthy, but headlines, such as when a third of the Port of Seattle's police offers were caught exchanging or receiving racist, sexist and sexually explicit e-mails between 2004 and 2007.

Almost every survey of employers, public and private, shows quite extensive use of the Internet by employees for shopping, finding relationships (i.e. dating services) and planning vacations.

On the other hand, we certainly allow employees to use the telephone and even e-mail to make dental or medical appointments, talk to their schools and daycare about their kids and perform a wide variety of quick, short personal transactions. Why shouldn't we have the same sort of policy about use of the Internet and e-mail?

Let me first say that almost all the employees I know at the City of Seattle are ethical, diligent, and hard-working. I see that diligence, that dedication, every day.

But everyone (government employee or not) has their weakness. Some folks are addicted to alcohol, others to shopping, many to cigarettes/smoke breaks and many others to surfing the Internet or YouTube. They can't help themselves from surfing or bidding on e-bay or browsing MySpace for their friends.

Pin-up girls. The very phrase evokes images from World War II barracks. In City of Seattle call centers in the 1970s, we had problems with pin-up girls decorating cubicles. Then it was pin-up guys. Naked pin-up guys. In guy's cubicles. We ended up banning all such photos from the workplace and no one would think of allowing them back in today.

Yet I've had workers visiting dating sites and leaving images of half-clothed people on the computer screen scandalizing a co-worker. I've seen workers leaving their City e-mail address for craigslist and e-bay sales. I know of employees surfing Internet sex sites. We "flatten" at least five computers (out of 10,000) a week. (This is a process also known as "re-imaging" or wiping a desktop computer clean and re-installing all programs.) Why? Because they became infected with malware from visiting non-business websites.

In almost every single case cited above, the City employee was a good employee. Hard working and well-intentioned. Someone I'd be proud to call a friend. But they either didn't know the rules or had to indulge an addiction to the Internet.

One department director tells me how much he loves the "Websense" (Internet filtering software) installation in his department because it reduces the number of Loudermill hearings he conducts, disciplining workers for non-business use of City computers. Websense helps keep honest people honest.

And hard-working City employees chafe when they see co-workers wasting time "surfing". My experience is that morale among the top-performing City workers improves when they see low-performing employees unable to indulge their Internet addictions and/or disciplined for it.

Most City government workers earn a living wage. They work 40 hours a week, and many get overtime for hours beyond that. They have both the ability to buy a personal computer for home and the time to indulge themselves in the cyberworld at home.

Public employees are held to a higher ethical and work standard than workers in any other industry. When there's a disaster, private employers shut down and their employees go home. Public employees work 12 hour shifts for the duration of the emergency.

Those same higher standards apply to use of City equipment, and conduct at work day-to-day, and the Internet content filters remind all of us of our duty to meet that standard. S

o how do we balance what is acceptable use versus unacceptable? I'm struggling with that issue right now - working with our management and unions to find that equilibrium.

The Pin-up Girls are long gone from the workplace. We don't want to bring them back with the web and Internet. But we also want to treat our employees like the responsible, dedicated employees they are.

I'll report back when we figure this out!