Why do people expect to have a right to do non-work related stuff on the job? …

While you have the right practical approach, I do believe companies should face harsh regulations preventing this kind of monitoring. It has almost universally negative effects, from enabling union-busting to exploitation to all kinds of discrimination and favoritism.

1. But they are not paying for your training which you are bringing to the company. 2. About ranting about company, it is difficult to organize. That's why unions existed, and that's why unions were allowed to meet in work hours.

You would love the world of Severance! Drop your humanity and individuality at the door. Become a mindless drone

>Why do people expect to have a right to do non-work related stuff on the job? Like use the restroom? Personally, I'm not a slave. I am getting more and more used to the idea of having to push back on those who do exhibit such a mentality. Y'all are beginning to become a threat to the rest of us.

This comments pairs really well with the song Sixteen Tons - I cued the song[1] and re-read your comment. More substantively: I would like the employer/employee transaction to be one of buing/selling labor. To me, training AI on keystrokes nudges the deal towards selling one's "soul" next to other dystopian tropes like brain implants and work toilets that analyze excretions. You are correct that employers own the laptops and can install anything they want, which is why I never do anything other than work there - the farthest I will go is participate in employer-hosted shitpost groups/channels, which are not anonymous, and they are free to train their models on that. 1. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S1980WfKC0o

There is no clean separation between personal and work. It is also more efficient to blend them (if I expect a baseline level of non-snoopiness on my work computer, I will text my boyfriend from my work laptop... obviously beneficial for the firm). Either way when it comes to ranting about the company: many workplaces don't have a watercooler where all your team mates congregate (e.g. remote/different offices). Also what, you'll rant about confidential work projects over non-work texts?

I don’t care if a company monitors which websites I go to on a work computer, what applications I run or what I say on Slack. On the other hand I would be looking for another job if they had keyloggers or were taking screenshots even if they said anything about me shopping on Amazon or randomly browsing Hacker News or any website that wasn’t gaming or Netflix during work hours. Heck I use to travel a lot more for business and I used my work laptop for Netflix and other streaming services in the hotel. As long as I’m meeting performance standards it shouldn’t matter.

It's absolutely their right, but it's a dramatic cultural departure from the history of the company. In the late 2010s/pre-covid it was very common for employees to port their personal cell phone number to their work phone and just not have a personal cell phone . The internal culture at the company was remarkably open for their size. That all went away by the time I left in 2022, and from what I've heard it has only accelerated into an employee-hostile environment. I'm not shocked at this move.