A couple fo German companies with employees with internet access have now the following policy (most first started with monitoring and warnings): their employees may use the internet for whatever private purposes with two restrictions: (a) no interference with urgent work and (b)not surpassing a time limit (1-2 hours per week, e.g.).

The rationale behind that strategy is that whatever the employees may learn during surfing (HTML, how to find information, where to find information, how to exchange information,...) will be to the company's profit; each recreational time-out may enhance the productivity (the company profits again), and so on. Of course, this policy is restricted to certain types of jobs.

It is discussed in organisational psychology that a total level of control may be perhaps not just as bad as no control at all but worse than a restricted control with a bit a freedom. It may be to the company's advantage to be less strict. And mind you, organisational psychology doesn't deal with human freedom or such issue but with productivity alone. It can be a completely economically rational decision of a company to let the employees use a small part of the company's time for private purposes.

Me? As some of you know I study human errors in thinking, reasoning and in using arguments from probability and so on. So when I monitor Mudcat threads that's strictly work, of course, I collect new specimens. And the music threads? Enough work for me in them as well. I think I should work now in another thread (Grin).

Wolfgang