{"id":91,"date":"2009-07-16T10:32:38","date_gmt":"2009-07-16T10:32:38","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/everydayethics\/2009\/07\/is-internet-surfing-at-work-a-right-a-privilege-or-a-big-no-no.html"},"modified":"2009-07-16T10:32:38","modified_gmt":"2009-07-16T10:32:38","slug":"is-internet-surfing-at-work-a-right-a-privilege-or-a-big-no-no","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/everydayethics\/2009\/07\/is-internet-surfing-at-work-a-right-a-privilege-or-a-big-no-no.html","title":{"rendered":"Is Internet Surfing at Work a Right, a Privilege, or a Big No-No?"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"onion_imagearticle1709.article.jpg\"<\/span>Hi all. A quick shout out here from Hillary land. I just started a short temp assignment on top of my other gigs, and while I was drumming my fingernails waiting to get set up with the internet so I could accomplish my assigned tasks, I couldn’t help wondering, “Hmmm, would it be ethical for me to check my personal email on the company dime?” (Full disclosure: I did so. *Shocker*)<\/p>\n

<\/div>\n
It’s a bigger question than just a quick peek at the ol’ gmail, obviously, as conventional wisdom has it that billions of dollars in workplace productivity is lost every year to workers blogging, internet shopping, IMing, Twittering, porn surfing and gawd knows what-all else when they’re supposed to be inserting Cog A into Wheel B. (One recent study<\/a>, however, contradicts this, suggesting personal social networking during office hours actually increases<\/span> productivity.)<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
Anyhow, the ethics underlying the issue of workplace web surfing just struck me more deeply today than usual. Perhaps it’s because my temp gig pays by the hour, for a specific time-limited task they need completed. Obviously, they know they didn’t hire a drone, they hired a human, and I as a human would like to remain connected to the outside world while I’m doing my job. Still, I acknowledge that they provide their online resources for business purposes, not kicks and giggles.<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
So, I just tried to keep it to a minimum, using the ‘net to keep me in the loop but not distract me to the point where my employers-du-jour could argue they aren’t getting what they paid for.<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
What do you think about personal use of the internet while you’re in the office?<\/span><\/span><\/div>\n

<\/span><\/div>\n
Cartoon from TheOnion.com<\/a><\/span><\/div>\n
<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Hi all. A quick shout out here from Hillary land. I just started a short temp assignment on top of my other gigs, and while I was drumming my fingernails waiting to get set up with the internet so I could accomplish my assigned tasks, I couldn’t help wondering, “Hmmm, would it be ethical for…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":197,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[35,3,9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-91","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-business-ethics","category-by-hillary-fields","category-work-ethics"],"yoast_head":"\nIs Internet Surfing at Work a Right, a Privilege, or a Big No-No? - Everyday Ethics<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/everydayethics\/2009\/07\/is-internet-surfing-at-work-a-right-a-privilege-or-a-big-no-no.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Is Internet Surfing at Work a Right, a Privilege, or a Big No-No? - Everyday Ethics\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Hi all. 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She attended St. John's College in Santa Fe, New Mexico, where she studied classics and philosophy, and then respectfully declined to spend the rest of her life in an ivory tower. Instead, she turned to the life of a writer and editor, penning three romance novels published by St. Martin's Press and contributing features to such periodicals as Cosmopolitan magazine. Her fascination with the moral dilemmas that crop up in everyday life--and the many intriguing ways people handle them--has always colored her writings. Now, that interest is leading her to take the discussion online; where, hopefully, the addition of reader feedback will bring these quotidian quandaries--and their potential solutions--vibrantly to life. When she's not plumbing the ethical mysteries of humanity, her passions include cooking (especially baking), origami, kittens, reading, watching really bad television and playing online scrabble. (And no, she doesn't cheat... much.)","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/everydayethics\/author\/hfields"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/everydayethics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/91","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/everydayethics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/everydayethics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/everydayethics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/197"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/everydayethics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=91"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/everydayethics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/91\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/everydayethics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=91"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/everydayethics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=91"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/everydayethics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=91"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}