We pay higher prices for everything because of people like this.

HR asked me to install employee monitoring software across every company laptop last month.

They wanted screenshots every five minutes, browser history, application usage, idle time, and an automated “productivity score” for every employee.

I told them this seemed invasive.

They told me the executive team had already approved it.

So I installed exactly what they requested.

Three weeks later, the VP of HR asked me to prepare a report showing the 20 least productive employees in the company.

I exported the data.

Seven of the bottom ten worked in HR.

One HR business partner had spent 19 hours on Zillow during business hours.

Another averaged 46 minutes of keyboard activity per day.

Someone had watched four complete seasons of Love Is Blind.

The VP asked whether I could exclude HR because their work was “less quantifiable.”

I said the software didn't have a setting for that.

She asked if I could manually adjust the scores.

I reminded her that manipulating employee surveillance data might create a compliance issue.

She went very quiet.

At 3:17 PM, HR announced that after “careful consideration,” the monitoring software did not align with our culture of trust.

They asked me to uninstall it immediately.

I completed the removal ticket in 11 minutes.

My productivity score for the day was 14%.

https://twitter.com/pettyITguy/status/2089819665254228187