Feel like you're getting spy on?

So many feel like their companies are spying on them, yet they fail to see what their employers are doing. It seems that 80 to 85 percent of employees use their work computers to perform personal tasks with them. From Presidents and CEO's to entry level personnel all seem to get stricken by boredom at some point during the work day, leaving them no choice, but to turn to their PC and perform tasks ranging from online shopping, looking for another job, to viewing pornographic materials.

Problems arise when personal activity on the work computer affects employee productivity. Websense, a popular Internet blocking tool, estimates that US companies loose more than $178 billion annually in productivity.

Another problem is that Web sites and pop-up ads may have spyware that can make their way through a company's network, leading to espionage and network damage. Spam, or unsolicited e-mails, can carry computer viruses or worms that also paralyze networks.

The bottom line is that if you get bore, you should find a better way to entertain yourself than to turn to the internet at your employers expense. Think about how to better perform your daily tasks, or get up and walk around to clear your mind. It is perfectly fine to check a stock quote or a sport score, but when you are performing these tasks for a period longer than that of which you are devoting to your work, you must admit that there is a problem. Although this kind of abuse of computer privileges at work, including criminal activity, is not the norm, this is the cause for regulating software that ruin the situation for everyone else.