The Weekly Round-Up: 10.06.05

"Are you going to be in there all day?"

It seems the issue of toilet breaks is back on the agenda as companies look to high-tech solutions to prevent their staff disappearing off with the newspaper under the arm for half an hour of quiet contemplation.

It used to be the case that UK call centres would stir up controversy with rules about when and for how long staff could go to the toilet but now supermarkets are reported to be looking at solutions for monitoring staff productivity.

And the GMB general workers union is not happy about it. Not happy at all.

The issue is that some companies, such as Tesco, are requiring staff to wear small devices which could, at some point, end up giving an indication of their productivity throughout the day.

And the union says that employees are being ‘dehumanised’ by being measured on the time it takes them to perform tasks, such as stocktaking and even going to the toilet.

Paul Kenny, the GMB's acting general secretary, said: "The GMB is no Luddite organisation but we will not stand idly by to see our members reduced to automatons."

Because supermarket staff are normally such gregarious and charismatic souls, presumably.

"The use of this technology needs to be redesigned to be an aide to the worker rather than making the worker its slave," he added.

He's got a point. Would you like to think of your boss standing outside the toilet door with a stop watch or sounding a klaxon horn once your comfort stop runs over five minutes? (You can barely do the Evening Standard crossword in that time, let alone an intermediate Sudoku puzzle.)

"Thompson, have you fallen in? Should we call for help, you've been six and half minutes, man! What on earth are you up to in there?"

It doesn't exactly breed mutual respect, trust or even a content workforce, especially if they are fearful of relieving themselves, aware they've already been a couple of times that day.

If you've got to go you've got to go, and if many more companies do this it's likely their staff will feel like they have to go.

And from popping to the potty policy to potty-mouthed pranks and news that the curious case of the four-letter tirade which appeared on NTL's helpline back in September 2004 was back in the headlines.

They've caught and tried the man who replaced the standard message with one which stated: "Hello, you are through to NTL customer services. We don't give a f*ck about you, basically, and we're not going to handle any of your complaints. Just f*ck off and leave us alone. Get a life."

But despite language that would make a sailor blush, a judge this week ruled that the message wasn't offensive enough to justify prosecution.

Gibbins apparently had grown tired at being kept hanging on hold while trying to get through to NTL. We all know that feeling, if not suffered with NTL then with any number of similar businesses. But revenge was not far away. It appears he then stumbled upon an opportunity to change the standard greeting message, though he claimed he only did so as a joke.

And a fairly good one at that, if the Round-Up might be so bold. Though possibly it was a little unnecessarily profane.

Gibbins is a taxi driver by trade which perhaps also goes some way to explaining his fondness for the old expletives.

Also looking at some court appearances in his near future is another Brit, Gary McKinnon, who this week found himself at the centre of an extradition request after he was accused of hacking into 53 Nasa and US military networks.

The US powers-that-be are keen to get their hands on McKinnon and are insisting he stands trial in the US.

Still, it could look a lot bleaker for McKinnon. He's unemployed and a US trip is a US trip.

It is of course the classic jobseekers dilemma; do I sit in my pants watching Trisha and This Morning before spending the afternoon in the nearest Wetherspoons pub making a £1.29 pint of something cheap and nasty last all afternoon... or do I attempt to bring down the world's largest superpower?

How many have been needlessly forced down that latter route? Still, it has probably made his meetings with the dole officer a bit more interesting.

"So, Gary, how is the job hunting going? Did you have a word with the HR people at Tesco, like you said you would?"
"Didn't get a chance really."
"Why is that Gary?"
"Been busy with other things... "
"Other things Gary?"
"Yeah."
"Like what... applying for other jobs?"
"No not really... "
"Can I ask what then, for the form... "
"Mainly attempting to bring down the US government."
"Oh. Well there isn't actually a box for that on the form... shall I put 'leisure and recreation'?"

Could that be how he got caught? Granted, it seems unlikely.

McKinnon, who goes by the name 'Solo' in the hacking world, faces a possible five-year jail term if extradited to the US and found guilty. However would he cope with whiling away the hours doing nothing much in particular?

McKinnon is suspected of stealing administrator identities, deleting 1,300 user accounts and copying a file containing usernames and encrypted passwords.

The US government claims McKinnon's dabbling cost $1m in damages and it's unlikely his giro will stretch to covering those, though with current exchange rates it could be close.

Also heading to the US is UK pork-pie eating champion Rob Burns who managed to demolish a plate of 18 pork pies in just 12 minutes to claim the title.

He will now travel to the US next month to take part in the Fourth of July hotdog eating competition after flying to Japan to train under reigning champion Takeru Kobayashi... which is all starting to sound like the plot of an 1980s kung fu movie... apart from the pork pies and hotdogs.

Picture lots of standing on lonely windswept cliff tops...

"To beat the hotdog, first you must become the hotdog Rob-san... "

The scoffing record Burns will be shooting for is Kobayashi's 53 hotdogs in 12 minutes... but the Round-Up would like to see Kobayashi step outside his wiener-comfort zone and tackle the good old British pork pie.

He'd spend the first two minutes trying to work out what it is and the second two breaking the crust and pondering over the curious jelly and grey meat inside.

Perfection in a pastry parcel.

'But what the hell is the tech angle you rambling fool?' the Round-Up hears you cry.

Well Rob Burns - not to be confused with the Scottish poet - is actually one of our own, a fully fledged techie, working as a computer consultant in Wolverhampton.

It makes you proud, doesn't it? He is also, somewhat surprisingly, a spring-heeled 70kg, standing 1.73m in his stocking feet. 'Where does he put it?' as Grandma Round-Up would say.

He must have hollow legs. Though so did Douglas Bader and the Round-Up has never heard any mention of him being famed for eating pork pies at any impressive rate.

So come on Rob, win it for the British IT industry and prove there is more to UK techies than a slightly unsettling knowledge of Red Dwarf episodes and a near religious conviction that Dr Who is the best thing sliced bread.

This type of stereotype of the modern techie came in for a lambasting at one industry event attended by silicon.com this week.

The Citrix iForum in Edinburgh was brought to a close with a 'keynote' from comic and beardy weirdy muso type Bill Bailey.

Bailey is one of a string of comedians being brought in to bring some levity to the proceedings of IT conferences, and the Citrix execs interviewed by silicon.com were fairly up front about the fact the best was kept until last for a reason.

Before taking the stage to introduce Bailey, Lewis Gee, Citrix UK MD, admitted it's a sure-fire way to keep people around until the end of the conference.

And addressing the big issues in the IT industry, silicon.com took the chance to grill the company's CEO Mark Templeton and ask whether Bailey's brand of comedy had reached him in the US yet.

"Absolutely. I love him on Buzzcocks, though Lamarr really steals the show..." he didn't say.

Funnily enough Bailey was something of an unknown to the big cheese. But he didn't disappoint.

Bailey, seizing upon the IT theme, as though to make his act sound tailored to the occasion, said he would be delivering "punchline-based solutions for all your joke needs".

Do you see what he's done there?

However, he conceded that with his goatee beard and long unkempt mullet Bailey hasn't done much to distance himself from the image of the stereotypical techie.

(For a while the Round-Up thought about getting a recording of the routine and transcribing it for your reading pleasure - let somebody else take the mirth strain this Friday - but with much of Bailey's show apparently consisting of musical numbers it wouldn't really have worked.)

Another nice moment relating to his hosts was with the very large model of the company's Access product logo on the side of the stage which partially obscured the entrance and exit to and from the stage.

"I had quite a job getting past that great big sign which says 'Access'," said Bailey.

"Is that irony? I think it might be," he added. The US contingent will have to take his word for it.

And finally, a Round-Up reader this week forwarded a marketing email from Ryanair offering a special deal on hotels which seemed too bad to be true.

The email offered 'Three star hotels at four star prices'.

Surely some mistake. There are a couple of words the wrong way around there. Either that or it is a terrible offer. Perhaps the hotel bars offer 'one for the price of two' drinks promotions.

Until next week, be good and read some news: