You could be a little inventive though... how about installing a videoconference camera in your bathroom, and then you could still have a dump on company time, but actually in the middle of a meeting.

"...so as I was saying, the projections for next year are... what was that?! I heard a splash. Did anyone else hear a splash?"

You mock, but the apartment I lived in in Bangkok had a telephone right next to loo-roll holder in the toilet. It was quite handy if the phone rang while you were ensconced on the bog for a while.

http://www.thefreedictionary.com/centric

I had a client, still have a client, where one of the managers thought it was important to be in constant communication with people working on important projects. We convert databases for them, one this year, one next year, one each year for the rest of our lives. Years ago he announced that for project being onsite was crucial (this after very many conversions done remotely) so we flew down there and checked into an hotel intending to go to the factory the next day. He called that evening to say we should start work immediately so we dialled up to Toronto, connected to our computer which was on their LAN and converted the database. Three days later it was done and we flew home having had two phone lines open at hotel long distance rates the whole time and without ever having gone into the factory.

I suppose he got his knuckles rapped over the bill because for the next conversion, a much bigger one, he said he'd check by phone how we were doing. This meant that he phoned me and stayed on the phone for the duration of the job, a little over a week. At various times in the course of the work he asked about the noises in the background and I explained "Paul, I'm having a shit", "Paul, we're ****ing", "Paul, I'm in the pub and there's a band".
At first this was embarassing but now I'm used to it, if I'm working remotely for a micro-manager I microreport.

It's more a question of looking at the web filter logs, which people are more apt to do in an office environment imx. At home, users often use their own computers so you can't enforce the use of your web filter on them

But bosses definitely do either look at the logs or ask IT people to keep an eye on them, that is a fact, attested to by the huge number of companies that make web filtering software.

There are all kinds of ways of monitoring productivity on computers.

Or you work at a company that is making a decent profit, because all of that went out the window in 2008, imx. Also if you can't find the people, makes it harder to do that.

Only an incompetent dick would routinely looks at logs from IT to see what their staff are doing. If I worked for somebody like that I would find another job.

Besides, filtering and monitoring are not the same things. Everything I do goes through a proxy and there is filtering on websites (as you would expect in any company now-a-days), however I've never worked for anyone who would ever actually look at them.

I worked at a organization, Ontario Hydro, where an employee was directed to compile a list of websites staff ought not to look at. He spent all day every day checking out porn sites, hate sites, promotional sites for wood heating and gas lighting.

When browsing, I occasionally get a screen with the corporate logo on telling me to stop looking at "inappropriate for business" content. When I first saw this I did worry if it was generating an alert on some screen desk somewhere. And maybe it is - but I've never heard anything from it and nor do I expect too. Mainly because anyone monitoring that stuff is just going to spend the entire day being spammed by the sheer volume of it.

My experience shows it went out of the window in 2008 but not for too long.

I work with many companies ranging from top flight internationals to small & medium sized. By investing in their technology, their culture and processes, and innovation around it, we see the way they begin to thrive. The ROI is mostly very positive. Employee satisfaction improves, they become a place people want to work so retaining or gaining employees becomes easier.

Like i said, you must work for one of the less progressive, micro managed, companies, or in the Public Sector.

Been working from home for 3 years now

Is there a difference between working from home with regular hours, an agency or whatever that sends you work, and working from home from what you yourself can set up each week or month?

Or - forgive me for being thick but is the difference: contracts and being tied to a company. Wouldn't it be just as good in some cases to go freelance? Is it all about sector and money and stuff ? Or taxes?

I'm astonished by that comment, really. It's routine imx to look through logs to see what employees have been up to, in fact legally you could be in pretty hot water if you don't, because you have an obligation to ensure they are not up to no good while working on behalf of the company, because of liability concerns.

I've certainly caught employees doing things they shouldn't be doing by tracking what they're doing on their computers and in some cases it was quite serious.

I know companies and govt agencies that have fantastically tight web filtering policies, basically user X has to make a formal request to the IT dept to view website X. That I think is stupid but looking at logs to see what people are up to is not.

If only because of bandwidth management you have to do it.

I do do a fair amount of work in the public sector, and often I'm dealing with a call centre of zombies who are basically filling in time before the grave.

But I've certainly dealt with plenty of private companies that are not "progressive" really, but not because they don't want to be, more because of lack of money.