She had interviewed and met both remotely and in person, this guy was merely an HR drone confirming her documentation. I was a little bent when she told me he had asked her to remove her blur filter “to have a look at her working environment, make sure it’s not cluttered” (something along those lines). No one else at this company requested such. Was he way out of line?
I should note, this is my PC in our living room and not where she will be working from. And this guy wants a look around our home?! Told my wife to bring this up once she’s settled in, ask HR if this is policy. She started today!
She thinks it’s a racism thing. I’m not so sure, but I don’t have any other explanation.
Is this the US? Because iirc there’s some workplace injury stuff in some EU countries, where the company might be liable and so they might need to advise you to do certain things to prevent injury if you work remotely.
Not trying to take the wind out of your sails, just making ppl aware.
Same thing in Canada. When we transitioned to fully remote we had to ensure that our workspace is safe.
It’s actually a really nice thing to know that (a) your country makes sure you get into less accidents and (b) that your company usually pays for any workplace accidents, even if it’s remote.
I work remotely at a company in the EU where they actually host seminars about posture and stuff because it’s better for them than dealing with workplace injury from bad posture.
I’ve had similar language in employment agreements in the US and in Japan, framed around safety and insurance compliance. I never had to send an actual picture, but I’m pretty sure they said they reserved the right to ask for one.
… except they ask you for a photo in.the other direction, showing your chair and desk and keyboard. And not by surprise, just “send us a picture sometime to file for the audit”.
Idk, every company is different and so is every country.
But let me also make clear, I’m not arguing this isn’t odd. Just some things to rule out before going mayhem.
Ok, I have some.corporate insight here. One reason some of our clients have started to do this is because they have had instances where Indian talent companies have been interviewing with highly qualified candidates impersonating someone else. It’s a cool strategy because not everyone interviews well, even if they know their stuff. Unfortunately the bait and switch involves some “workers” that can barely work a mouse, much less do the job they were hired to do. So, because of this short sighted greed, now every candidate has to be visually verified, sometimes at random.
Some assholes ruined it for eveyone.
The post was about being asked to disable background blurring specifically.
Oops. Thanks for the heads up. I completely misread. That’s what I get for multi-tasking.
She had already met them in person and will be working in the office 3 days a week. I understand the concern, but this is not that.
I’ve put a shoji screen bring my workspace for these kind of situations. One client was really paranoid like that.
Aha! Japan detected!
A large percentage of people in Human Resources are absolute idiots. They often use their own perspective as what the company should be doing.
Ask them politely where that rule is because you want to understand. If they cannot provide it, immediately share all the conversation with your manager.
It may lead to nothing. Or discovery that this HR guy seems to always ask women to unblur their cameras and now they got a sexism case on their hands.
Long before Covid, the company I worked for started trialing work from home for some call center agents. They had a whole list of requirements for an acceptable work from home space: dedicated work area with a desk, locking file drawer (why??? I don’t know), first aid kit, fire extinguisher, etc. Someone would actually go out to physically inspect the space to make sure every box was checked.
My guess is someone from legal wrote up the requirements from a workplace safety standpoint. They probably could have just had the employee sign a statement agreeing that they met all of the requirements, but someone in the middle got overzealous about their role. During Covid, everyone got sent home permanently without any regard to any of those rules, so clearly they weren’t that important in the first place.
We need to provide a photo of our home work area as part of our application for work from home. It’s needed as part of the employer’s duty of care - managers are supposed to examine the photo and determine its a safe work area
Really all that happens is a photo is attached to the application and never looked at
I doubt American employers have any duty of care towards work from home employees.
I bet the unblurring was about being able to see the documents. AI blur is pretty aggressive at blurring anything that isn’t a face
There was just a news article about US corporations hiring North Koreans for remote work unintentionally, and the north Koreans then did a sabotage and stole secrets… Strikes me as HR is freaking out across the board and they were looking to confirm you aren’t actually based in a foreign country. It is very easy to hide where you are(phone numbers can be forwarded, addresses can be false). If it’s a 1 time thing, not racism, if they consistently single her out, is there anyone else of her race being singled out? Did HR maybe get a derogatory report from someone that doesn’t like her and they wanted to see if she was sober? That’s happened to me.
That is the reason why identification documents are needed. How can they hire people without knowing who they are?
NK stole the identity of other Americans. They dotted i’s and crossed t’s to get into knowb4 via social engineering. Really fucked up.
North koreans proving that a north korean can do the job of the average american tech worker lol
KnowBe4 has an article about their experience.
They also covered at least one other instance in the US.
Seems like something sufficient IT security could prevent easily enough.
“Sorry, this is a shared office and my partner is working under NDA”
No such thing as an NDA that allows a spouse to work in the same room, and allows the spouse to actually be on video while blurred, but draws the line at not being able to unblur the video.
There is and unfortunately I cannot show you the NDA as the NDA won’t allow me to show you the NDA. The NDA does allow me talk about the conditions in general like this though.
It is it’s the NDA you made your partner sign.
Hmm, so, policy in our office is a clean desk. Before you jump to conclusions, it’s because our secured area and office occasionally has people come through that should absolutely not see what information we have on our desks. This requirement is a compliance issue for our continued contracts and certifications.
Our work from home policy hasn’t addressed this issue, but it sounds like it’s a clear gap. Your neighbour coming around for a cup of tea absolutely should not be able to see any work related information.
My assumption is that someone has considered this kind of aspect and had a check to confirm that they’ve done diligence by asking you to reveal your working space. A space the companies sensitive information would be visible. Actually you too should maybe not be looking at your wife’s screen nor materials on her work desk. Depending on the situation.
Either way, policy comes first so perhaps her employment agreement or employee handbook would reveal more.
How can one not have a clean desk when working remotely? Do people just print random documents for no good reason when you can just have it on the screen?
I don’t even think my work would even let me plug in a printer to my MacBook, they disabled all the USB drivers except mouse and keyboard to prevent usage of flash drives and other unauthorized peripherals.
They made damn sure the only thing displaying sensitive information is the computer screen, which automatically locks after 5 minutes and cannot be configured by the user. I’d really have to willingly show company data for this to be a problem.
That really shouldn’t matter at all for remote workers as everything should be self contained in the company provided computer, with encryption enabled, strong password policy, 2FA, the whole thing.
Bravo! A well stated and sane explanation. She will be working in the financial sector, so that explains much. Doesn’t quite fit her situation, but yeah, I get it.
We have a clean desk policy at my workplace too, we also don’t take classified documents home
If they want to see my green screen colored walls, it’s up to them. I think the background looks better when it’s dark abstract art, less distracting than bright green.
Huge, HUGE red flag. Even without it being I9 stuff.
I have worked remotely for 8+ years at this point. Sometimes I don’t even turn my camera on for meetings. It depends on a lot of factors. If my employer cared about any of that, they probably wouldn’t be a good employer for remote work.
15+ years working remote. I only turn my camera on when there are new vendors/clients on the call and it is my turn to introduce myself.
…cluttered? the fuck?
has this fucker seen a cubicle? why did she allow it?
I work in tech and needed to do this as part of onboarding after receiving an offer. Asking during the interview is a little weird but if they’ve had problems where their desired candidate didn’t have the necessary documents then it makes sense. I wouldn’t assume they’re wanting to see your house, they’re likely just wanting to make sure you won’t need H1B sponsorship to get the necessary documents to complete the I-9.
Post pandemic, this kind of ID “verification” is SUPER bogus, but it’s quite common unfortunately, and, tbh, I can’t think of a better way to handle it that isn’t either in person or via snail mail.
Not great for sure, but most likely not racist, or at least not purposefully so (not that that matters).
Your title suggests that you’re asking whether it seems like a violation to you.
Only you can answer this question.
I love tom scott.
me too! international treasure. and yes, that’s where i learned about grice’s maxims.
It genuinely helped me with communication I think. (I’m autistic)
I’m not sure what was going on, but a clear background can tell you a lot about a person. I’ve had a few interviewees that applied for US work with no sponsorship turn out to be not already in the US. Pretty sure they were trying to fake it long enough to get us to agree to sponsorship, or overlook the fact they weren’t in the US. The interviewees were both caught because of details in the background during the interview process. Weather and time of day outside the windows not matching where they claimed to live was one, the other was architecture that would be very atypical in a US home.
I guess they’ll have to get a shipping container office
Based on the condensation on that wall back there, I’m guessing he’s in the Port of Los Angeles right now sir.
Sorry I’m just cracking up at the idea of sensitive state secret-involving location-based jobs using people’s work surroundings as the criterion for confirming they’re not a foreign actor.
Like if that’s the level of security we’re putting on our state secrete we are fucked.
People are downvoting you, but you’re correct. I don’t work a particularly sensitive or interesting tech job, but we’ve had 2 candidates in the last year who were faking who/where they were. One had other people in the room feeding them answers. I’d expect weirdness in remote interviews as companies figure out how to navigate this.
Excuse me sir. I can’t help but notice the Eiffel Tower out your window. Are you sure you’re calling from the US?
Reporting from Las Vegas, babyyy
*spins a roulette *
