Ride the Lightning

Employees End Run Employer Monitoring – Yes, at Law Firms Too

December 7, 2022

MSN published a column on November 24 that caught my attention. It is no surprise that employees hate being monitored by employers. But apparently there are a lot of folks figuring out end runs to defeat employer monitoring.

Employers fairly commonly monitor their workers through Microsoft Teams. If an employee is not present on Teams for long enough, their status will change to “idle”—showing them as someone who’s not currently at their computer.

If you search the internet, you’ll find a lot of workarounds which make you appear active on Teams even when you are not near a computer. There are mouse jigglers and fake PowerPoint presentations which offer workers a chance to get away from the computer without alerting their employers.

Americans are resourceful – so we came up with a new solution – a fake Teams meeting.

In a video with over 707,000 views, TikToker Nate (@astr0nate) shows his method for not going idle on Teams. In summary, Nate says to start a meeting with only yourself. From there, change your status from “in a call” to “available.”

“Now you have a green dot, and you won’t go idle,” Nate says. “Enjoy.”

He advises using the tip sparingly – both to avoid abuse and (my take) to avoid detection.

Another employee suggested easier way: “Open notepad. Click notepad. Put paperweight on spacebar. Computer thinks you’re typing while its just adding unlimited spaces on a note.”

Another person contributed this tip: “Put a mouse on top of an analog watch, it will keep ya mouse moving without downloading anything.”

One person commented, “If the company measures productivity using teams availability, you need to leave that company asap.”

Another said: “Teams needs to just take this feature off,” – It’s so 1980s to monitor people.”

And the war between employees who want to monitor and the employees who hate being monitored goes on . . . and on. . . and on.

Sharon D. Nelson, Esq., President, Sensei Enterprises, Inc.
3975 University Drive, Suite 225, Fairfax, VA 22030
Email:   Phone: 703-359-0700
Digital Forensics/Cybersecurity/Information Technology
https://senseient.com
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