What do you think of this story?
Remote Worker Caught Using ”Mouse Jiggler” by Boss, Sparks TikTok Debate (distractify.com)
Since the pandemic, remote working and hybrid working models are the new norm. But with that, a lot of employers need to feel like they have some kind of hold on their employees. Do you agree that the use of a Mouse Jiggler should be a disciplinary offence?
I think the real problem here is with too many organisations creating remote working cultures that simply mirror their traditional on-site ones. IMO, employees shouldn’t use jigglers, because it’s essentially false representation, but employers shouldn’t make them feel like they have to.
Why does an employee need to be constantly at their screen and available on the team chat when they’re working longer hours and may have other things to attend to within their home? Is their performance being measured by effort or output? Building an effective remote environment requires rethinking what it means to be productive.
Agree! I’ve long been an advocate of task based/productivity based outcome instead of time based. Its been proven that if you give an employee 8hrs to do x tasks, they’ll inflate the time to do those tasks. If you tell them they can go home after (for example) 4 hours once those same tasks are completed, they’ll often get completed.
I mean, if you’ve not been seen online/active for 3hours… it is a problem though, right?
Why does remote working mean you’re working longer hours though?
If that’s occurring on a regular basis, that’s possibly indicative of a problem. But using online status as a proxy for my actual level of activity is problematic. The more important questions to ask are:
What if I find team chat distracting on my computer, so I disable it and rely on notifications from my mobile app to let me know when I’m needed?
Research has shown that employees generally do longer hours after transitioning to remote working.
No me rude boy… (at least not at my 9-5). 5:30 I’m done, shut down, logged off and everything! LOL. My lines are solidly in place LOL
Well, you’re one of the strong minority! 
I found the original Reddit thread: My manager caught me with a mouse jiggler and put me on a PIP. It’s from a subreddit called “overemployed”, that seems to be a support group for people who are trying to secretly work multiple jobs. The mouse jiggler person ended with “now I have to find another J4”, meaning that it was their fourth parallel job. I don’t know what these jobs are, or how feasible it is that one person could do four at a time, but it sounds like a poor man’s version of this scam: US employee 'outsourced job to China' - BBC News, which relied on the guy’s salary being 5 times what he paid the Chinese consulting firm.