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 Fantasy football season is upon us once again and while I am not the avid fantasy footballer (word?) that some of you might be, I still play in a few leagues each season. It used to be that a majority of my fantasy football 'scouting' and 'strategizing' was done during work hours because.....I guess I didn't want to do it from home? Then, as soon as I started becoming comfortable with my weekly routine....all Yahoo! Fantasy Sports sites were blocked from my computer at work. While there are other avenues of which to play fantasy football, I really don't care that much to look for them, so I would set up my team(s) and spend like 5 minutes a week on them while at home....
I'm not really sure what the policy is at your workplace for fantasy football but just a few minutes ago I rec'd an email at work saying (edited because you don't work for the gov't):
_____-wide Fantasy Football League. Free to play. Good stuff....it's free to play and being pushed throughout the _____(insert branch of gov't).
Ok, that's not really a big deal you say??? Well, let me tell you a long, boring story.....Last year a guy I worked with set up a fantasy football league for a bunch of people who work together to play in. There was a little money (I think $40?) involved, but for the most part it was just because we were bored and at work. He set it up through a site we could view at work, but it wasn't really a site that was worth using because the updates were slow and the waiver wire was a hassle to deal with. This may all seem to be similar to where you work?
I believe I am, at 28, one of the three youngest people that work in my branch. On average I would say the age of the worker here is well over 50 years old. Every day I come into work and listen to people talk about their grandchildren, gardening, Mary Kay parties and an assortment of health issues. I work with Buck, but outside of him, there isn't really anyone I can talk to about anything 'normal'. It makes for a long day, but it's part of my job.
So, like I said, last year I was in this league with a few other guys and on Monday's three of us would get together in an office and talk about the games, rip on each other, etc. You know, how people normally act in the workplace....Well, four weeks into the NFL Regular Season we receive an email from our boss that says, "Meeting. Noon. My office."
I wasn't really sure what the meeting was going to be about. Maybe we had a new project coming up, maybe the boss wanted us to set up a meeting with a vendor...I didn't know. I have a gov't job and because of that it's pretty hard to fire me unless I'm looking at porn at work (which I don't), so I head into the meeting feeling normal. The boss closes the door behind us and says that people are complaining because we are playing fantasy football at work. This blows my mind since people come into work talking about NASCAR (yes) and all the other subjects I told you before. On top of that, they are all old and boring. Of course they aren't going to like us talking about fantasy football, they don't know what it is! One of the other guys in the meeting got a bit pissed and went off on the boss for a few minutes, but it was all supposedly 'off the record', so we were saying pretty much whatever we wanted. At the end the boss told us to not talk about fantasy football so much and all that crap. So, the little bit of fun that I was having at work.....was gone.
Fast forward to today when I rec'd the email detailed above.....that is almost exactly what I got in trouble for last year. So now I'm left wondering what the Hell? Is this some elaborate scheme where they get people to sign up and then fire them for improperly using their gov't computer? I don't know, it just seems very odd to me that just last year this is something that I got into trouble for and just today....I was told it's actually 'being pushed'.
Is mine the only workplace that is like this?
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the boss would be pissed if he knew that his employees made idiotic posts on blogs and researched fantasy.
Apparently one can do much the same in higher education before getting fired except this:
http://www.philly.com/philly/hp/news_update/8450392.html
Hmm....are you saying my posts are idiotic??
no stupid, I was referring to me.
Ever since our ban of Yahoo at work I maybe check my fantasy teams once every 2 or 3 weeks. Yet, I will still not be joining this new "allowed" league.
Now I'm stupid??? Man, that cuts deep.
I won't be joining that league either. I think its a sting operation
that link gianluca put up there is pretty sad.
Is yours the only workplace that makes rules and changes them seemingly at random - is that what you're asking? Um...no. Is yours the only workplace that kind of makes you think they're trying to set you up to get fired - is that what you're asking? Um...no again. Is yours the only workplace full of annoying people - is that what your asking? Um...yeah. Sorry.
Damnit Redhead....they aren't so much annoying as they are old and smelly.
buck and I talk from time to time about how we are surprised someone hasn't died at work yet. we did have one guy get zapped by the microwave one day and shit himself, but that's about it.
Are you serious? If stuff like that happened at my job I wouldn't spend so much damn time on the Internet. Do you two ever rig stuff to make loud noises or flash lights unexpectedly just to see what happens?
Hmmm....nope. About all we've done is to rig the 'Dirty Santa' Christmas Gift Exchange. That caused enough of an uproar
We had an emergency meeting at the insurance company I work for. All 16 of us were pulled into a room with bright lights, a two way mirror and no water and questioned about fantasy football. It was funny, their was even the good cop/bad cop thing going on with two guys from HR grilling us. We left the room scratching our heads cause we just talk about it at work, it's not actually "run" from work.
I actually could see them doing that to us at work. Very shady.
Cobra, its the very reason I can only check this illustrious site in the PM hours. My work (also guv mint related) has a ban on all personal pages, blogs, opinion sites, humor, extreme language, um ... and a whole bunch of other things. Killer filter. I hate it. But somehow the mighty Yaysports slips through.
If you all let your employers filter the stream you receive it won't be long before you are being drug into rooms with two way mirrors just because you think about fantasy football at work. if you let your bos push you around you should stand up to him. Bosses may think that holding your paycheck over your head to get you into line is a great tactic but i assure you that you don't need that money. Survival is a mental game, not a financial one. The whole crimethink mentality of it all disgusts me. Stand up to these people. the only thing the wealthy have ever feared is the poor. They may think that they are the strong and you are the weak but it isn't true. rifles are the teeth of liberty. Take this job and shove it.
I run a fantasy basketball league at work. DJM is among the participants (he's the "dude who picks all the Lakers", and yes, that's Jordan Farmer on his bench for the entire year). We also blog regularly from work, and read other blogs. Oh, and we do a weekly trivia quiz that we send around.
In other words, if you think getting fired from a government job is hard, try a non-profit job....
Bruce, it would be one thing if my boss was the one who actually paid me, but he's not. he's pushing paper just as much as i am. sometimes it feels like my boss is the wizard of oz...sitting behind some mirror somewhere until his identity is revealed much later.
so our problem is not the man but the machine, fair enough, i would rephrase by saying that the thing government fears most is the governed. If they can't give you enough work to keep you busy for eight hours it isn't your problem. I think you should keep playing fantasy at work and if they try to do something about it buy a hi lift jack and start turning cars over in the parking lot. If there was an emoticon for anarchy i would insert it here.
Wait, so he got zapped by the microwave and then shit himself or he got zapped by the microwave one time and shit himself one other time?
Less 1984, more dude shitting himself from the microwave....
So...just for my personal knowledge...where can I play fantasy football that won't be filtered at work?
Good! Thanks for this! I found this site from Bing, I've already bookmarked this site. Thanks again!