Facing Off with Facebook

If you can’t beat ‘em, join ‘em.

That was the decision I made not long ago when our IT guy came to give me a report on how much bandwidth is going to Facebook. Texas poker games on company time? Great.

It’s not like we can take away the Internet, either. We need that for working and getting things done… that is, when the workers are getting more done than who has friended who or which SuperWall has the best scribble.

So I opened my own Facebook page. I sat down and made sure it looked great, company logo and all, and then I started looking for people in the office. Sure enough, I found a few. Well, it wasn’t long before we were all playing Vampire. I let everyone have a great time with it for three days, and then I called a meeting out of the blue.

I told everyone that it had been a lot of fun and thanked them, then I said that if they wanted to keep it up, I’d grant them a half hour break a day just to play. If they abused it, we’d have to shut the Internet down.

Guess what? It worked. Everyone gets a break now, people have their fun, and then they go back to work with a fresh mind. More work is being done and the mood has lightened up around the place. Can’t complain about that!