Sneaky Tracks... Last week's Dispatch Will IT Go the Way of Railroads? (May 13) prompted a flurry of e-mails -- best summarized by Steve Huston, Web Services Manager at Grubb & Ellis Company. "Railroads may appear to be a commodity, but as companies compete, using the railroad as a conduit for transporting supplies and products, the company that can use the railroads most efficiently walks away with the profit. Likewise, the company that can better leverage its technology will also walk away with the greater profits."

And Matt Graves at Carter Industrial Park in Fort Worth, TX, echoed others who wrote about the pervasive reach of IT. "Technology in our small developer's office has become 'sneaky critical.' It has crept into the category of essential from a novel luxury over just a few short years." Yep, that is sure true.

In fact, technology is so pervasive that slackers now use technology to work less. At least that's the message in the Wall Street Journal article Shirk Ethic: How to Fake a Hard Day at the Office (May 15, 2003). For example, if you want to send a message at 10 p.m. so that it looks like you're working late, automatically delay sending it until that time. (Using Outlook, click Options above the message, check the Do Not Deliver Before box, and set the delivery date and time.)

Of course, there's a downside to all of this as the WSJ points out. A recent ethics survey found that almost 60% of human-resources professionals have personally observed employees lying about the number of hours worked. Oops. Call it the rebellion against 24/7 service levels. Are you a rebel?

--Peter Pike