[scott_karana]

You're ignoring their effectiveness.

Maybe they work better without coworker interruptions and in a familiar space, which offsets any negatives of caregiving.

And even still, who cares?! Do you actually have a good handle on how many of your employees just read HN or Reddit for half a day? Unaccounted for smoke breaks? Having to make personal calls while on the clock?

Humans aren't automatons.

[Nadya]

>And even still, who cares?! Do you actually have a good handle on how many of your employees just read HN or Reddit for half a day? Unaccounted for smoke breaks? Having to make personal calls while on the clock?

Don't need a handle on it if you block access to them.

But my work found that blocking Reddit/Facebook actually made less work get done: people couldn't spend 5-10 minutes to unwind and then plug back in and work. That policy lasted a single week.