Being an IT manager, I always try hard to balance the needs of the employees vs the requirements of the business. My sister sent me this email from her IT department trying to clamp down on excessive bandwidth consumption:

From: Message from the CIO
Sent: Thursday, November 30, 2006 3:52 PM
To: The Work Peepz
Subject: Desktop Performance

[…]

DO NOT Play Video Games – Games create excessive screen changes which negatively impact network bandwidth

DO NOT Play Non-Work Related Movies (and/or Video Streams) – Your workstations do not have sound cards installed but sound is still transmitted across the network. The combination of Video and Audio created by movies is just as bad (if not worse) than video games

DO NOT Install Flashing Lights on Desktop – The holidays are upon us and many websites offer festive screen savers and applets for download. The animation generated by these seemingly innocuous programs consumes inordinate amounts of network bandwidth

Limit visits to Internet Sites with Heavy Animation – Animation generates excessive screen changes which negatively impact network bandwidth

Avoid Online Shopping During Primetime Hours – Many Online stores generate excessive animation (such as pop-ups), which generates excessive screen changes and network bandwidth consumption (even if buried underneath another screen)

[…and my favorite one]

Refrain From Moving Your Mouse For No Apparent Reason – All changes on your screen generate network traffic. While this action is certainly not as severe, it does generate unnecessary traffic and underscores the fact that any screen change or mouse movement does translate directly into network bandwidth consumption.

I’d like to challenge that last statement, but I won’t waste my time arguing with a company that is so cheap that they are fooling people into not moving their mouse excessively. Are they that hard up for bandwidth, that they have to push out this email?

What about the pictures people put in their signature files, like this holiday one:

I think they should crack down on stuff like that first!