For office drones at big companies such as AT&T, United Health Group and Cigna, booting up their computers at the start of the day and waiting for them to shut down takes some decent time. Like 20 minutes at the start and end of the day. And they sure don't like the fact that their weasely employers have decided to not pay them for that time. So, of course, they're suing.

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I usually tend to ignore press releases from anti-virus companies - do you guys really care that another virus has been released into the wild? But the subject of the latest findings from Messagelabs caught my eye: "In the Workplace, Online Porn Surfing Prevails".

Apparently 85% of inappropriate content is being blocked by businesses, which means 15% of perverts out there are getting their daily fix of human nudeness at work. And according to the report, most of it happens at lunchtime:

Analysis of MessageLabs URL Filtering service shows an increasing number of businesses are blocking employee access to inappropriate web sites, such as pornography, during the working day. Most policy rules are set by organisations to block this content between 7 a.m. and 5 p.m. Further analysis reveals that 28.9 per cent of blocks occur between 11 a.m. and 1 p.m., which is usually lunchtime for most employees.

But in any case, looking up porn at work is a surprisingly growing trend. What about you guys - do you (or have you) used the work computer to browse for the pornography? Why? Let us know in comments...

[Messagelabs - Pic from SaintGeorgesDay]

Having easy access to your office 24 hours a day can be both a blessing and a curse. On the one hand, you will never miss a beat. On the other, it may seem like you are always stuck at work. With that in mind, check out the T6 concept workaholicmobile designer Alexander Zhukovsky has put together. It comes complete with all of the technology and space you and your co-workers need to get the job done--even when you are stuck in traffic. In other words, it is a boardroom on wheels.

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David Walsh, a network engineer who worked at Apple from 1995 to 2007, is currently suing them for making him work a little too hard. Specifically, he says they made him work more than 40 hours a week without overtime (because he was a "senior" engineer, a pseudo-management position he says was created to skirt paying overtime) and required him to be on call for seven days straight every six weeks. In other words, a pretty standard schedule in the Valley. Besides, if anything, MobileMe's launch made it clear Apple's network engineers should be working more, not less. I keeeeeed. Kind of. [Macworld via Valleywag]

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It's no secret that desk-based jobs (such as blogging) provide a lifestyle for people that quickly turns them into quivering, rotund masses of gravy-scented putty, which is why it's no surprise that this whole "exercising while you work" thing piques people's interest. But really, do you want to jog on a treadmill all day while you work, or bounce up and down on a yoga ball?

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Our good old friend Angus Kidman is reporting over at APC that a new study has shown that companies who block social networking sites like Facebook at work are less likely to hang onto their staff than companies that support the online timewaster.

The study was carried out by the law firm Deacons, and found that of the 691 workers questioned, 16% said that having access to social networking sites would be a major influence in choosing a job. When you drop the age bracket to people under 24, that percentage rises to almost 25%.

Other nuggets included the 76% of people who believed that there were benefits to companies who allowed social networking, and the 68% who thought that having access to social networks showed they were trusted. Of course, how the figures reached so high when only 62% of the surveyed workers actually had internet access at work doesn't quite add up.

So what do you think? Does being able to poke friends on Facebook during your working day play a part in your job decision making? Is Facebook blocked at your work? And do you see these sites as timewasters that are only going to hurt productivity? Post your thoughts in the comments!

[APC]

So you want to sleep at work. I can't say that's the brightest idea in the world, but who am I to judge? Let me help you out: if you want to sleep at your desk and also look really, really creepy while awake, all you need to do is buy some of these eye stickers. Slap 'em on your closed eyelids, learn to sleep sitting up, and you'll be sure to fool everyone who walks by your desk. There is absolutely no way for this plan to fail… trust me. [Bits and Pieces via Neatorama]

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However unbearable your work environment is, it could be worse. For instance, this network/systems administrator in a district courthouse somewhere in Louisiana hates his boss so much that he's apparently stolen her iPod touch right out from under her and now he's selling it on eBay.

"You might think I didn't really take her iPod but it 'came up missing' and nobody in the office knows where it is. She should lock her office more often... I'm just seeking some comfort to what I consider a horrible work environment. Maybe a small vacation to evacuate this heck hole for a week. Hot Springs Arkansas or something."

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It's an unfortunate paradox of life that the wonderful internets is often accessed via the machine on which you should be using for work. You're sitting at the desk, incessantly refreshing the page during the final minutes of that eBay auction. Or waiting for the second hand to tick over to 9:00am so you can book those gig tickets. Or better yet, gaping at all the cool new shiny things on Giz, when you hear footsteps coming and a bark of "What are you working on?"

This is where the Panic Button steps in. Instead of scrambling around madly trying to a) maximise the window that contains actual work-related content and b) minimise all the windows that contain incriminating content, simply: a) surreptitiously press that big red button, then b) watch smugly as a spreadsheet pops up onto the screen. Better yet, the Panic Button can be personalised to conjour up an actual document from your current work project. Brilliant! [Gadget Central]