Business Control

[Jorge Alanis]

Hello everyone,

I know most of you work on your own machines. Unfortunately I'm just starting and can't get off my current day job until I get some revenues from the laser business. Right now, I have an employee in charge but I was really concerned that the laser doesn't offer a counter or something to know the amount of work done. My concern is that my employee can do some laser jobs without "reporting" them. Especially jobs where the client takes the material to the shop (ipods, cellphones, etc). Have someone has a sort of way of controlling this? I know a POS and a "if you don't receive your ticket, the job will be free" won't make it work always...


Jorge Alanis

[Darren Null]

Webcam?

If there is a 'hours counter' on mine, I haven't found it. Your mileage may vary. What model do you have?

[Rodne Gold]

Do you have some reason to suspect your employee of theft?

[Dee Gallo]

Jorge, I just bought an hour meter which keeps track of the time you are running your laser. I have not hooked it up yet, but it's a simple small device you put in line between the on/off switch and the power. I was told you can get minute meters too, but I'm more concerned with knowing when to do maintenance and keeping track of hours I've run up. This one goes up to 9999 hours, but you can get bigger ones. If I burn that many hours on my laser, I'll be surprised! It cost me $40 with shipping and tax.

cheers, dee

[Joe Pelonio]

Jorge, I just bought an hour meter which keeps track of the time you are running your laser. I have not hooked it up yet, but it's a simple small device you put in line between the on/off switch and the power. I was told you can get minute meters too, but I'm more concerned with knowing when to do maintenance and keeping track of hours I've run up. This one goes up to 9999 hours, but you can get bigger ones. If I burn that many hours on my laser, I'll be surprised! It cost me $40 with shipping and tax.

cheers, dee

Sounds like that only keeps track of the time the laser power is on, not the actual fire time. I'm not sure that would be enough, if like here, the power is on most of the day whether something is running or not.

Jorge, You have good reason to be cautious. I had an employee who started her own business on the side using my equipment after hours.

The police and I decided not to press charges since it was impossible to determine the actual amount of the theft, so the D.A. would have been unable to get a conviction. It is unlawful for them to use your equipment
without permission and if that equipment has a "life" as in laser tube, is
could exceed the limit for petty theft and move up to grand theft.

At the very least, give two copies of the local/state laws to the employee,
along with a statement that you will prosecute if violated, and have them sign that they read and understand it. You might be best off installing a webcam on the machine that you can monitor from elsewhere or review later.

I'm still sort of bitter about this after 3 years if you can't tell.

[Darren Null]

Incidentally, if you look around the spy shops online, you can get webcams built into all sorts of innocuous things, like clocks etc; so the lack of trust won't be obvious.

[Mike Null]

My machine software lists every job and the time it took to run. All are numbered and I can go back to day one. It also lists the job by file name. In the case of an employee using the machine without permission they probably wouldn't use a job name in which case it would show as "graphic".

[Jorge Alanis]

Webcam?

If there is a 'hours counter' on mine, I haven't found it. Your mileage may vary. What model do you have?

I have a ULS 4.6, its funny because it has a minute counter and a job estimator on the print driver, but it only is informative in the moment of the job, it doesnt logs it. Maybe a "wish list" item for the folks at ULS...

I'll consider the concealed webcam... I also don't want my employees to be too pressured as I can watch every action they make.

[Jorge Alanis]

Do you have some reason to suspect your employee of theft?

Sadly, I had several cases before in my other business (a mini-mini-office depot), where they would report less color copies and even when the machines had counters, they argued that there were "printing errors" and they had to do them again or such. I wish people here in Mexico would be more respectful and honest. Here is like the old west. You have to take out the gun first (figuratively).

[Jorge Alanis]

My machine software lists every job and the time it took to run. All are numbered and I can go back to day one. It also lists the job by file name. In the case of an employee using the machine without permission they probably wouldn't use a job name in which case it would show as "graphic".

What machine do you have ? The ULS has a job history, but its useless as you can delete them selectively.

[Jorge Alanis]

Jorge, I just bought an hour meter which keeps track of the time you are running your laser. I have not hooked it up yet, but it's a simple small device you put in line between the on/off switch and the power. I was told you can get minute meters too, but I'm more concerned with knowing when to do maintenance and keeping track of hours I've run up. This one goes up to 9999 hours, but you can get bigger ones. If I burn that many hours on my laser, I'll be surprised! It cost me $40 with shipping and tax.

cheers, dee

Thanks a lot, it could be an option, not very exact, but an option anyway.

[Jorge Alanis]

Sounds like that only keeps track of the time the laser power is on, not the actual fire time. I'm not sure that would be enough, if like here, the power is on most of the day whether something is running or not.

Jorge, You have good reason to be cautious. I had an employee who started her own business on the side using my equipment after hours.

The police and I decided not to press charges since it was impossible to determine the actual amount of the theft, so the D.A. would have been unable to get a conviction. It is unlawful for them to use your equipment
without permission and if that equipment has a "life" as in laser tube, is
could exceed the limit for petty theft and move up to grand theft.

At the very least, give two copies of the local/state laws to the employee,
along with a statement that you will prosecute if violated, and have them sign that they read and understand it. You might be best off installing a webcam on the machine that you can monitor from elsewhere or review later.

I'm still sort of bitter about this after 3 years if you can't tell.

Joe I'm very sorry to hear that, I've been through this and its really awful when someone that has your trust is doing stuff like this. This is why I'm trying to devise methods to reduce all kinds of temptation over this...I only have 3 days with my machine, but I think its really important to have everything under control. I'm going to do some research on the "cyber-cafe" software that controls printing. As the ULS (and I think most machines) are shown as printers, maybe these programs can function in some way. I'll keep you informed.

[Scott Shepherd]

I'm against the spy camera or webcam. That's a horrible way to start a relationship with an employee. You need to build a trust relationship with that person and part of that is you being crystal clear on your expectations. If you're clear, and treat them well, you should be in decent shape. I'd also tell them they can use the laser for personal things, but only with permission and explain that if you caught them using it for personal gain without your permission, it would certainly be cause for termination.

If I got a new job some place and found out they had a spy cam on me all the time, I'd quit.

[Craig Hogarth]

There's a number of employee spy software that tracks everything done on a computer, including keystrokes and print jobs. If you google for them, you should find several that offer free trials.

[Eric Fuller]

Keystroke logger would do the trick. Simple and effective.