Precisely. I'm an op analyst in a large multi-site contact center, and I promise you, our Workforce department would really rather not know the details. We do not record the reasons, only the times, and only because it comes down to production. Our agents are given an hour lunch and two 15min breaks every day, more if working long extra hours. Along with that comes an allotment of not ready time, and realistic expectations on handle times that's based on the average across the entire center and the type of call they are handling. We don't treat our agents like cattle, but we do requite that they stick to the requirements of the job, and the fact is, in the call center business that means "cheeks in seats". The reason "bathroom" comes up in call centers is because the bulk of employees who end up in short term positions like this are only there for a paycheck, as long as it lasts. The most effort they put into the job revolves around avoiding doing the one thing they are hired to do, handle calls and process other customer interactions like emails and faxes. When half of your employee base is trying to avoid doing work, you have to have a way to do so fairly and accurately. In the post here, the company is going about it the wrong way, one that can be invasive. Our center tracks Compliance for agents, where we take the full 540min that exists in an agents shift from beginning to end, including Lunches and Breaks, and compare it to their schedule, including any descretionary segments that may be scheduled during the day such as training, mentoring, meetings and absences. We then can determine Compliant Minutes (on the phone when scheduled to be on the phone, and off the phone when scheduled to be off the phone) and Noncompliant Minutes (off the phone when scheduled to be off, and on the phone when scheduled to be on). The percentage of Compliant Minutes during the day becomes the agents score for that day, and it's tracked continuously so that every week, negative trends can be identified and addressed. When we rolled out this system, agents had averaged 92% over the prior year, and the goal was only set at 90%. Think about that, over a single day, that's 54 minutes where an agent can be out of compliance, and still make the goal. Even considering being late to breaks or lunches, and taking bathroom breaks when needed, it gets to the point that you have to really screw up to miss the goal when it's averaged out over a week, especially over a month. But this makes sure that those agents who can't meet the goal are identified and the issues are addressed. And that's exactly why the 'bathroom' code in the original post came up for, they're just doing it a crappy way. Blaming the corporation for wanting to manage time isn't the answer, finding a job that you can do without feeling like you're cattle is the answer. If you don't like the job, you're never going to like the rules.

Actually, there's another option for tuners. I'm using Mythbuntu with a WinTV-DCR-2650 and Verizon FiOS. When I first set things up, there were several local channels that had copy protection turned on *incorrectly* according to federal regulations, however some research showed that the manufacturer of the HD Homerun devices as well as Hauppauge had firmware updates out for their Cablecard devices that allowed incorrect copy protection flags to be ignored. I highly recommend this setup, the quality is great, I don't have any trouble with recording, and get all the channels I've signed up for (basic extended?).