How "modernized" is your office?

Oh boy here comes a rant.

To be fair I live in a very small inaka city, but I find that the bizarre security and clunky systems really get in the way of getting things done, and it's awful.

To access the internet I log in to a temporary desktop, from which I log in to a second temporary desktop, from which I can finally open... internet explorer. Which has very heavy security on it, so a lot of websites that I would find very useful for work are completely blocked.

I can copy and paste things INTO the temporary desktops, but copying OUT of it either plain doesn't work, or takes five minutes of whirring and waiting before taking effect.

We now have separate mail systems for internal and external things. Internal mail for the city is done on the primary desktop, using a messaging/mail system that works ok. The implementation of this was initial very irritating for some members of my section who aren't technically 公務員, like the head of the International Association, as she wasn't given an account and had to SMACKDOWN for like a month to get one, which she has to access on a separate work laptop, not her desktop. For some reason.

As for external mail, my personal city email address ceased to exist a few months ago, and I can only use the group mail, accessible from the first temp desktop. Because file sharing is blocked on the computers (no google drive, etc.) we have to use a system called filezen to upload and download things between these temp desktops. For which I need kachou's permission. So anytime I get an email with an attachment I need, or have to send an email attachment outside the city mail system, I gotta go bother the higher-ups. And if kachou is away then it has to wait.

Hmmm what else. USB usage here has weird rules that I don't fully understand, there are special USBs that we can use that require passwords and have to be used only by a specific shared computer in the office. So transferring a file from my desktop to like, a personal laptop involves Find USB --> Request password --> Ask soup to move files to shared folder (which I don't have access to) --> take USB to shared computer --> Enter passwords, transfer files --> Download a driver onto my own laptop so that I can enter the USB password --> get file. Finally.

Since I don't have access to shared folder that scans are sent to, I also have to ask my soup whenever I want to scan something, which is usually only once or twice a month, but it's hardly a worthwhile use of her time.

To login to the computers we have security cards, but everyone just leaves them on their desks? After I first arrived I asked if I should keep it in my wallet or something, which isn't challenging to do for security, but everyone said to just leave it out in the open. And yet in the name of security we also have all these inane computer desktop runaround measures.

All the microsoft software is from 2010, so it could be worse there. We have windows. There are printers and scanners and whatnot that function just fine. I think we still have a fax machine in use somewhere.

But in general everything is backwards and roundabout and slow, all in the name of security. I can't help but think there are better ways to be secure.

Small town CIR here. We use shared Google Calendars for scheduling. Everyone has their own email address. All staff can edit the town home page through a (somewhat dated) interface. Everyone has their own fairly modern laptop (Win 7 32 bit). We have Office 2010 on all, though Ichitaro is required for some official docs (I don't use it).

At the moment nothing is blocked- you can use Gmail, dropbox, etc. just fine.

Personal computers can't access the protected work network but can log in to a free public wi-fi network.

The office intranet connects all non-financial computers and it is possible to create shared folders where coworkers can collaborate on your hard drive. I created a shared images folder for the town that tourism and the town promotion staff can both access.

We still have the paper and stamp 回覧 system, and even some emails to outside parties are printed and passed around.

We try to avoid faxes and encourage email attachments where possible. For my work we are not secretaries so if someone wants me to translate something we request the data they used to create it.

I don't have complaints about technology other than that working here does feel like a big step backwards. For years I thought the paperless office was a joke, but mostly achieved it in my job before coming to Japan. We took notes on computers or on white boards, wrote documents on google docs, literally recycled the fax machine and really only printed things for external distribution. We use an awful lot of paper here.

My situation sounds the most similar to nikinee 's かな, but it's interesting how even though this security crackdown is country-wide, each individual 自治体 seems to have done it totally differently.

For my inaka town, we have to use a remote desktop to access any website other than our shiyakusho server (which can send 市役所内 emails, schedule/request NENKYU, fill out time cards, etc.), but as far as I know no websites are blocked. I can access facebook, the forums, dictionary websites, and even reddit just fine. But there are a few hangups:

- there are a limited number of logins per KA, and only one person can use each login at a time. In my old KA, I had to share a login with two other people, and so I always had to ask インターネット入ってもいいですか before logging in, and I would often have to wait. In my new KA I actually have a login all to myself, but everyone else has to share with at least one other person hue. (Why they gave me the lucky login, I don't know. I'm not worthy!)(and tbh I was a lot more productive back when I had to share internet access).

- you can't do anything that involves communication from the remote desktop to the rest of the computer. This means that I can't copy and paste in/out of the remote desktop or attach files to emails, which is REALLY ANNOYING. Now if I want to send a translation to the client I have to save it onto a USB and then send it from a separate computer in the middle of the KA that can send attachments and everyone has to share, so there's often a wait.  

That's it I guess. We don't have wifi, but that seems pretty common. Luckily we don't have any weird USB restrictions.

Everyone has laptops on their desk that are not connected to the Internet, and the entire division shares two in the corner that are.

It's been this way since before I came and it's a pain of course, but I'm used to it.



Also, our division has secret wifi that we're not supposed to have.

SMACKDOWN the system

Oh yeah the secret wifi is for our phones and a secret notebook PC that circulates the office hue

Please forgive me, because I'm about to be THAT GUY and brag about how wonderful and amazing and almost-modern-era my office is.

I'm direct-hired by the International Society of a small town. Our office is in an annex building behind city hall, and although we are not technically 公務員 we have a complicated relationship with the city where we get free lease and utilities for the office and a large chunk of our yearly funding in exchange for certain tasks that we (mostly me) perform for the city, such as managing the sister cities exchange program, arranging guest speakers from various countries to do 国際理解教育 at public schools, and translating/interpreting for city hall, schools, the public health and wellness center, etc. We also receive part of our yearly funding from membership fees private individuals pay to join the international society, and from income from language classes and events we hold. This balance of working for the city, but technically being a separate entity gives us the authority to do a lot of things we couldn't if we didn't have such strong ties with the city, but at the same time frees us from a lot of the rules and political BS that government employees are subject to.

As such, there are 5 computers in the office for 3 employees. Our boss has a Mac desktop, our secretary has a Macbook Pro laptop, I have a very large Mac desktop and a very small Mac notebook (I really hate apple products and don't know the proper names of any of these computers, sorry!) and we also have 1 windows laptop for visitors and international society members to use, but mostly I use that one too, when I can't get either of my Macs to do what I want. We have a very nice printer/scanner/copier thing and an ancient fax machine for sending stuff to schools and old people who haven't noticed that the internet was invented. We have internet and wifi with absolutely no restrictions, and USB/CD/SD etc work on all of our computers. I also have a projector and speakers that I use for the "国際理解教育 at public schools," mentioned above. The projector is very old and kind of crappy, so we're budgeting for me to buy a new one at the end of the year if all goes well. I get to pick out the new one and I am trying to find one with speakers built in this time if possible. My favorite piece of technology, though, is the air conditioner! We don't have to follow any rules for when to turn it on, and there are only 3 of us, so when it's hot we turn on the cooler and when it's cold we turn on the heat and do our work in an environment fit for human habitation! The city hall employees are very jealous since their A/C only turns on if it gets above 30 C, so they often find excuses to come over and consult us about fake work problems that don't exist, just to mooch off our A/C.

Compared to my last job as an ALT where I had no computer, no internet, no printer access except for black and white copies of documents I printed at home and brought in with me, of course no A/C in the entire school and no DESK of my own (shared with other people on the days I was at other schools) this place feels like heaven!

Help I take everything back. They changed the internet last week and now it's total garbage. We can now only access internet via a secure server on internet explorer. A bunch of websites (including my prefecture's JET site) are blocked. I can't copy or save photos. The browser automatically closes after 20~ minutes. If too many people log on to the internet at once I sometimes just get kicked off altogether and can't access it again until less people are online. And worst of all... I can only open 5 tabs at one time.