Post in MSN

This was my post in the discussion about whether Facebook and MySpace should be allowed at work.
Full article here


Ok, i just wanted to throw my 2 cents worth into this.
I work 40 hrs a week, 3pm-11pm thurs-mon. thats all weekend long.
I work at an answering service, and I am online for the entirety of my shift. (for those that don't know, if you have ever called a dr's office after hours, or a vets office, or a heating/air con repair service, or a plumber, you have spoken to someone that does what i do.)
We have a rush of calls at 5pm when everything closes, but most nights, after about 6pm, it pretty well dies. Very few calls, very little to do other than stare at the walls... or play online. I bring my laptop to work. I've done coursework for college while answering calls, I've coded websites while paging dr's for very pregnant women going into labor. I can honestly say in 2 years working where I work, I have never messed up a call due to being online. Have I ever hung up on someone? Yes, several people, but it had nothing to do with me being online and everything to do with them being rude and/or nasty with me.
Granted not everyone can pull this off. If you have trouble doing two things at once, like.. reading and paying attention to what's going on around you, you shouldn't try it. However in some jobs and in some circumstances, I see absolutely no harm in someone being online and on myspace, facebook, msn, yahoo, or anywhere else they please within reason. (yeah oki I do draw the line with viewing porn or nsfw things... they are called nsfw for a reason)

I could have gone on about it for ages, but i pretty much feel exactly that. If you can multitask and being online will not affect the work you do / security of the company that you work for, what exactly is the harm?