Some Firms Bar Computer Games

The state of Virginia recently suffered a high-tech headache that is striking many employers these days: computer games.

The cure turned out to be a few taps on the delete key.

When some workers complained about colleagues loafing at their keyboards playing computer solitaire, the state banned games and ordered removal of those that come with new Windows software.

As with free pencils and private telephone calls, some bosses say help yourself when it comes to computer games in the workplace. Others just say no.

Sears, Roebuck and Co. banned games nearly three years ago, mainly to save disk space, a company spokesman said.

Others fear computer viruses and lawsuits over copyright infringement if workers copy their own games onto office machines. But the reason employers cited most often for banning games was that it looks bad to customers.

A week after installing computer software in June 1993, Boston-based Garber Travel Service yanked the games and banned all external software.

“All it took was one guy playing games, and a missed phone call or something. Someone saw him playing solitaire and so the volcano erupted,” said Rock Blanco, who is in charge of technology for Garber, an international travel agency with 450 employees.

Blanco said the company never worried about computer games consuming work time. He estimated that far more time is lost on smoking breaks.

“If they played games as much as they smoke cigarettes, there’d be no tobacco industry,” he said.

The games quandary literally comes with the technology.

Windows, Microsoft’s popular software for operating computers, comes with solitaire and Minesweeper, in which the user finds bombs on a grid.

Windows has included games since 1987, and objections are rare, said Brent Ethington, product manager for Windows at Microsoft in Redmond, Wash.

“From the majority of customers we talk to, it’s not an issue,” Ethington said.

Still, a suspicion lingers that computer games pose a distracting menace.

In a survey last year by SBT Accounting Systems of San Rafael, Calif., 6,000 computer users reported wasting an average of 5.1 hours a week on computers.

Maybe 5 percent of that - 15.3 minutes - was playing games during work hours, said David Harris, head of sales and marketing at SBT, a software publisher.

The chief time-waster was waiting - for the computer to copy a file, print a report, make a modem connection. Second was using fancy formats to enhance letters and other documents. Third was helping colleagues use their computer. Playing games was last.