W

ahyu Perwitasari wrote her last words in her Facebook status a few months ago.

"My office blocks the Facebook access," Perwitasari said in her status.

It was the last message she uploaded to notify friends that her connection to the social networking website was terminated.

The 25-year-old employee at a five-star hotel said her office had firewalled the site because many people in the office were more focused on the site than on their work.

"The administration blocked access to the site just like that, when almost all of us have accounts and are busy adding new friends and chatting," she said Friday.

Perwitasari is not alone.

The social networking fad has recently seen many office workers jumping onto the bandwagon, and therefore prompting many offices to limit their employees' access to the sites.

Eka, an IT manager at the same hotel group, said he decided to block employees' access to all social networking sites because he believed they had nothing to do with their work.

"The sites are just for fun, aren't they?" he said.

"They aren't included in the job description of employees and don't benefit them in their work."

He added browsing social networking sites took up large amounts of bandwidth dedicated for work purposes.

"We sell Internet connections to hotel guests, and we don't want it to get slow if we let employees have access to the sites," Eka said.

Desi Iradewi, an employee at Standard Chartered Bank, said her office began blocking access to social networking sites earlier this year after other employees were caught browsing them while at work.

"I think such sites can be a distraction, especially we're new to them," she said.

"You can get addicted because of the euphoria of finding old friends and chatting online."

She added browsing such sites left little time for looking up work-related news and information.

Desi said she opened a Facebook account last year and used to spend hours browsing it on her cell phone and at home, trying to get updates about old acquaintances.

Having arranged meetings with some of them, she now found the sense of novelty wearing off.

Social networking sites may be the bane of office administrators and IT workers, but many say it is beneficial in improving their work performance, especially those seeking to market their business products.

Desi said one of her friends opened a Facebook account and invited as many people as possible to promote a sporting event featuring a retired badminton star.

"My friend sent the invitation for the event to all the people and got good feedback," she said.

"It proves that for some people, these sites can be useful."

Hidayat Tjokrodjojo, president director of PT Realta Chakradar-ma, an IT company specializing in hardware, software and support, said he allowed half of his em-ployees unfettered access to the Internet, including to social networking sites.

Only managerial-level and sales employees were given this privilege, he added.

He said his company served corporate clients, so social networking sites did not have a direct influence on sales, but could still serve as marketing tools for the company.

Another benefit he claimed was his employees picking up the latest news from the IT world.

"I want my salesmen to be up-to-date and technology savvy," Hidayat said.

"If they don't have access to the Internet and the latest games, they can't be creative."

But necessity being the mo-ther of invention, office policies to block access to social networking sites are being circumvented in various ways.

Perwitasari said the move by her office had prompted several of her colleagues to buy an Internet-ready cell phone to access the sites.