Paid to look at porn???

[Ree]

The man worked at a government job (in other words, paid for with my tax dollars) and he was fired for surfing porn on the internet over 7 months.

He appealed to the labour board and got his job back.

After an internal investigation found 335 sexual images on his work computer, Franklin Andrews, a policy advisor at Citizenship and Immigration Canada, admitted that between September and November of 2008 and between May and August of 2009 he spent 50%-100% of his paid time at work finding and looking at pornographic pictures.
Consequently, he was fired.

But after appealing to the decision and basing his defense on the grounds that he was bored and didn't have a sufficient amount of work to keep him busy, the Public Service Labour Relations Board reinstated his position in early August.

The labour board decided that because Andrews' mangers had failed to manage him, because Andrews had been a government employee, with an otherwise clear record, for such a lengthy period of time, and because Andrews had freely admitted guilt, less "heavy-handed" forms of discipline, like rehabilitation and correction, would be more appropriate.

His employer argued that it was "time theft".

His job pays between $76,010 and $104,026 a year, and he admits to spending from 50 to 75 per cent of his time surfing porn for a period of 7 months, yet he argues that it was not time theft.

Now that he is reinstated, they are asking for back pay.

His lawyer says that time theft would be more like falsifying a time card, and constitutes actual intent to fraud.
They argue that he was not intending to defraud, but that his superiors did not provide him with enough work, and obviously did not follow through on supervision, or he wouldn't have been left so idle for such a long period of time.
I can't understand this.
Were his coworkers picking up the slack for him?
Did that involve any overtime for them?

If someone in any other type of job was so lacking in work to keep busy, the company would downsize.

This is a government job. If he had that much free time on his hands, why does that job even exist?

[HYHYBT]

Laying someone off for lack of work is significantly different, though, than giving them very little to do and then firing them for time theft. Forgetting that it was porn, for the moment at least: if you found you had a lot of downtime at work, and your bosses had nothing for you to do, what options do you have? Tell them you quit because they obviously don't need you? Work more slowly, so that your assignments take all the available time even though there's no reason for them to? Do absolutely nothing, because doing anything that *isn't* work is stealing time? Porn was a poor choice, but if looking at it under those conditions (and assuming that's true) is "time theft," then so would be *anything* he did that wasn't work, despite there not being any of that.

There *are* jobs where much of people's time on the job is spent simply being ready for work to come along. For people in such jobs, is it stealing time to read a book, or do email, wander through Youtube, etc *while* they wait?

[Andara Bledin]

I spend... a not insignificant amount of time at work not actually working.

I'm also one of the hardest working people there. I do a lot and I do it well, and since I tend to do it right the first time around, I do it all fairly quickly.

I get paid for the work to be done as opposed to just doing whatever until the bell rings.

As we move to a less industrial mindset, and in areas outside the service sector, we're likely going to be running into more of this sort of issue; where people are paid for their output and availability and knowledge-base more than they are based on the amount of time spent punched in. Even if the time on the clock is still used as the base measure for how much a person gets paid.

While I would expect a person to actually make their own lack of work known to a superior, unless it's specifically spelled out in the job description, it's up to the supervisor to ensure that all staff has enough work to keep them from being idle during the course of the work day.

^-.-^

[Rapscallion]

In seven months he only had 335 images? That's either him hiding it well, or not being very good at it.

Rapscallion

[Andara Bledin]

Or being picky about what he keeps.

I've seen at least my share of porn, and there's really very little that I've felt any inclination to keep.

^-.-^

[Rageaholic]

The fail is on his bosses for keeping him at work when there was no work to be done. Other than this, it doesn't sound like he was a bad employee.

[Jack T. Chance]

Silly fool... this is what personal smartphones & laptops are for! NEVER use a GOVERNMENT computer for slacking off on the interwebz!!! He deserved to get caught!

[Nyoibo]

As to why his job even exists, I have a short term government contract at the moment, there's no need for me there at the moment, there's no need for 5 people in the department, at least not now, but if they're seen coping with only 4 or 3 people they will be downlized, then when they really do need 5 people in the department they're screwed because they won't have them or be able to get them.

[Ree]

I couldn't care less whether it was porn or even the pages of CustomersSuck or fratching.

My tax dollars go to keep that man employed, and I resent that he was being paid to sit at a computer and cruise the internet, and the labour board, another government (tax dollar) funded agency has excused that away.

His managers/supervisors didn't keep him busy enough or give him enough work?
He didn't exactly go looking, either, did he?

What ever happened to personal responsibility?

It's hard for me to understand, since I work in a job where I really don't have a lot of down time. I do admit to using my computer for personal use such as checking email in between tasks, but in one full day, that amounts to less than 15 minutes, which is the equivalent of the break I am entitled to but rarely get.

I just can't imagine someone knowing they are being paid a wage to do a job, yet just sit there slacking off for over half of their workday.
On the off chance that I end up with all my work caught up and nothing coming my way, I look for something to do.

The guy worked for Citizenship and Immigration.
I find it very hard to believe that he had absolutely no work to do, considering the fact that Canada has such a high rate for immigration.

In 2001, 250,640 people immigrated to Canada, relative to a total population of 30,007,094 people per the 2001 Census. On a compounded basis, that immigration rate represents 8.7% population growth over 10 years, or 23.1% over 25 years (or 6.9 million people). Since 2001, immigration has ranged between 221,352 and 262,236 immigrants per annum. According to Canada's Immigration Program (October 2004) Canada has the highest per capita immigration rate in the world

Source

[siead_lietrathua]

i can agree with the idea that it's the supervisors job to keep them busy at work.
but i'm sure if he had been on facebook or IMDB or other random sites they wouldnt have cared at much.
but porn? on company time? helll no. that's just inappropriate!

save it for your lunchbreak >

[blas87]

Ree, now now....those aren't "your" tax dollars. I tried that in a different thread and was rudely reminded that they aren't "my" tax dollars.

So...since they aren't mine...why are they being taken out of my checks?

[Ree]

Ree, now now....those aren't "your" tax dollars. I tried that in a different thread and was rudely reminded that they aren't "my" tax dollars.

So...since they aren't mine...why are they being taken out of my checks?

Oh, yeah. Right.
Silly me.

I assumed since a huge chunk of my earnings magically disappear before they reach me, and the headings say, "Federal tax" and "Provinicial tax", that they were "my" tax dollars.

[AdminAssistant]

Many jobs, particularly office jobs, will have *some* downtime. It's the job of management to make sure the workload is distributed in such a way that no one person sits and twiddles their thumbs for hours on end while a co-worker struggles to keep up. However, when I worked in an office, and I ran out of things to do, I asked my supervisor if she had any work for me. If she didn't, I'd peek around to see if anything needed cleaning or straightening. Fill the copier with paper. Take a walk around the hall. Then, and only then, when there was absolutely nothing to do*, I would browse the internet, read CS, read a book, do research for my thesis, work on homework, etc. All safe for work activities and all okay'd by my immediate supervisor.

A lot of people goof off at least a little bit at their work places. It's expected, it helps you blow off steam, and improves morale. But porn? Really? That's completely inappropriate regardless of how bored he was.

*They wanted me to stay in the office until the last classes started at 7:00, so there was frequently nothing to do but be present in case of an academic "emergency," like a student needing a paper stapled or a professor needing a last-minute copy job.

[blas87]

Since we aren't allowed to use our phones and only bosses have internet access, there's no way we can fool around in that aspect, but it doesn't stop people from standing around and talking or, if they are in a bad enough mood, deliberately working as slow as possible to NOT get something done. That's actually one of the most common instances at my work with people. It's annoying and it makes it so everyone that IS working gets to be babysat.

[Evandril]

As much as I hate to say it...He wasn't committing 'time theft', so was justified in being rehired, if that was the offense they charged him with.

Was he a good employee? Oh hell no. Was what he did wrong? Of course. Was it time theft, as it's defined? No, so they should have used a different reason for his firing. The person judging the case agreed that he should have been bringing up how much free time he had, but the fact he did the work given to him in a timely manner did not prove time theft.

The one thing I can't find...was he paid salary or wage? They did mention he did not have to fill out a time card, so that makes me lean towards salary...In which case him being there for twice the time needed to do his job didn't hurt anyone. I do not see him lasting long in any case, without a serious change of heart on his part, though...We will see