Federal Employee- Possible Timesheet Fraud

[Anonymous]

You can get fired for timesheet shenanigans. There's no legitimate arrangement with a supervisor that would enable after-the-fact sign outs or sign-ins without the times. Whether you want to report it or not is up to you. If the employee is a jerk otherwise, then anonymously report it. If he's not a jerk, then look to other factors to decide.

[Anonymous]

I just got some popcorn to witness the Fed v Fed back and forth.

Pathetic Feds. I have run into a few who are MIA from there jobs and others who have come into meetings with gin or vodka in their cups.

Pathetic.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Lots if defensive Feds on today! Probably "telecommuting" from the couch or shopping.

Hilarious! +INFINITY!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I work for a federal agency where we have flexible work schedules and sign-in/sign-out daily logs. I suspect a fellow employee may be entering fraudulent log in/out times yesterday and today. As of this morning, he had not signed out for yesterday. When he arrived mid-day today, he signed his name but had not entered an arrival time for today as of the time I left the office. He had, however, signed out for yesterday....entering the latest available time allowed as his sign-out time. Our bosses are out of the office this entire week. I noticed this all today when I was trying to figure out mid-morning whether or not he was in the office and would be around for a scheduled meeting.

I am really hoping there is a logical explanation for my observations. But there is some other background stuff that makes me think he is gaming the system. And that makes me really upset. What should I do? I am torn between minding my own business (what would come of bringing it up, anyway??), asking him directly about it (I am not his supervisor so this seems really awkward, though I think I would want someone to give me the benefit of the doubt and talk to me directly), or telling someone (who? my supervisor? his supervisor? hr?) what I observed and let then decide what, if anything, to do.

My conscience is eating at me (taxpayer dollars, and if I don't step up and say something aren't I just as bad in a way?). And I am personally floored that someone would do this if it really is what it seems.

You should definitely report this person

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:OP here. Yikes! I guess I won't be saying anything!

This came up because I was trying to determine if he (and someone else) were actually in the office today. I wanted to know if we would be having our meeting or not and when I didn't see them at their desks all morning I checked the log to confirm they were out. I wasn't sure about their signatures, so I flipped to yesterday to see if i could identify their signstures/match for today and that's when I saw he hadn't signed out for yesterday and neither (as of mid-morning) were signed in for today.

I actually agree that it should be about the work. But the work is not getting done either! (That's the background info I alluded to in my original post.)

MYOB! You have no idea if he is taking leave or teleworking or what may be going on. You could have called/emailed him or invited him to a meeting via the calendar app. You had no real reason to snoop through the sign in sheets!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:You can get fired for timesheet shenanigans. There's no legitimate arrangement with a supervisor that would enable after-the-fact sign outs or sign-ins without the times. Whether you want to report it or not is up to you. If the employee is a jerk otherwise, then anonymously report it. If he's not a jerk, then look to other factors to decide.

I forget to sign in/out every once in a while. Big deal.

If you complain you will end up having time clocks that you have to punch--is that what you want?

[Anonymous]

FWIW OP I reported time sheet fruad. Flagrant and on-going. I was retaliated against by my boss (whom I reported it to).

[Anonymous]

This reminds me of team projects in college - there are always one or two people who coast, requiring others to pick up the slack. Unfortunately there's not much to be done about it.

I left the fed gov't in disgust seeing people shirk or complain about their workload, meanwhile they surf the web or play online games, or are unavailable while they are supposedly teleworking. Managers were some of the worst offenders, so that meant there was no one keeping tabs right up the line.

Clearly some of them are reading this thread.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I just got some popcorn to witness the Fed v Fed back and forth.

Pathetic Feds. I have run into a few who are MIA from there jobs and others who have come into meetings with gin or vodka in their cups.

Pathetic. [/quo

Damn , I would rather be a pathetic fed than a private sector douche who does not know the difference between 'their' and 'there.'

Pathetic is right.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I just got some popcorn to witness the Fed v Fed back and forth.

Pathetic Feds. I have run into a few who are MIA from there jobs and others who have come into meetings with gin or vodka in their cups.

Pathetic.

Huh, funny, I have worked in 2 fed agencies over 12 years, and never seen anything like that even once. Makes me think you're making this up.

[Anonymous]

There's two issues here.

1. Is it ok for a fed worker to not work the full hours or commit time sheet fraud? No, in my opinion ( and I am a fed).

2. Should op get involved? No, not unless op supervises the person, which he does not.

[Anonymous]

+1.
If the shenanigans is affecting OP's ability to work/plan, though, I think it's reasonable to bring up.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Wow, I'm shocked to know that federal employees don't consider cheating on their time cards to be stealing -- because as a tax payer I certainly do!!!! You all who are claiming OP should MYOB are part of the problem. I hate that people say to look the other way when someone cheats or steals. This is not an MYOB situation -- it's stealing our money, pure and simple.

OP, I would make an anonymous complaint. This guy is a thief. FYI -- my former bosses did this routinely. I know because I was in charge of time sheets. One would come in half an hour before everyone else, leave earlier than everyone else, take a half day every friday and every friday off as "flex pay." Scam. Other one would come in at 4:45 in the afternoon and claim an entire day. It's sickening. Hard to respect people like this. Please report them, OP -- we as taxpayers need to get rid of these cheats.

OP, please tell someone. I work for federal law enforcement and let me tell you, I've seen so many instances where people's misuse of time starts off small. They want to see how much they can get away with. When then realize no one's watching, they keep pushing the limits. Then you wind up with John Beale, the EPA employee who lied about his whereabouts for years and wound up stealing almost $900,000 from the government in the form of salary and bonuses. That's your and my tax payer dollars, wasted.

[Anonymous]

Who makes professionals sign in and out like that!?! Sounds like kindergarten.

And MYOB.

[Anonymous]

OP what time do you get off of work?