Reply to 8 hrs a day “working,” govt job?

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]This was one of the things that bothered me when I worked for the government. I am a rule follower and recognize that “not” working during work hours could be perceived as fraud. The most annoying part was not having enough work to do during the day! As long as you’re getting work done on time and a strong performer, what’s the harm in running errands if you have time? Should be nothing, but I never did that when I worked for the government. I always stayed logged in![/quote]

My problem is, how do you define working during work hours? Someone in the cube down the hall is physically present in her cube and her computer is turned on, but she barely, hardly does any work. I am a strong performer at work. I am also present and when I am, I work hard and get things done on time (and at triple the rate of this particular co-worker) but if I take more than 15 min to run an errand, I’m the one defrauding the government.  [/quote]

Two different things. Your coworker's performance should be managed by her employer. Running an errand takes more than 15 min. Do it during your lunch break, not during your 15 min break or it can be considered time fraud.

For the federal government, time and being present matters. [/quote]

But even in the office, there are large numbers of people not really doing much of anything during their 40 hours. [/quote]

How do you know what that actually looks like for their jobs though? I'm a fed program manager (on my unpaid lunch right now!). My job title is my PhD field of study (so let's just say Scientist). I probably look like I'm not doing anything because I'm not spending my days in the lab or writing up papers, what kind of scientist is that?! But actually, I don't have time to do my own research because that's not how my job is structured. I spend my days on the phone and email and reviewing documents to manage around 30 contracts and agreements with outside researchers instead, because the government no longer operates via in-house staff in a lot of areas. It actually does take work to scope the projects, manage funding, coordinate with the researchers and get the results to people who will use it, and i also have to do a lot of "clean up" of messy or unfinished deliverables. But that work doesn't look like work the same way a bunch of peer reviewed papers would.

That said, in my first job I always walked by an old guy who was playing solitaire on his desktop every single time. THAT guy was not doing much. [/quote]

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