is it stealing?

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lady cop
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is it stealing?

Post by lady cop »

a rhetorical question...if a person spends a considerable amount of time on forums, web surfing or personal email while at work, and is being paid for that time, is it stealing from the employer?
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SOJOURNER
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is it stealing?

Post by SOJOURNER »

lady cop wrote: a rhetorical question...if a person spends a considerable amount of time on forums or personal email while at work, and is being paid for that time, is it stealing from the employer?


OH YEAH!!!!!!! SURE IS.
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venus
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is it stealing?

Post by venus »

Well l suppose so technically it could be seen as stealing as it is there power, access etc:confused:
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Nomad
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is it stealing?

Post by Nomad »

Yes of course. Your boss shouldnt have to babysit you to make sure your doing what your being paid to do. If your paid x dollars an hr. then you should give the equivelant in time, effort and diligence towards the companies purpose.
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nvalleyvee
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is it stealing?

Post by nvalleyvee »

I vote stealing. You are paid to do a job not take care care of personal business.
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CountryDweller
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is it stealing?

Post by CountryDweller »

Absolutely, not question about it.
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nvalleyvee
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Post by nvalleyvee »

Flop - I agree with you IF you have that kind of job. Most corporations would rather you sit around and twiddle your thumbs contemplating the amount of lint in your navel than you getting on the internet.
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Jives
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is it stealing?

Post by Jives »

I'm with Floppy....I post occasionally during the day, at lunch hour, between classes, etc.

But you can be sure that during class I am giving 100% and doing my damnest to do my job to the absolute utmost of my ability. According to standardized testing, my students increase in ability 4.25 years in a single year. I'm 4 times better than the average teacher.

Stealing? They owe me! I work on Sundays to grade papers, technically shouldn't I get paid for that?;)
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actionfigurestepho
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is it stealing?

Post by actionfigurestepho »

I don't think it's stealing either, as long as work gets done first. Which would you get in trouble for more, spending 4-5pm online or just leaving at 4?
Jives
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Post by Jives »

That's true, since I post from a school, this is one of the few forums I can access, and if anyone ever turns off the swear filters, that's it for me.:(

As for e-mails...I always assume that anything I've written could be posted in the teacher's lounge at any time. And I'm making darn sure that it's not under the "Look what this idiot posted" label.
All the world's a stage and the men and women merely players...Shakespeare
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Nomad
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Post by Nomad »

flopstock wrote: I love it when I get to disagree...:D



If you hire someone to do a job and the job gets done, they are no more stealing from you then the co-workers standing at the coffee machine or out back having a smoke. Folks send off birthday cards, call and check on an ailing parent or to make arrangements to meet for lunch... if someone wants to keep a forum up in the background and add their comments from time to time throughout the day it is the same as the ongoing department discussion over...let's say the vikings 'by week adventures off the field'. It is also less distracting to co-workers who may not have their work caught up.



Folks waste time at every job that is not piecework. It's part of life. And factored into the work life in a company.




NO :p ....
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Clint
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is it stealing?

Post by Clint »

If you are being paid by the hour you owe an hour of work. If you spend part of that hour posting on the internet you have taken money from your employer. If you are salaried and paid for the results you get, it’s different as long as you get the results you are being paid for. It can also be a problem if you are thinking about what to post when you should be thinking about your job. Also, our employers shouldn’t have to purchase additional computer capacity to accommodate activities that aren’t work related.

Other than that…yes and no.:D
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BabyRider
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Post by BabyRider »

If you are being paid by the hour you owe an hour of work. If you spend part of that hour posting on the internet you have taken money from your employer.


Then women should be able to get away with it. Generally speaking, for the same job, women are paid less money. So, all you guys who post at work, knock it off! For all the gals, you're owed it anyway, so do it!!



Clint wrote:

Other than that…yes and no.:D


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chonsigirl
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is it stealing?

Post by chonsigirl »

Jives wrote: I'm with Floppy....I post occasionally during the day, at lunch hour, between classes, etc.

But you can be sure that during class I am giving 100% and doing my damnest to do my job to the absolute utmost of my ability. According to standardized testing, my students increase in ability 4.25 years in a single year. I'm 4 times better than the average teacher.

Stealing? They owe me! I work on Sundays to grade papers, technically shouldn't I get paid for that?;)
You go Jives! I always post before class, maybe lunch-if I get one! And the rest is at home, they never pay us for that stuff, which is hours and hours. But we love our jobs anyway!
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Clint
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Post by Clint »

BabyRider wrote: Then women should be able to get away with it. Generally speaking, for the same job, women are paid less money. So, all you guys who post at work, knock it off! For all the gals, you're owed it anyway, so do it!
That's not fair because women are usully faster on the keyboard than men. To be fair we acutally need more time. :sneaky:
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Lon
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is it stealing?

Post by Lon »

lady cop wrote: a rhetorical question...if a person spends a considerable amount of time on forums, web surfing or personal email while at work, and is being paid for that time, is it stealing from the employer?


No question about it, it's stealing. The key here is "is being paid for that time".

To me, that means he or she is an hourly employee. If they were paid based on the completion of a certain amount of work, then that's a different story.

Another poster mentioned they were stealing only power, that's minor, they are stealing time, which is significant.
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Clint
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Post by Clint »

flopstock wrote: I disagree. I'm salaried, but I'm still 'paid for my time'. The only people who are not paid for their time are those that do piece work or work on straight commission. And if an employee does not get the work done that you expect to have done in the amount of time you give them to do it, regardless of 'what' they were doing, they were wasting your time. Whether hourly or salaried. If they get it done in less time then you expect, they haven't taken anything from you.



If two people are doing the same task and it takes the 1st one 15 minutes an hour less to do that same task, the employer doesn't deduct 15 minutes away from the second workers pay. They most likely just find extra work for that first one. And they still get the same hourly wage.
Wouldn't your analogy have all work measured by making the production of the slowest employee the standard? :-2
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telaquapacky
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is it stealing?

Post by telaquapacky »

It's classic time theft. I do it at work quite a bit, but I own the place and pay everyone else's salaries. If I caught one of my employees doing it, I'd be wissed. If I knew what I was doing, I'd fire myself. I always have way more things to do than time to do them in, and because of FG, I leave things undone that end up costing me money! Believe me, if you are doing this at work, you are definitely ripping off your employer big time!

The (time theft) exceptions are Jives and Chonsi. Sorry everyone, but they are educators. Being here exposes you to a lot of current thought, and I feel that helps them do their jobs better.

I keep trying to quit doing it at work, except- I am never at home. I am usually in the office from 8:00 a.m. until 8:00 p.m. At the moment, I am at home. This means I will be getting to bed late and be dead tired tomorrow. Now for a rare Telaquapacky use of the banghead...:-5
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Clint
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Post by Clint »

flopstock wrote: Nope, the standard is set by the employers expectation of time needed to perform certain tasks. The employee that meets those expections is not penalized. The one who exceeds those expectations is given extra work. So if that quicker employee does produce more then the expectations of the employer for the hours worked in a day as compared to the slow worker who is paid the same for merely meeting those expectations, that faster employee is having production -in effect, stolen by the employer.



Thus, the time spent on the internet, creates a balance....:D
So you probably don't like hearing; "if you want something to get done, ask someone who is busy"? :wah:

I see your point. The fact is though, that the top hourly producers don't normally realize they have extra time to spend on the internet. They are usually thinking they should be doing more.
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theia
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Post by theia »

I have never posted on FG on the office computer although I have picked up some personal emails whilst at work. For one thing, the connection is dial up, pay by the minute, and I try to limit usage, even for work related issues. For another, I consider posting on FG a leisure pursuit and this would be ruined for me if I tried to mix it with work. However, I wouldn't see it as stealing if I did post because I have given a lot of unpaid time to the project over the years.
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telaquapacky
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is it stealing?

Post by telaquapacky »

flopstock wrote: Sorry packy, but if you are not giving them enough to do that they don't have the time to do this, they aren't ripping you off. If they are getting done, what you are asking them to do, you have no reasonable complaint. You may 'feel' ripped off, sure. But you are actually underutilizing your workforce. That means you are doing it to yourself. :wah:



You should be delegating more work. You might get home at a reasonable time then. ;)I get your point about delegating- we are currently understaffed and having a hard time finding the right people. Actually my staff is really terrific. They are working very hard, and keeping their enthusiasm, and I really want to get more help for them before they burn out.

Still, I don't agree with your concept of the "expected" production. In some busineses there is no level quantity that you can achieve and then kick back. An employer in my specialty expects every worker to do their best. Common business practice is to calculate revenue per staff hour, and always try to raise the bar- usually not by working harder but smarter. The idea is to budget, set progressively higher goals, and reward the employees with bonuses for acheiving them. You want to make them more productive and pay them more. If you let your business stagnate, in today's climate, you will not survive.

When I first bought the business I had only two employees. They spent a lot of time on the internet. They also lost me a lot of money and almost bankrupted me before I hired my wife as office manager. They had the computers cluttered with all kinds of downloaded gee-gaws that made the system crash chronically. I'd call a guy in to fix it, and it would cost me $400 for him to spend half a day on it, and the whole thing would go down the next day. I finally scrapped the old computers and built eight new ones myself from components- so I would know how to fix them. We strictly forbid all unofficial computer use (that has been the practice everywhere else I have worked for other employers). My wife watched that they were properly billing all our services- which they had not been doing! They couldn't stand the supervision and they quit (by the way, I heard through the grapevine that they did not last at the jobs they went to after me.)
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SOJOURNER
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is it stealing?

Post by SOJOURNER »

How interesting the justification for doing what WE "want" to do.

Althought time spent talking to co-workers and time spent on the internet is both time away from the time, the biggest difference between them is the time spent with co-workers can lead to better teamwork amoung employees -- while time on the internet is time shutting yourself away from both your work and your fellow employees......... Inclusivness vs. exclusivness
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Clint
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Post by Clint »

I had the IT guy delete all the computer games in City Hall once. Wow!!! did I ever have people mad at me. :wah:
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pink princess
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is it stealing?

Post by pink princess »

ok, yes i think it is a form of stealing, and i am a culprit

but then again what about all the times you go home after a bad day and it takes the whole evening to get over it, or when you remember something and pop in at the weekend to do it or think about what your going to be doing at work after the weekend - they are then stealing from us

it all balances out
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valerie
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Post by valerie »

I have to bring up the job I used to do, which was paid hourly (union) but

which was rather like being a fireman. You were just THERE in case you

were needed... glorified babysitter maybe. So you sat in a room full of 70

or so huge machines and made sure nothing broke or changed patch cords

once in a while. But some days, we did a whole set-up the first hour of

our day, and then essentially nothing for ten hours until wrap up and go

home!! We were allowed a computer but we didn't even spend a lot of time

on it. (Nowadays with FG I'm sure I'd spend more!!) So in that case I don't

think it was stealing.



Or, I also think of my sister, she gets paid for hours she SLEEPS when she

works a shift, and then sometimes jumps into her flight suit and off to

save lives. Don't think anyone has ever accused her or her co-workers

of stealing!



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Wolverine
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Post by Wolverine »

flopstock wrote: I love it when I get to disagree...:D



If you hire someone to do a job and the job gets done, they are no more stealing from you then the co-workers standing at the coffee machine or out back having a smoke. Folks send off birthday cards, call and check on an ailing parent or to make arrangements to meet for lunch... if someone wants to keep a forum up in the background and add their comments from time to time throughout the day it is the same as the ongoing department discussion over...let's say the vikings 'by week adventures off the field'. It is also less distracting to co-workers who may not have their work caught up.



Folks waste time at every job that is not piecework. It's part of life. And factored into the work life in a company.
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