When I was a BOFH, we had a guy working the night shift who would always be a little slow at getting processing done in time for the rest of corporate to show up and need their data. It was odd but I don’t remember anyone looking into it.
Until one time there was a problem with one of the jobs (which meant other jobs could not be run) and no one had their data in the morning. He was asked why he didn’t contact one of us for help and didn’t really have an answer.
The boss checked the cameras to figure out what this guy was doing. Turns out the guy came in, started as many of the jobs as could be run in parallel, then left to work his shift at another place, came back on his lunch break and fired off another round of jobs, left and finished his shift at the other place, then came back and finished his shift at our place (our shifts were 10-17 hours long). He was confronted and admitted it. I don’t recall if he was fired or if he quit.
Absolutely. I wrote such a script as a proof-of-concept and was yelled at because it was considered a 'security risk' for me to use company tools to write code (as a not-hired-for-programming employee) even though I already had access to literally all the company's data and their security practices were such that exfiltrating their data without being caught would have been trivial even if I never placed any code on their systems. The place was extremely dysfunctional and there were significant trust issues that were completely irrational and inconsistent. So a script that did this job was largely out of the question.
Was this employee hired to press some buttons then bugger off for a few hours? Or were they hired to ensure some jobs ran correctly? Also, were they paid to press some buttons and work for two hours a day, or were they collecting paychecks as if they'd worked for their full shift? I'm going to guess they didn't voluntarily decline 90% of their paycheck.
You can absolutely argue that the job was stupid and should be automated (it should've been) - you can absolutely argue about whether that person was feeling societal pressures to work two jobs and felt like this was the only way to make ends meet. Both of those points are tangential, though - a lot of folks face them.
He still either fraudulently reported hours (if paid hourly) or failed to meet the expectations of his employment contract. And, in the end, it actually caused other people to likely do overtime to cover up for his skimping.
I can clear things up a bit. First off, you're right. It absolutely was fraudulent. The job was being a butt-in-chair in case things went wrong more than it was typing a few keys. There were also some low priority tasks (irregular data entry, restocking printers with paper, etc.), but no one seemed to care if those jobs were done. My memory is very hazy regarding this detail so take it with a huge grain of salt, but I believe he quit because they offered him that versus being fired and charged with a crime. (There were some other shenanigans with other employees, and I can't be sure I'm not conflating things or making them up.)
> You can absolutely argue that the job was stupid and should be automated (it should've been)...
Yes. See my reply to another reply.
> you can absolutely argue about whether that person was feeling societal pressures to work two jobs and felt like this was the only way to make ends meet.
In this time and place, I worked three jobs (separately, and with my employers' full knowledge) and had all my bills paid off the first week of each month. With only (and any) one of those three jobs paying my bills off would have taken about 2.5 weeks. Each job was technically unskilled (although skills helped) and required only a high school diploma.) It was a very prosperous time with low unemployment. I've never been one for societal pressures, but this guy didn't have kids (neither did I at the time); which I think would have been the strongest defense.
> And, in the end, it actually caused other people to likely do overtime to cover up for his skimping.
It definitely had some downstream consequences... possibly overtime but I can't be sure, and although most of the people involved were salaried, on a personal level, they ended up staying later than they otherwise would have.
I’m not an expert in the matter, but I imagine that as employees, Lyft and Uber could more strictly penalize them for not accepting rides, which the driver would have to do pretty often if they were driving for multiple platforms simultaneously.
I mean, I don't see why not. Would create some inefficiencies. But I don't think there is a law against that.