Fun Facebook Drama at the Office
 

We are a very lenient, shenanigan-filled group of coworkers. However, things got a little serious today.

The summary is best summarized in this post by my boss (this has gotten way more interesting than reading the thread about FOFC drama).

ping Flere

Assuming the info is confirmed, Z's department should be short two employees tomorrow & should be breaking in two more new guys next week.

I think B might be okay -- it probably depends on sick day policies. A is toast though.

You could wonder what Z was doing on C's Facebook page during worktime.

Due dilligence

B is a fuzzier situation (since they don't appear to have tried to defraud the company by claiming to be "working from home") but they still lied about the sick day & were dumb enough to get caught.

Ultimately that's an employee you're better off replacing.

Z needs to confront A and B and get the story as opposed to getting it from C. (Maybe C hates A and just made something up)

I'd say at a minimum, the days aren't sick days and are vacation days. I don't think I'd be firing anyone unless there is a history of this happening.

Depends on what they planned on doing in DC? B could simply say that he was going to see a sick person and needed the time off. (Im not sure of the company's policy in what constitutes a sick day)

Well, FWIW, I don't believe A was defrauding. I believe he asked if he could work from home so he could get some stuff done before he went out for his hooky activities. Probably a) to attempt to alleviate some guilt or b) try to keep up with crazy deadlines that would spiral out of control because of his day of hooky.

I think unless A is a complete screw up you find a way to punish him, such as take away a vacation day or remove his privilege to work from home.

The B and C relationship is complicated, but based on the original source (the person A and B are hanging out with today posting on their fb wall that is visible via "Fake" accounts person Z controls -- wow this is a lot to explain. :) Joke accounts basically)...

backing up..

Basically friend of A and B posted on her wall, "Thanks to A and B for playing hooky and hanging out with me in DC today!" and then person C reposted that. Person Z also has a joke account hat is friends with the aforementioned hooky accomplice. So Person Z logged in there and confirmed the original posting. Said accomplice has also made follow up replies to Person C that continues her confirmation that this is indeed occurring.

So, anyway. They'll be forced to use vacation days. They will be talked to and made to hopefully shit their pants. I HIGHLY doubt anyone will get fired. Person Z is very lenient about vacation time generally speaking. He probably would have even given a green light to whatever they were doing today if they had asked and made a plan to make sure they got their work done. However, they chose to take the shady route. This is the first time anything has happened like this that is known, so it's unlikely anyone is getting fired. And as I said above, my understanding is that Person A did not say "Can I work from home?" and then leave home and plan to bill hours. My understanding is that he said, "can I work from home while I'm sick?" and did a bunch of work before heading out to hang out in the city. (which, for those who don't know, is where our office is :))

Removing that privilege has definitely been mentioned. I think that would definitely be a good course of action, even if only on a temporary basis. You take advantage of things like that and you lose that privilege.

Based on your description of your boss it sounds like person A is a douche by going the route they did.

I didn't notice your location & the hooky location being the same until your reply, I'll admit that your scenario is plausible. I initially read that bit about "hanging out with a friend in DC" as a trip involving enough distance to make doing both that & working in the same unlikely (i.e. it was a road trip).

Sounds like Z has some suspicions about other things that they have gone through the hassle of doing fake facebook accounts. That or they are just nosey.

Out of curiosity, is this a smaller company or a larger corporate entity?

I ask because it seems possible to me that, at least in larger operations, there's something in a personnel or policy manual that would cover this and leave the speculation fairly moot.

Also sounds like A and B's friend is moron. You don't post shit like that.

There are too many unknowns for me to say anything firmly, but I'll state my assumptions and then my opinion that is based only on those assumptions:

1. Unless stated by the employee when calling in sick, the assumption is that the employee is planning to work a full day (8 hours or whatever is expected) from home.

2. A vacation day requires approval in advance. Obviously, a sick day isn't normally something that's planned in advance.

So, assuming #1 to be true, the employee is apparently not intending to work a full day. If he's too sick to work, fine, but if he's not, then he had lied to his manager for the purpose of getting a shortened work day. Maybe it helps him to alleviate his guilt, but I'm not sure I could trust or use an employee like that.

Assuming #2 to be true, it seems that he didn't ask to use a vacation day because he probably knew it would be hard to approve with the situation facing the company right now (other people on vacation, deadlines, etc.). Obviously, that isn't enough to stop him from finding some way to get this day off, so he decided to call in sick and get his day that way.

Obviously, I have no idea why these people wanted to go to DC today, but I would hope that it was important enough to put their coworkers in a bind and erode their own credibility. If I were their coworker, I would probably think these two people weren't very bright and get on with my own work. If I were their manager, I would think that these two people - particularly person A - weren't very useful and evaluate whether they should even bother coming back.

Edit: Well, shit. In the time it took me to post this, other facts have come through. That would probably change some of the stuff I said above, but I don't really see the point of changing it now. I'll be in the back lighting myself on fire. Thanks.

My thoughts exactly.

Hah. No. I will go through the trouble of explaining and you will probably wish I didn't. :)

One day person B posted a picture on his wall of a squirrel outside his window at home. However, he spelled it "squirell". Another coworker made fun of him for his misspelling. I then said that clearly it's because that is his legal name, "Squirell". It spiraled into our boss, Z, creating an account for Quirinus Squirell, college professor. Then, later in the day, Earl Squirell, his alcoholic brother. A, B, Z, accomplice, most of our corowkers, etc, are fb friends with the Squirell brothers.


I'm sure our manual says that there should be serious consequences, but I don't really know. We work for a government contractor and I have no idea how many employees we have. Our group of about 15 people is quite autonomous. We have only ever met one other person that works for our contractor, the VP that visits us once a month from the HQ in Colorado.


Yes. And person C is a douchebag for reposting it. But that doesn't take away my amusement about the impending awkwardness tomorrow. :)

+1

Did you just tell us that this is actually someone's tax dollars at work?

Just a little different take here. The boss needs to first call these guys into the office and get their story. You can't just make assumptions just because person c posted something on facebook. How do we know person A and B weren't actually sick with person A working his 8 hours at home and then them heading to DC to visit their friend because their gf just dumped them (or some other thing like that)? I realize that is not the most likely explanation, but it is possible.

I would not want someone making assumptions based on a friend posting something on facebook. As an example, the day before my birthday, I left class early because I wasn't feeling well. A friend from class posted on my facebook wall posted something on my wall about leaving class early to celebrate. In actuality, I had diarrhea, and did nothing after leaving but use the bathroom a lot and stay home.

Oh, nice job LS...

It's on now.

Note: There's also a second person in the loop confirming the hooky story

Hah. I didn't even think about this easily foreseeable turn of events.

Yes, we are government contractors. No, no one on my team is charging the government for hours they do not spend completing their work. Do we screw around on facebook and/or FOFC during the work day sometimes? Yes, but most of us are generally at the office for roughly 10 hours a day and bill an 8 hour workday.

This is what I posted on facebook:

This HAS to be addressed. However, they need to be addressed differently.

Person B - This g...uy played straight up hooky. While it's not the end of the world, as a manager you have to address it - especially with the staffing, schedule, etc issues you mentioned. I would force them to take a vacation day and let them know that if they misuse/abuse leave time again in the future, the consequences will be more serious.

Person A - I'm assuming they had every intention of charging time. Now, unfortunately, since it is all out publicly on FB that won't happen so you won't be able to completely call them on that. However, they need the same consequences as B and more. I would first and foremost inform them that their occasional (I assume) privilege to work from home is gone. In addition I'd have a serious talk with him about fraudulent time, especially on a government contract.

For both - I would consider (not 100% sure on this one) requiring a doctor's note for future sick days until further notice.

FTR, I was going for a lighthearted tone with my question about that (just to make sure everybody


But now that you bring it up, depending upon the structure of the contract, how you record your hours & how the parent company/contract holder bills those hours could easily be two different things. Maybe your office bills the gov't directly, I don't know how you're structured obviously, but isn't the most comforting scenario.

Also, how big of a deal is it that your boss solves problems in the same way that a 6th grader decides who to take to the Junior High Prom?

I mean, doesn't he get paid to make decisions like what to do about A & B?

Basically, if an employee lied to me about being sick to take time off, they'd be fired. period.

yeah, that's why I didn't direct my reply straight at you. But for the record I thought I should make my defense anyway.

My company doesn't even know how long I'm in the office, honestly. There's no punch-in or anything. We work inside a government building so all my company knows is the time I enter on my time sheet that is approved my supervisor who works here on the team with me.

Now that all that is said and done...

The younger, newer guy (Person B) called Person Z in a panic and said, "I'm coming into the office as soon as I get back in town." (I think he had to take the accomplice back to Baltimore? I don't know exactly what is going on, or why he would not be "in town.")

It will be very amusing for those of us that will rib them about it for the next week or so (and by or so I mean, you know, a year ;))

F A, F B, F FB, F DC, Z Beats Lee so F him too, that's why he's in ATL. C U N September.

Well, this is a little more, perhaps.. 9th grade?

He didn't really posted because he wants an answer. He posted to highlight the situation, but posed it as a question so that he's not just posting something to embarrass two people. I say this with authority, but I don't actually know. I just assume, based on being friends with him for 9 years, that this is the case. But, yes, generally he does not always handle things in the most mature manner. In most cases that leads to a cohesive team that is able to joke with each other. I don't believe that he is actually soliciting managerial advice from facebook, though.

I very loosely know/know of some of the people involved and I had the same reaction.

Especially because before this somewhat logical post, he basically made a "calling people out" post.

These other two people are probably guilty, but I don't think I'd want to work for someone who made decisions or took evidence from facebook.

Docked vacation day and a written warning(second offense=firing) sounds fine to me.

I'm glad I don't work for some of you :). Short of being some temp or real scrub, I'm not sure how a firing enters the equation. Unless you are looking for a reason to dump them. Presumably they bring some value though and are not 100% interchangeable?

Evidence doesn't bother me fwiw in a specific instance like this.

I think realistically, if your two options at work are sick day, and vacation day that you need to plan weeks in advance, you're going to have people "calling in sick" for personal reasons. That's 100% guaranteed. It's a whole silly charade across America where people have to make that "sick" phone call, fake a cough, etc.

From an upper-management perspective, eliminating or greatly reducing notice required for vacation days solves a lot of these problems. (Obviously, it depends on the nature of the work how much notice is required). I think three categories works well, vacation days (notice required), sick days (have to be sick), personal days (can only take 1 at a time, not back-to-back, generally no notice required).

The thing that really bugs me the most here is their choice of timing for this little sudden vacation. It shows a total lack of respect to co-workers to play around outside of work when it's a particularly difficult time for the company. That might be worth a firing. There's plenty of people out there looking for work who would be happy to show up.

We must have some real sickly people in this country, the way they hand out these sick days. I think I have 3 months of sick time saved up or something just after a couple of years. I've never used any. I guess it's a nice insurance against major long-term illness, or something, but seriously, anyone who calls in sick more than once in a blue room is taking some "personal time", or they have Lupas or something.

I didn't see the actual facebook posts and again this s most likely what it appears to me, but the post is from a 3rd party, not from one of the accused. You need to first get the story from these guys. For example, the quote posted was "Thanks to A and B for playing hooky and hanging out with me in DC today!". How do we know person A didn't put in 8 hours of work and then go hang out with the friend for an hour in the evening? If they do confess, then you deal with that. If not, then you need to get a full work report from person A and see if they actually did 8 hours of work.

They probably only knew that 1 or 2 people were out of the office. However, they are well aware of the crazy deadlines. And the former is why you let somebody know and they can either say, "OK, that's fine, we're really short-staffed, but if you can get your work done from home before/after that's fine." or, "I'd love to let you take off, but we are just too swamped. I'll make it up to you when all of these crazy deadlines are done."

However, they didnt' give anyone that opportunity. Instead they screwed their manager(s) and their coworkers by potentially leaving us all up a creek.

It was an active thing posted the day of hooky. :) It was posted on a Monday morning. They didn't do it Saturday or Sunday. They are BOTH out sick today. There's really no other conclusion. Especially because of surrounding evidence/etc. I'm sure they will be asked their side of the story, but I doubt it's going to bring a different conclusion about the situation. I didn't bother to post every single detail of every facebook post/IM conversation/whatever because I didn't think the tedium would be necessary.

Ok, that changes things a lot then. I guess I just have a personal bias against sites like facebook and creating from it. Athough I have one and enjoy it on occasion, the importance placed upon things that happen in sites like that bugs me.

And my bias against hearsay/gossip :)

It will be interesting to see if they come clean when confronted. If you could somehow arrange for that meeting to be videotaped and post it here, that would be cool. Thanks.

Safe to say that lordscarlet is C?

:D

Hah. A friend of mine that is FB friends with Z asked which one I was, A or B. :)

I am not C. I think that was a douchebag move by C. I am just the recipient of the humor of awkwardness that comes with the actions by C.

Seriously. Next time, fake names!

And now we have reached 6th grade (or FOFC ;)) levels.

(this is a Facebook post with names changed to protect the immature)

Person B about a month ago i watched Person C pick his nose and then eat the booger when he thought no one was around. didn't tell anyone about that, out of respect.

You guys didn't bet on if he would eat it?