State Employee Skips Work On Friday For 17 Years 39
Officials say retired New York prison food services director Howard Dean had a really hard time waiting for the weekend, so he skipped work on Fridays for 17 years. Dean made sure, however, to include those Friday hours on his time cards. The extra hours and bogus travel expenses netted Dean nearly $500,000, according to officials. From the article: "State Comptroller Thomas DiNapoli and Inspector General Joseph Fisch said their investigation found Howard Dean, 64, of Locke, bilked the state Treasury of about $230,000 by skipping work at the state's Food Production Center in Rome every Friday for 17 years but claiming the hours on his time cards, the New York Post reported Wednesday."
For the love of Cthulu help me (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:There was an even worse case (Score:1, Interesting)
Indeed. At least in this case the guy was at work Monday - Thursday. If he was finishing everything that needed to be done in that frame then there wouldn't have been any cues from a productivity standpoint. If the woman mentioned never was there though, then they literally didn't need her.
Never question the logic of government positions though. Sometimes I think they're there just to give people a job (not always - I'm a government employee myself - just for some positions). Where I'm at we have 1 position that just stretches the imagination. When a clerk takes in a building permit, they send her an email letting her her know that the permit has been received so that she can then send an email to the plans examiners that the permit has been received. Nevermind that all of these people are in the same office at a distance that they could shout back to the plans examiners and they would hear them, but yep, her job is essentially to forward emails - and always to the same people; no routing decisions involved.
When I once suggested that the clerks directly email the plans examiners to simplify the process I was given the "Shut up and leave it alone." look.