How Wasting Time At Work Could Cost You
By Amy E. Feldman
PHILADELPHIA (CBS) - A maintenance supervisor in Baltimore brought in porn DVDs and watched them on the city-issued computer incessantly, averaging 39 hours of porn viewing every two weeks. After he was terminated, his boss said it didn't matter whether it was watching porn or Sports Center, he was still wasting time.
Other than the punishment his wife will dole out when she finds out it wasn't for watching Sports Center, could his boss have punished him by docking his pay for the time he wasted? The answer is no.
A salaried exempt worker who isn't party to a collective bargaining agreement doesn't get paid overtime if he works more than 40 hours in a week; the flip side is his boss can't dock him an hour here or an hour there for goofing off. That said, a boss can reduce his salary going forward for subpar performance or fire him so the lesson is that the boss has to pay attention.
If a guy minimizes his screen every time someone walks by you should ask: "Hey, watcha looking at?" Because that's pay the company won't get back if the answer, whether for sports, porn, or anything other than work is "uh, nothing".
