Judge: Web-Surfing Worker Can't Be Fired

who cares? unless people are downloading 4Gig DVD rips, the bandwidth charges are just a cost of doing business. especially in this case - it was a government agency. Cost wasn't an issue - they were just trying to micro-manage their workers and make them work every second of their day. No one will function well in that environment - you have to have at least half an hour a day to clear your mind for a little bit.

If he was on an official break fine.. most states have laws for breaks as well as lunch.
If you are on my clock you had better be working and not playing on myspace.
I agree that people cant work 24/7 but work isnt a place to read the news, shop online or gossip on the phone. It is a huge problem with america, their lack of work ethics.
AS for the sate i would filter every single spot on the net except places the workers needed to be(they can go where they want on their break on their equipment).. and i f there was some situation where they had to be somewhere that is normally forbidden, then i will have the IT guys temporarily open it up.
Plus in this country you really shouldnt have to have a reason to fire someone.. i know people will come up with all kinds of rare situations where this is wrong and i am not an owner i am a worker but there is unemplyement insurance for the unethical firings. When i was young i collected UE when my boss fired me for not picking up his sons shift when his son decide at last minute he wanted to party. It really sucked having to look for a new job. I was glad that UE was arround so i wouldnt starve while looking for a job. But i support my old bosses decsion to be an idiot and a jerk, to fire someone who actually did his job in support of a son who did not.

The only problem with your arguement is that, to the best of my knowledge, Americans work more hours with less vacation time than virtually any other 1st world country.

powercow.... i think you'd find that if you were an employer you'd have disgruntled employees who were looking for work elsewhere. AND you'd be paying more than you really needed to in IT costs.

There's a lot to be said for trusting your employees.

The only problem with your arguement is that, to the best of my knowledge, Americans work more hours with less vacation time than virtually any other 1st world country.

thank you! i have what many would consider a great job and i only get 2 weeks of vacation per year.

we've become delusional in this country when it comes to our jobs -- it seems that most people live to work and not the other way around. we take 30 minute lunches, work unpaid overtime, and take work home on the weekends and you still have @!$%# managers like the one in the story who think we could be working *more*. i mean, where is the limit?

the ultimate irony is that we're working our asses off so that a tiny percentage of the population can continue to accrue more and more wealth.

That's why I do my job *well*, but not as well as I could.

I'm lucky to have a job where my every action is measurable, and daily goals are well known.

Without batting an eye, I can accomplish more than twice what I need to in a day. However, once I realized that doing twice the work I was getting paid to do wasn't getting me any better raise than average Joe, I decided I needed a change.

Now, I can accomplish everything that must be done, and then some, in the 8 hours I work, despite spending a good deal of time on the internet.

Naturally, my employers would be loathe to agree with such a thing, so I've declined to keep them apprised of the situation. In the end, we both benefit. I get to relax, and not get stressed out at work, they continue to get work from me which is above and beyond what I agreed to do when hired.

It amazes me that so few companies out there would be willing to employ people *honestly* under such terms. It's a shame I cannot explain this philosophy to my boss.

while you may be right - this guy was repeatedly warned to not surf the internet. He wasn't told he couldn't do other things to clear his head or that he couldn't take breaks. Just that he couln't use the net for personal reasons. He blatantly ignored the repeated warnings.

When can someone be fired in this country? A job isn't a right (though I'm sure we would all like it to be). If you are told not to do something, and you do it anyway, doesn't that degrade the amount of trust the supervisor can have in you?

How many "second chances" does a guy get to stop breaking the rules?

and when can a supervisor be fired for horrible management skills? it seems we always go after people in thankless jobs with terrible pay while multi-million-dollar CEOs cost through life not really doing much of anything. if you honestly believe that most managers work hard every second of the day and don't surf the internet more than *anyone* in the office, you are seriously diluted.

jesus - people aren't robots - they'll work harder for you if you create a workplace environment with realistic expectations and mutual respect.

Wow, when did I take the managers side? I didn't. I did however, ask a question. How many warnings does someone need to get for violating a company policy before they can be fired?

If the manager is surfing the net for personal reasons, and it is a clear violation of company policy, and he was warned, as this guy was, I wouldn't see anything wrong with firing him either.

I don't think corrupt or ineffective CEO's should be let off the hook either. But this article isn't about them - it is about a guy who repeatedly violated a company policy after being repeatedly told not too.

Personally, I prefer a laissez faire/nonmicromanagement management style. And I have been on both sides of the equation, as a worker and as a manager.

The way I see it is that in a lot of jobs(especially those where you are sitting in front of a computer with net access), you are paying people for their mind, and not their time. What is important is that the workers get the things done that you and they commit to. How it gets done does not matter, as long as it gets done. A smart manager knows this. A stupid manager burns people out and then ends up spending more to train new employees when the old one quits.

In my work as a designer I have spent hours banging my head against the screen, coming up with nothing. Conversely, I have laid down on the couch for half an hour and come up with things that those hours could not produce. That is how I was able to produce value. Everyone has different ways.

It's all about meeting goals.

Of course, there would be an exception for certain types of shift jobs, such as flipping burgers, but I don't think that is what we are talking about here.

I agree with Hexodus' point about being hired for one's mind, not one's time. Happily, the job I work feels that way, too -- hence my commenting on Newsvine in the middle of the work day.:) But, I think that this case only went to court because this guy is a civil service employee. My guess is that a private enterprise employee would never have gotten his case as far as a judge. As much as I dislike the idea, there are no implied employment contracts in the US and we all work at the will of the employer. (My European friends are usually astonished when I tell them that.)

Yes. Let the punishment fit the crime. The increased cost of Internet access by his action might be minimal or none but he is being paid to work and not surf. Reprimand the joker if he ignores your instructions to stop surfing. If the employee's performance suffers because he/she is spending time surfing instead of working then they get a warning, reprimand, followed by a write-up, etc, etc. then termination because of poor performance or conduct. If the Dept of Education evaluates their employees by the "appearance" of work rather than accomplishments then the employee's job is at jeopardy. Mr. Choudhri should have know after 14 years if his job was to be a drone in the department. Having a bad supervisor or a poorly defined position does not excuse one for bad work habits. His supervisor should have terminated him due to poor performance or repeatedly ignoring instructions, instead of "surfing the web". You fire someone for being a bad employee or insubordination and not for talking over the phone (replace with reading newspaper, shopping online or eBaying).

I let my staff surf (and I myself do) if they can get their job done, objectives met, etc. but no Porn or downloading warez, illegal content, as that endangers the company and falls under the category of "causing harm to the company or image of". If someone hires you to remove staples from papers, well that is your job, deal with it or quit. If you cannot find another job then you have to bear with it and "appear" to work rather than find an outlet in surfing (or playing Solitaire).

I would not defend the employee if he ignored warnings and I think the supervisor should have issued several reprimands before firing him. Poor supervisor and employee training. I bet his supervisors also surf on department time but they are too smart to be caught or there is no supervisor of drone supervisors.

My point isn't really in regard to surfing the net though. It could be about anything that the company has a policy against.

Lets say he arrived at work 15 minutes late every day. The manager talked to him about it, warned him, then did it again, and again.. Finally, at some point, they fired him for constantly being late.

It's only 15 minutes each day - but, clearly, this ficticious guy would be showing a lack of concern for company policy, his managers directives, and s generally being disrespectful. (This is based on the assumption the guy doesn't have a very valid reason for needing to arrive 15 minutes late each day and that he has presented his otherwise less than valid reason to his manager during one of his many warnings).

At a certain point the company should be able to fire the guy.

NO they should be able to fire at any point for no reason at all.. We have unemployement INS for that.
Only exceptions are race and revenge. We are not a socialistic society and you dont have a right to your job.

Of course gov jobs have different rules and is one reason they are sooo popular as it is hard to get fired.

i guess it's just a difference of opinions regarding management style.

if the quality and volume of employee work stays the same, who in their right mind would care what they're doing in their (inevitable) downtime? if you're into the neurotic, hands-on approach, have at it - you'll just have higher employee turn-over, zero positive word-of-mouth recruitment and disgruntled workers.

very few great ideas have come from the shadow of time cards and micromanagement.

There are a number of ways to reduce network maintenance costs that don't restrict employee interactions with the internet; from browser choice to anti-virus, anti-spyware or multifunctional security-wares, to computer choice.

Should an employee be viewing porn at work? No! But should an employee have the right to check out the news, check their non-work email, or order that present from Amazon for their friends birthday? I say, 'Yes!' If businesses want people to give up more of their free time for work, then they need to accommodate those life issues that would more naturally occur during the free time employees are giving up.

Filters, firewalls, a good anti-virus and anti-spyware app, combined with a basic policy of removing Internet Explorer from the desktop would most likely reduce associated network costs by 50-60%; and allow the IT staff to focus on issues that are related to growing the business, rather than treading water; and still allow her to keep her employees happy (assuming that they are in the first place).

Remind me not to work for people like you, wherever you are. :)

You are assuming that all government workers are hourly employees in which case it might be wasting tax dollars, but many government employees are salaried employees and they are hired to do specific jobs. If they are achieving said jobs or objectives and have spare time, what's the harm? For instance, state employee 'A' works for the State Health Department handling requests and applications for official documents like Birth Certificates and Marriage Licenses. Employee 'A' is a salaried employee hired to perform said functions. As a taxpayer, I have the expectation that employee 'A' will achieve those functions at a satisfactory and competent level. Employee 'A' does this and has some time to spare. Should I then be upset at how that spare time is spent? Remember, employee 'A' is not an hourly employee so they are being paid to be in their office 8 hours each day, Monday through Friday regardless of whether there is any real work to do.

My point is that employee 'A' was hired and is paid to perform a specific task, which he/she does, so why should it upset me that he/she chooses to surf the web when there are no task for him/her to accomplish?

you're also assuming he's doing it during work time - he might be doing it during lunch or break time. (which is when i surf) ;)

I assume nothing. I looked at the logs on my site. The IP reveals the organizations and the times of their visits, and having dealt with them extensively I know that the employees are both paid hourly and not on their break times. They have two 15 minute breaks and one half hour lunch as the total amount of break time in their work day. In one day, they were on my site for five hours straight. Not just on it, but checking every post, every comment, everything.

As to why you should be upset... well... if you don't mind paying other people to surf blogs when they should be working, that's fine. I have a large problem with paying people to be lazy. I'm of the mindset that if you're at work, you should work. Surfing, online banking, all that other online personal stuff should be done at home, on your own time.

No offense Wontar, but maybe they are working while visiting your site. I don't know what's on your blog, and maybe you deem it unimportant, but I've seen how some government offices work, and sometimes, an off the cuff comment can attract the attention of one person, who then uses it as an example, and all of a sudden everyone in the office is checking out a single website, and exploring the links, etc. tied to it.

It happens with educational and nonprofit organizations, as well as corporations. So just because your getting hits from a single or multiple governmental IPs doesn't mean that the individuals viewing your website, aren't in someway doing their job (especially if your getting hits of depth vs casual hits). That said, even if they weren't doing their job, and just browsing the web or have your site on their bookmark list—it's nothing to be offended by.

But the fact is, as with most of the visitors to a blog, you probably don't have a good idea why they are there. I've pointed some of my clients—numerous nonprofit, education, and government organizations/offices to a number of different websites overtime. Pointing out things like—see how this guy/gal writes, look at the website design, look at the color scheme, see what type of comments certain types of writing get, etc., etc. The people who visit the sites I've mentioned aren't being lazy, they are collecting information that will hopefully make them better at their job; as well as often provide me with insight about their information distribution needs without getting into a lot of technical mumble jumbo.

That's what I said at the end of one of my earlier comments :) Oh, the irony of it!

Oh yeah? Well I said it at the beginning of one of my comments! So there! :)

i am! (i'm at lunch) :)

touche, evano! You got me beat!

BRILLIANT! -Guinness commercial duo

What are EEs?

Short for employees.

Two words: Civil Service

I agree with FDBryant. The rules are there, the company followed them in reprimanding him several times, he chose to break them again, now he should have to suffer the consequences. He isn't being fired just for using the 'net - he is being fired for using the 'net and his attitude that the rules don't apply to him. Well he was going to be fired.

Two letters: BS

My point is not that the judge is right in his decision; my point is that this is a very specific situation which would not occur in a private enterprise. As long as the reasons for firing are not related to harassment, race, age, sex or whatever classes are protected in a particular location, then a private employer can fire anyone at any time and it's never going to get to court.

This guy was a civil servant. He is protected by the civil servant's union as well as the very strict and statutory civil service rules of the State of New York. There are papers to file, commissions to appear before, remediation, transfers, and arbitration. Firings can take months, and an unfilled blank on a form is going to set the clock back to start.

If you are a civil servant and you shoot someone from management dead in the office, during working hours, when you are not officially on break, you may be fired, but only if your union rep is new and inexperienced, and you will probably still get your pension anyway. If you shoot a co-worker, then it's different because you are both union members and the union must keep solidarity within its ranks. You and your dead colleague will probably both get a reprimand inserted in your personnel files and you may find that neither of you are invited to go when the boss takes the rest of the office out to lunch at Christmastime on his dime.

Civil Service is a different world. Ascribing any relevance from this case to the world of private enterprise is foolish.