[HN Gopher] Woman ordered to repay $2k after her employer used s...
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Woman ordered to repay $2k after her employer used software to
track her time
Author : gnicholas
Score : 66 points
Date : 2023-01-13 20:52 UTC (2 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.npr.org)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.npr.org)
| KMnO4 wrote:
| This seems fine to me. She was paid hourly, which is nonexempt
| work.
|
| If your boss found out you were getting someone to stamp your
| timesheet several hours before you actually came into work every
| day, that would be considered theft as well.
|
| If she were on salary, it would be a different story, because
| exempt workers get paid for the job getting done, not the hours
| it takes.
| EForEndeavour wrote:
| > exempt workers get paid for the job getting done, not the
| hours it takes
|
| A recent full-time contract of mine stated (slight paraphrase)
| "as a fulltime employee, you are required to devote all working
| hours to your position. Your working hours will typically be
| 9:30am-5pm, and you will be required to be reachable and ready
| to work during this time."
| ape4 wrote:
| She's in BC, Canada. I believe "nonexempt" is a US term.
| jdsully wrote:
| There's a similar concept in Canada
| mouse_ wrote:
| Would you go so far as to extend that to mouse jigglers? Seems
| like a whole can of worms to me.
| kelnos wrote:
| I have no problem with the general idea of needing to pay back
| your employer if you lie about the number of hours you've
| worked.
|
| But this pervasive electronic surveillance has to stop. The end
| result of all that is a lot worse than someone getting away
| with 50 hours of paid work they didn't actually do.
|
| Not sure how much "AI" this TimeCamp software uses, if any, but
| it's quite easy to imagine a near-future world where some
| software says you didn't do the work you said you did, and you
| have no recourse, and the method the software uses to determine
| this is proprietary and secret, and no one really can explain
| how or why its AI draws the conclusions it makes anyway.
| jjulius wrote:
| I'll preface this by saying that I largely agree with you.
| But just for shits and giggles, what kind of recourse, if
| any, should an employer of remote-working employees have
| here? If you're required to come into the office, it's pretty
| easy for your employer to tell when you lie about the number
| of hours worked. With remote work, that becomes quite the
| challenge. What's an acceptable stopgap?
| danielheath wrote:
| I mean... they could pay for results instead of hours.
|
| For a WFH desk job without real-time latency requirements,
| an hourly rate makes no sense at all to me.
| richwater wrote:
| I assure you moving to "results based pay" for the type
| of labor that is paid hourly will make their lives _more_
| miserable, not less.
|
| If you think measurement is abusive now, wait till
| everything they do is tracked and monitored to determine
| _results_.
| floren wrote:
| > If you're required to come into the office, it's pretty
| easy for your employer to tell when you lie about the
| number of hours worked.
|
| No, it's easy to tell when you lie about the number of
| hours _spent in the office_.
|
| If the remote-working employees are not performing to the
| level you require (and it seems that this woman was not,
| which is why they turned on the tracking in the first
| place) you can tell them to improve or they're out.
| ryandrake wrote:
| Yea, scary how much we're allowing courts to simply rubber-
| stamp "Computer says you're wrong." If a software is going to
| act as a witness against me in a civil or criminal case, I
| would want to be able to at least cross-examine that
| software. Who knows how crappy and non-functional this
| automatic, blockchain, AI-based time tracking software is?
| wruza wrote:
| At least we'll also have software which can pretend that
| you're working over usb keyboard, mouse and webcam simulator.
| I think this startup will have _a lot_ of monetary potential.
| userbinator wrote:
| _and time spent on her work laptop for personal use -- which,
| both parties agree, her employer allowed during staff 's off-
| hours._
|
| A lot of companies "allow" this, but IMHO it's playing with fire.
| I strongly recommend that people don't use company-owned
| equipment for personal activities, and vice-versa.
| ryanmcbride wrote:
| Yup I refuse to even log into personal accounts on my work
| computer. I've never had any issues with companies prying into
| my life that I'm aware of but I don't even want them to have
| the avenue. I even keep my work laptop on a separate vlan
| because I'm paranoid, and my network setup made it trivial.
| ryandrake wrote:
| Never cross the streams when it comes to personal and work
| devices. Don't log into personal accounts from work
| computer/phone, and vice versa: Don't log into work from your
| personal devices. Keep a strong wall between them.
|
| Wasn't there an article a while back where someone was
| complaining that her employer demanded to examine the
| contents of her work phone but she didn't want to because she
| had nudes on it? Like what on earth would possess you to put
| personal information on a device that is owned and remotely
| managed by your work, let alone nudes?
| mindslight wrote:
| In addition, it seems prudent to make your own time log to deal
| with the possibility that any time tracking surveillance agents
| are mistaken.
|
| If this woman's claims do have any merit, I wouldn't be
| surprised if it's due to something like having some
| entertainment playing while working, and the software wrongly
| attributing that as not working when it's actually solid work
| time.
| ibejoeb wrote:
| "TimeCamp is able to record when and how long employees access
| work-related documents, and to differentiate - based on
| electronic pathway - from when they're on non-work sites"
|
| Electronic pathway you say? Well, guess you've gotta be an
| industry person to know what the hell that is...
| [deleted]
| tedunangst wrote:
| > The dispute began last year when Besse claimed she was fired
| without "just cause."
|
| Not entirely clear, but it sounds like she sued first, and then
| they dug into the time accounting more precisely, and calculated
| the exact discrepancy. Would have been better to walk away.
| MuffinFlavored wrote:
| So to be clear:
|
| 1. She got fired by company, company did not sue her for
| stealing time.
|
| 2. She tried to sue the company that fired her. It failed. She
| was ordered to repay $2k in court fees or because of the stolen
| time?
|
| > Now, a civil tribunal, which is part of Canada's judicial
| system, has ruled that Besse owes her former company $2,756
| after the software installed on her laptop revealed she
| misrepresented over 50 hours at work.
|
| Ah... did she bill by the hour or something? Not salary?
| ygjb wrote:
| It's a small accounting firm in a city with around 25,000
| people. Given the time frame (March 2022) for the termination
| and dispute, it's likely the employee was a contract employee
| hired on the basis of billable hours to assist with extra
| workload during tax season.
| kerpotgh wrote:
| Yep, not salary/exempt. Don't cheat the people you work for
| and then have the gall to be this entitled.
| __derek__ wrote:
| I assume ReachCPA was billing clients for the hours that the
| employee recorded. That could be justification for
| tracking/auditing actual time worked. From the ruling, though,
| the employee sued ReachCPA first, which triggered the
| counterclaim for repayment. Maybe they wouldn't have checked if
| not for the wrongful dismissal claim.
| blitzar wrote:
| Did the firm repay the clients that were overbilled? 2k from her
| pocket probably billed out at 10x that so 20k in client billings.
| Justin_K wrote:
| Where does it say she was 100% billable to clients?
| blitzar wrote:
| Well it didnt, I just assumed that an accountant working at
| an accounting firm probably would be working on client
| accounts. Not much else to do really.
| ape4 wrote:
| She might have a hard time finding a new job
| tsuujin wrote:
| For context: I am a software engineering manager.
|
| If my employees are spending a lot of their time goofing off,
| that's an indication that I'm doing a poor job keeping them
| motivated and is an opportunity to reevaluate what we're doing
| and how.
|
| The idea of weaponizing "time theft" as a first recourse is just
| sickening to me. Your employees are not slaves nor drones, they
| are human beings and you have an obligation to treat them as
| such.
| [deleted]
| [deleted]
| harvey9 wrote:
| This headline needs more context: woman was an accountant who
| put in billable hours that the court decided were not
| legitimate.
| izzydata wrote:
| That does seem like an important piece of information. I
| would be pretty upset if I hired a lawyer and they billed me
| for 100 fake hours.
| krapht wrote:
| Law firms know this, and get around it by delegating
| everything they possibly can to paralegals and junior staff
| while representing much more hands-on involvement by
| senior, experienced staff.
|
| Sorta like software outsourcing, actually.
| nickff wrote:
| It's billing fraud, and a critical part of the film version
| of "The Firm".
| n0tth3dro1ds wrote:
| Never hire a lawyer, then.
| mindslight wrote:
| I hired an attorney once. I reviewed the invoices, the
| hours looked reasonable. Cue 4 months later with him
| saying he had forgotten to generate an invoice from a
| second record in his billing system - it had around 70%
| of additional hours. Between this and that he had been
| apparently ignoring one of my main concerns the whole
| time, only to wring his hands of responsibility when it
| ran aground, that relationship went south real fast.
| colechristensen wrote:
| Was she billing clients hourly or at one of those places that
| requires everybody to track their time down to some very
| small unit?
| Swenrekcah wrote:
| Also it seems it may be (although not clear from the
| information given) that originally she was simply fired for
| cause and not made to pay anything back.
|
| Then she sued for wrongful termination and got that result.
|
| Because the first thing I thought was: What kind of petty
| employer sues for $2000 instead of just letting them go.
| jonas21 wrote:
| Yes, that's correct [1]. It's also worth noting that it was
| handled in small claims court where both parties
| represented themselves.
|
| [1] https://decisions.civilresolutionbc.ca/crt/crtd/en/item
| /5230...
| themitigating wrote:
| That's a huge change in context. My initial assumption was
| that it was just a salaried employee caught not working
| Eumenes wrote:
| > If my employees are spending a lot of their time goofing off,
| that's an indication that I'm doing a poor job keeping them
| motivated and is an opportunity to reevaluate what we're doing
| and how.
|
| Sounds like a good soundbite from a management book or
| something. You don't think there's a possibility that someone,
| idk, doesn't want to work and prefers doing something else?
| I've been guilty of playing video games during the workday and
| its not due to lack of motivation or the manager doing
| something wrong ... I simply want to do something thats not
| work. Not the managers fault.
| commandlinefan wrote:
| > doesn't want to work and prefers doing something else
|
| It's possible, but that's really what the interview process
| is supposed to be for. In programming, this is kind of a
| necessity, because from the outside, deep work looks exactly
| like "loafing". You can't threaten, harass, cajole or
| otherwise motivate somebody to actually mentally focus on
| something the way you could, say, threaten to chop off their
| hands if they stop digging for diamonds. You might want to,
| but even you would eventually have to conclude that it didn't
| work. Ultimately, you have to trust the people responsible
| for doing the work.
| kelnos wrote:
| For US-style exempt/salaried employees, I agree with you. But
| when you're being paid to do a job where you're required to
| record the hours you work (which then go toward billing a
| client for time spent), then it's absolutely not ok to lie
| about the hours you work.
|
| The company in question is an accounting firm; imagine if you
| hired that firm to do your personal taxes, and the person who
| was doing them inflated the number of hours it took, and then
| the firm billed you more than it actually cost them to do the
| work. I know I'd be outraged if that happened. I'd sue them,
| never use them again, and tell everyone I know not to use them.
|
| Or a more apt example, considering your profession: imagine
| you're a software engineering manager at a software consulting
| firm. Your reports do work for a variety of your company's
| clients, and they have to record how much time they spend
| working on each client's work so that the client can be billed
| appropriately. Let's say that your reports are even paid a
| salary, and aren't paid hourly, even though they have to track
| their time. I personally don't think it's ok to bill a client
| for the time someone is doomscrolling Twitter or replying to
| personal email. But I agree with you that it should be fine
| that your people aren't generating billable hours every minute
| of every day. But they have to be honest about that on their
| timesheets.
| ta8645 wrote:
| Isn't this just a more advanced form of punch clock? We can
| quibble about the specifics, but employers tracking their
| employees time is not a new practice.
|
| Not proud of this fact, but my father got caught punching in
| the time clock at the Heinz ketchup factory, and then going
| back home to sleep a few times every week. They were faster to
| catch him because of the clock.
| bitL wrote:
| Imagine punching clock every 10 minutes including a small
| report about what you did in those 10 minutes.
| kelnos wrote:
| Who is saying that anyone should be required to do that,
| though?
|
| Some professions require employees to track time in smaller
| increments than 10 minutes (IIRC most lawyers at firms in
| the US bill in six-minute increments), but that's for the
| purpose of billing that time to the correct client, not as
| a way of micromanaging the employee.
| doubled112 wrote:
| At one job I had, certain departments billed by minute.
|
| Your ticket updates were expected to be to the exact
| minute, and there was a counter at the top to tell you how
| close you were to your 8 hours.
|
| Many starting out would end up needing 10-12h to make that
| 8.
| Apocryphon wrote:
| Take that, John Kerry
| bitL wrote:
| I worked as a VP in a company that tracked everyone in
| 10-minute intervals. Just having this tracking led to some
| managers inhumanely squeezing devs and almost all devs ended up
| burned out after a few years. They went to great lengths to
| reject any time slots where devs showed insufficient intensity
| on their keyboard/mouse or if they spotted anything non-work-
| related on dev desktop screenshots. However, when it came to
| manipulating metrics to look good (even down to a fraud where
| they lowered metrics of their devs they didn't like), it was
| all fine. This culture was enforced by the CEO/COO so there was
| not much I could do about it outside shielding my people and
| then leaving when my bosses went even more insane.
| bagels wrote:
| How did anyone stay there when that was first implemented?
| bitL wrote:
| Competitive salary and remote work.
| m00x wrote:
| You can only do so much as a manager/leader. Some people don't
| want to work and are incredibly lazy.
|
| You can lead a horse to water, but you can't make it drink.
|
| Also, it wasn't their first recourse. They fired her, but then
| she sued and they took their documentation to court and
| counter-sued. It was factually their last recourse.
| bbarn wrote:
| It must be a much more straight forward process in Canada for
| small business. In the US, I have worked for a company sued
| twice for people claiming unpaid wages. I personally knew
| both to be fraudulent, and retaliatory for letting the person
| go. The company I was with always just settled for the
| claimed amount if it was a couple thousand dollars because it
| was easier and cheaper than fighting it in court.
| psymon101 wrote:
| This! A pet-peeve of mine is when a vendor refers to someone as
| a "Resource". "One of our team members can help you with X" at
| least refers to a person than a person as an object or a
| thing...
|
| Employers must forget the 40 hour week as a measure of
| someone's productivity and instead set goals to be achieved.
|
| Manage/Treat people like people,be kind, but firm, if you can't
| trust someone in your team, you hired wrong or you have trust
| issues yourself. Its not rocket science, no matter how much BS
| the Simon Sinek`s of the world spout out.
| blitzar wrote:
| I will have my lackey deal with your complaint.
| prepend wrote:
| I don't have a set of clear goals and objectives. I have a
| very broad problem area and my job is "make this better." And
| I'm salaried so I spend about 40-60 hours per week in this
| area. I think my employer trusts me quite a bit.
|
| For task based jobs by all means figure out a cost and bill
| by the item. Some professionals do this. I paid my accountant
| $600 and didn't care how long it took her.
| 0cf8612b2e1e wrote:
| > A pet-peeve of mine is when a vendor refers to someone as a
| "Resource".
|
| Someone should notify HR about this injustice.
| dylan604 wrote:
| Do you contact HR when HR offends you?
| m00x wrote:
| I was SA'd by the VP of HR at a previous company. I asked
| around, and apparently there is no one that can report
| that to except for HR, so in several companies HR can do
| anything they want.
| ilyt wrote:
| Software houses need to bill client for _something_ and
| usually that is just number_of_hours * rate, where is the
| push for "accurate" reporting comes from.
| librish wrote:
| Do you not expect a certain level of professionalism?
| [deleted]
| srcreigh wrote:
| I like this philosophy a lot! Would you mind reaching out to
| me? Email in the profile
| [deleted]
| watwut wrote:
| I know a guy who was consistently slacking in all teams where
| he worked and I know of. In multiple companies he done nothing.
|
| I don't think all his managers and leads were bad.
| 0cf8612b2e1e wrote:
| If an employee is not contributing, yet is retained, that is
| bad management. If nothing else, it makes the productive
| workers annoyed to see someone coasting.
| chrisfosterelli wrote:
| But this employee wasn't retained?
| hparadiz wrote:
| Not all work is done on a computer even when you're an IC. Time
| tracking programs like this misrepresent the actual time spent in
| favor of the employer. It is wage theft.
| kelnos wrote:
| I mean, a) she admitted she lied, b) the software tracked
| printed documents, and the (relatively small) amount she
| printed could not have accounted for the extra time. In this
| particular line of work, pretty much all billable hours should
| have been on the computer, or should have been accounted for in
| printed documents.
|
| I am right with you on the general theme of employer abuses and
| wage theft, but it doesn't seem like this was one of those
| cases.
|
| I'm more concerned about the normalization of electronic
| surveillance.
| ilyt wrote:
| I wonder how software like that registers say working in app with
| video playing on second screen.
|
| There are cases for both "they are clearly slacking and watching
| some show instead of working" and "it just acts like background
| noise, no different from running a TV in same room"
| acomjean wrote:
| Two people at my old company got fired for time theft. though in
| that case the story was it was one person using the others badge
| to make it look like they both went in for overtime when only one
| showed up. They'd alternate doing this.
|
| Timecards where serious business where I worked as they billed
| based on them. Though to be fair they never monitored us once we
| were at work. I don't think they even checked our badge in/out
| times vs our timecards, which we manually entered. I remember the
| "we have a gym, we want you healthy, but you use the gym on your
| own time" email.
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