Coworker Abuse
Coworker Abuse
(OP)
I need some advice....
Recently a co-worker has started their own company and uses company resources and time not to mention 2 hour lunches to go to the clients offices to resolve support issue. They are on the phone 3-5 times a day taking cell phone calls, emails remote help.
What is the ethical thing to do, I have a good relationship with this person but I diasgree with what they are doing and how others see their use of time. On the other hand I dont want to be black balled.
Middle Managment has an idea, but it has been months and nothing has been done...
Am I being to sensitive, what would you do? I am really torn here.
Recently a co-worker has started their own company and uses company resources and time not to mention 2 hour lunches to go to the clients offices to resolve support issue. They are on the phone 3-5 times a day taking cell phone calls, emails remote help.
What is the ethical thing to do, I have a good relationship with this person but I diasgree with what they are doing and how others see their use of time. On the other hand I dont want to be black balled.
Middle Managment has an idea, but it has been months and nothing has been done...
Am I being to sensitive, what would you do? I am really torn here.





RE: Coworker Abuse
At least - dont do anything without talking to the person privately first! He may have some arrangement that you dont know about? At least he needs a fair warning. And also you will have to think about why this bothers you. Is it because it makes your job more difficult and so on...
Best regards
Morten
RE: Coworker Abuse
Quite simply, the person is taking time and money from the company who in good faith pays that person the hours they are "working".
Unless that person has obtained permission from the owner(s), they are stealing.
If you are uncomfortable with what is happening and I personally commend you for that, don't waste your time with middle managers. They are a motley crew at best and have their own agendas. Make sure your facts are bullet proof and go directly to the owner or the owners representitive.
RE: Coworker Abuse
It is stealing of things that are more valuable than pens and paper clips. Time is worth a lot more than the average office supplies and the lost opportunity time is worth more than the person is paid for it.
Remember we are in an industry where a normal charge out rate is 2 to 2.5 times total salary costs. A person making $80,000 per year or $40 per hour can steal $100 per hour talking on the phone.
That’s one of the big reasons why I am against people taking work on the side. They take a quick call or two and end up stealing hundreds if not thousands of dollars of time from their employer.
Rick Kitson MBA P.Eng
Construction Project Management
From conception to completion
www.kitsonengineering.com
RE: Coworker Abuse
I have known engineers who worked for a contractor and did part time work. The part time work brought in construction projects.
I have worked with people wo belonged to a volenteer medical emergency team. When there were disasters in the world they spent time on the phone coordinating activites and material. They cost the company money but the company was supportive.
IF they let him do it, find out why.
RE: Coworker Abuse
If you decide to bring up the issue with anyone, be prepared to explain how you have time to watch and listen to your co-worker all day if you are doing your own work.
I'm not asserting that your co-worker's behavior is ethical, or that you are not ethically bound to report it; I'm reminding you that messengers are often terminated.
Mike Halloran
Pembroke Pines, FL, USA
RE: Coworker Abuse
RE: Coworker Abuse
Exactly how you should handle this is somewhat dependent on how your company works and operates, but here's what I would do:
Politely confront your colleague about the behavior you've noticed and remind (or inform) him that his actions are unethical. This will give him a chance to correct the behavior or to defend it, on the off chance that he does have an arrangement with your employer.
If the behavior is not satisfactorily defended and does not change, you have an obligation to report it to your management. Your management then has an ethical responsibility to do something about it. If nothing is done, I would go higher up the chain or to your company's ethics department, if they have one (most large companies do).
Good luck.
RE: Coworker Abuse
How do you know that Middle Management "has an idea"? Have you spoken with them about it? I would only inform them if, after speaking with your co-worker, his/her activities continued.
If you have done the above two things, your ethical requirements have been met ... even if nothing is done to curtail your co-workers activities. Anything beyond that is simply asking for trouble for yourself.
I do not agree with taking it further than your immediate supervisors. If you go over their heads, you risk getting them in trouble, which would of course come back on you.
Helpful SW websites FAQ559-520
How to get answers to your SW questions FAQ559-1091
RE: Coworker Abuse
Running up to upper management and complaining, I think, would be a mistake. This is not something that upper management should be handling unless your supervisor is at fault. In any case, saying something to your co-worker or upper management would do more harm to you, than good. If they don't know, they will soon enough. I would consider talking to my supervisor about it, without being negative.
RE: Coworker Abuse
RE: Coworker Abuse
Joke around about it. If you make a joke about it and the boss overhears then you are not snitching.
Ask the boss if the guy is working on a secret project because he spends a lot of time on the phone discussing <insert topic> and ask if you can take on some of the load to help.
If you can somehow work things so that the boss “discovers” the guy doing the outside tasks then you are out of it as well. (Have the receptionist transfer a call from an outside client to the boss by mistake?)
Rick Kitson MBA P.Eng
Construction Project Management
From conception to completion
www.kitsonengineering.com
RE: Coworker Abuse
If it is unbearable to you, leave.
"In Rome, be Roman"
RE: Coworker Abuse
If you are his good friend, and you believe that he also considers you to be his good friend, then you can probably have a talk with him on a one-to-one basis and warn him.
Otherwise, if I were you, I will just keep quiet. If it becomes unbearable to continue, get transferred to another department.
HVAC68
RE: Coworker Abuse
I used to work for a very well known large E&C company back in '94. I could never figure out why my boss's boss was so against technology.
This all happened before my time.
Turns out he hired a middle manager who in turn hired a R&D guy. So middle manager and R&D guy were real hush hush about the project he was working on. 9 months later R&D guy leaves and two weeks later middle manager guy leaves. Couple of months after that those two guys had their own company set up across the street and were marketing there own engineering software.
Well needless to say the lawsuits started flying and the whole thing ended up costing everybody a whole lot of money.
I left this pretty vague because I don't know exactly how much is true and didn't want to accuse anybody of anything because the names are well know now in the industry now.
Moral of the story is if you don't know all the parties involved, it might be best to seperate yourself as far as possible from the whole situation.
Cadnutcase
RE: Coworker Abuse
I don't agree with your "moral of the story."
To me, the moral of your story, as it applies to this thread, is that things could have been a lot different if someone would have done something after noticing suspicious behavior (assuming that someone did notice what was going on).
Also, stealing information from your employer to start your own company is a bit different than conducting personal business on your employer's time.
Haf
RE: Coworker Abuse
To you second point, both individuals are stealing time from there employer in my case and troubled1's case.
Sometimes time is worth a lot more than physical items.
In troubled1's case, the employee has his own business that he is using company time on to promote.
As far as your first point is concerned, in this case I was told that nobody noticed what was going on. How many times does anyone outside an R&D department know any key details on what's going on inside it. I know at my current company our R&D guys are very hush hush on what they are working on for obvious reasons.
Cadnutcase
RE: Coworker Abuse
RE: Coworker Abuse
I am going to assume that what was written is indeed accurate.
Extract 1) Recently a co-worker has started their own company.
Note, the co-worker is not thinking about starting it, this is a done deal thus the co-worker is committed to the success of the new business. Anyone out there who actually have started their own business will know the degree of committment needed to grow that business. Frankly in this instance, a nice cozy chat is going to achieve very little. Just like an accountant with a gambling addiction it already is virtually out of the person's control to act in the host company's interest.
Extract 2) Middle management has an idea but it has been months and nothing has been done....
My take on that is middle management is stupid -it does not know what is going on-, weak -it does know what is going on so just fence sits-, or maybe are even themselves involved. If any are correct, the company does not need that individual either.
Extract 3) How others see their use of time.
Others see a parasitic co-worker being rewarded by a company. A Bad, Bad message.
In my post dated 5 Jan 06 I said, "make sure your facts are bullet proof"
because, if troubled worked in my company and came to me and his information was found to be correct he would probably get a raise and or promotion. The co-worker would be fired immediately for mis-conduct and the middle manager would have some heavy explaining to do to justify the lack of action, otherwise no job either.
RE: Coworker Abuse
RE: Coworker Abuse
Man cannot serve two masters.
Rick Kitson MBA P.Eng
Construction Project Management
From conception to completion
www.kitsonengineering.com
RE: Coworker Abuse
To me this whole thread is about discussing situations where all the facts are unknown. Since we don't have all the facts we are playing "what If", the second most popular indoor sport in the world.
As to moonlighting I don't know about Canada but here you can't interfere with what people do on there own time unless you can prove it's hurting your business. If they show up and fall asleep at their desk you can lay them off. If the cause is they are working the late shift at MickyDs or have a sick kid is irrelavant.
If there doing engineering and your an engineering firm that may be different. They would have to be using your clients and or marketing information for it to be thieft. If one of your employees was doing work on Saturdays for a clinet you never heard of and never would have got work from that's not thieft and it shouldn't be be a problem.
Back to Troubled1 original problem. We don't have the facts. Playing "what If" can lead to a range of posible situations from: 1.) The guy is cheating and should be fired. ---- to ---12.) The guy has videos of the company owner and his girlfriend checking in at a Motel. The other 10 can be anything we imagine.
Do you forbid employees to moonlight? Firms here use to have blanket policies against it but the courts have ruled against them. Has there ever been a thead on Moonlighting?
Worse than engineers playing "what if" is engineers playing "lawyers"
RE: Coworker Abuse
"Recently a co-worker has started their own company and uses company resources and time"
If this is true and we can only assume that the facts are as stated then it is a clear case of stealing company resources, justifiable grounds for immediate dismissal up here, don't know about down there but I would be surprised if its not firing grounds since US employees tend to have less protection than Canadian employees.
Rick Kitson MBA P.Eng
Construction Project Management
From conception to completion
www.kitsonengineering.com
RE: Coworker Abuse