Do You Watch Porn at Work?

If your answer to that question is "yes", you probably work for the federal government. If your answer is "yes, but the OIG has been seriously cramping my style", you work for the EPA. The Office of Inspector General (OIG) recently completed an investigation into what has been going on at the EPA in the wake of John Beale bilking the taxpayers of nearly $1,000,000 in pay and bonuses (that story is all kinds of ridiculous if you're not familiar with it), and their findings are insane. Let's start with the "ugly" from the OIG's report:

First, the OIG investigated an allegation of serious employee misconduct by an EPA senior executive alleged to have been directly involved in approving fraudulent time-and-attendance records and travel vouchers for Mr. Beale. Our investigation indicated that the senior executive approved, or authorized the approval of, fraudulent time-and-attendance records and travel vouchers for Mr. Beale from 2000 through 2010. Our investigation was able to substantiate that this senior executive did not exercise due diligence with respect to the authorization and approval of Mr. Beale’s time-and-attendance records, travel authorizations and travel vouchers.

The senior executive allowed Mr. Beale to carry out—unchecked—extensive time-and-attendance and travel voucher fraud. The investigation also revealed that the senior executive did not exercise due diligence, in part because she believed, she said, that Mr. Beale worked for the Central Intelligence Agency.

Wow. Okay, so, maybe this particular senior executive was particularly gullible. Maybe the spectre of CIA involvement sufficiently freaked her out after watching the Bourne series a few too many times. Personally, I'd feel better if this were an isolated incident, but as you all can surely guess, it's not:

[A]nother EPA manager allowed an employee to stay at home and not report for duty for several years. Based on a long-standing arrangement with the employee (which allegedly began as an accommodation to work at home due to a medical condition), this EPA manager not only entered fraudulent time-and-attendance records for the absent employee but also approved the same fraudulent records. It is estimated that the manager’s approval of fraudulent time-and-attendance records cost the government more than $500,000. Even more egregious is that this EPA manager authored and approved exemplary performance appraisals that resulted in a cash award for the absent employee.

How did your bonus look this year? If you showed up, this person has you beat. Amazing, right? Now, the report doesn't mention this person's work product. Perhaps they were nominally productive, allowing for a little spat of denial from the manager. We all have friends who work from home and they manage to get things done - it's not completely out of the question. Well, as it turns out, that wasn't exactly the case:

During the same investigation, the OIG also found evidence that implicated a senior executive. This senior executive, who was the absent employee’s prior supervisor, remained aware that the employee had been teleworking for more than 20 years with very little substantive work product to show during this time.

Pretty egrigious, right? So, just like in the actual report, I've provided you with the "ugly" first. Now, let's take a look at the "bad":

One such investigation involves a career EPA employee who allegedly stored pornographic materials on an EPA network server shared by colleagues. When an OIG special agent arrived at this employee’s work space to conduct an interview, the special agent witnessed the employee actively viewing pornography on his government-issued computer. Subsequently, the employee confessed to spending, on average, between two and six hours per day viewing pornography while at work. The OIG’s investigation determined that the employee downloaded and viewed more than 7,000 pornographic files during duty hours.

After hearing about all the people who aren't even showing up for work but are drawing a salary, you might be tempted to say, "well, at least the guy is putting in a couple hours a day of work inbetween fap sessions." Doing work > not doing work, right? Well, funny thing, guess who is getting prosecuted? Porno guy.

So, fellow monkeys, what do you think about all this? Did you pick the wrong employer? How many hours of porn could you watch before you got fired? Me, probably 0.000001 hours.