What Could Doing Personal Work on the Company Clock Do to Your Clearance

This is Sean Bigley and Lindy Kyzer of ClearanceJobs.com. We’re talking this segment about the limit for personal business on the clock and particularly where it is. So Lindy, I know you’ve worked in the private sector. I’ve worked in the private sector, you’ve worked in the government. I’ve worked in the government, so I feel like we both have pretty similar backgrounds here in terms of figuring out which employers have which issues and how the government looks at things like this. Also, we see a lot of cases on ClearanceJobs where people write in and they have concern about getting caught doing something. I’m worried my employer’s going to catch me or I’m worried that I did this and it’s going to come back to bite me. Are there any stories, first of all that you can recall where that was somebody’s specific concern? And then secondly, which in your sense is more strict, I guess, employers in the private sector or employers in the government sector about where that line is?

Yeah. Well, I mean, this is old school days. Going back to my days in the government, we used to have people who watched when we walked in the office office when we left, we had a lady sitting in the front desk and if you took an hour long lunch, she would note it and she would make sure you worked the extra 30 minutes. Now I laugh and laugh if you tried to do that. I mean, if you’re in a government office and you still have a lady like that who sits and watches your office, please call us. Let us know. Send me an email because I would love to hear that this still happens. Now I’m appalled. I mean, I think we just live in a different candidate’s market. There’s more in the individual’s control. I just cannot imagine that level of scrutiny of the difference between personal and professional, and you’re going to get docked for how long of a lunch break you take.

(02:12)
But we have seen, I mean, it’s gotten really squishy post-COVID, Sean, a little messy, and I did say my prediction at the beginning was like you’re going to start to see some misuse of IT systems like security clearance denials. I don’t know if that has become true yet, but I have seen a few more questions about folks saying, oh, crap. I realized I was on my government device and I looked at something that I shouldn’t have. People who are like, oh, the pornography from a government device. A few of those have come up. That always makes me cringe, but just people, things are just a lot more fluid in the back and forth, and a lot of it comes down to, like you said, browser history. What am I doing? What am I searching? What am I looking at on my government computer? It’s less, people aren’t really worried about their eBay or Amazon shopping, although maybe they should be from a phishing perspective, but they are worried about other things.

Yeah. Well, so I’ll tell you why I asked the question out of curiosity about which you thought was more strict. I’ve kind of seen both do weird things and they each have different motivations. Obviously the government doesn’t have the profit motive that the private sector has, but the government has, to your point, more security stringent requirements, things like that where they’re more concerned about, okay, are you doing something that’s going to infect our IT systems or create a security problem, physical security, personnel, security, whatever. The contractors are more concerned about, okay, our profit bottom line, are we potentially going to get nailed for overbilling, the government fraud where we’re saying that you worked on something but you were actually doing something else. They each kind of have these differing motivators. But at the end of the day, I’ve seen problems, ironically more I think on the government side than I have on the contractor side.

(03:58)
I’ve seen cases certainly of billing fraud and things like that, but I would’ve assumed prior to practicing law in this area that problems would arise more on the private sector side because you have that overarching profit motivator, and if you’re paying somebody who’s not sitting in their desk, you’re wondering, okay, what are they doing? In my experience, typically more been the government where we see people who are getting nailed for not appropriately filling out their timecard, taking time off that they weren’t entitled to take off, going to the gym for three hours in the middle of the day and getting caught. The list goes on and on and on, not including obviously the IT issues, looking at pornography and things like that on government devices, which by the way, that astounds me. How many people do that not only on government devices, but at work?

(04:44)
The question becomes, I think, well, okay, so can I do anything that’s personal while I’m on the clock or I’m there, I’m on the government’s dime or I’m on my contractor’s dime and I’m working every minute minus my lunch break for the contractor, and I like your term squishy. I mean, that’s a little bit of a gray area. And so I think that’s kind of why we brought this topic up because more and more we’re seeing with hybrid work, remote work, a blurring of that line of what can you do? Can I go pick up my dry cleaning at 10 o’clock in the morning because I have 15 minutes between conference calls? I’m curious if you were to put on your imaginary HR hat for a minute, what would you tell employees or do you see employers telling employees about this issue?

Well, I mean, this is where understanding your employer and your employment lane is super important. I do think whether you’re a government employee or a contractor or a contractor working on overhead is all going to make a difference. I think a lot of the government contractors have gotten really good at the issue with timecard fraud, and they will nail you on that. The government will, your employer will, that will have employment repercussions, and we have seen that. I think it’s just being reasonable. If you are billable to specific customer, you better be delivering on those billables. And if you are doing that and you’re producing your work product, then you’re not going to be checking out if you happened to go pick something up or if you made a Target run in the middle of the day or did something else if your work product is getting completed.

(06:17)
But if you’re not, it’s getting out of control. That’s a broader issue. Just being honest on what you’re actually billing to a customer is super important. As a former government employee, I mean, this is the laughable part of it, just because you’re there does not mean you’re working. So I feel like there has been a positive shift in the sense of what are you actually delivering? I’m a huge fan of the results oriented work environment. That’s like what I have had from the ground floor at ClearanceJobs. I could not work any other way anymore. If somebody was on my case about what hours I worked, I would really tell ’em to pop smoke. I’d be like, I would be ride or die at this point. Do not get out. If the lady was telling me when I could take my lunch at this point in my career, we would be in trouble. But also, again, just knowing what are the requirements? If you were a contractor, time card fraud will get, you don’t mess with that. And if you’re a government employee knowing what hours you work, you are paid for that. So knowing that it does matter, and then if you’re like me and you just do what you want, you better be showing up with some results.

Yeah, I mean that is the kind of funny irony is just because you are sitting there, you could sit there and stare at the wall all day and it doesn’t mean anything’s getting done. And yet historically, that is how the government has measured productivity or measured performance, if you will. They’re there. Okay, well, they must be doing their work. I mean, in a weird way, I think as much as some bosses and some industries have pushed back on this move to remote work and hybrid work and things like that, that took hold during COVID and seemingly is here to stay to some extent. I mean, I do think that the irony is in some respects, it’s easier to measure employee productivity because you have a different metric. Whereas if they’re just sitting there all day, it’s kind of debatable really what’s being accomplished. So I don’t know.

(08:14)
I mean, I hear both sides of this. I think ultimately where I would get a little more hesitant and a little more concerned just from a legal perspective is if it bleeds over from personal business IE, that target run or picking up the dry cleaning or 10 minutes longer on lunch to I’m doing something else that I’m also being paid for. At the same time, my employer’s paying me. And that’s the one that I’ve seen more and more recently where people have wised up to this idea that like, oh, well, I can be mediocre at two jobs. Well just have one and stick it to the man that way. And that’s a really, really slippery slope because if you get caught doing that, there are potential criminal penalties there. My bottom line for anybody who’s kind of wondering where the line is, is like, when in doubt, go talk to HR or your boss and maybe not bluntly, say, ‘Hey, I want to go to Target in the middle of the day,’ but put some feelers out and say, ‘what are the policies here? What are the expectations? I just want to be clear because I work this way and I appreciate having the flexibility. I’m getting my work done, but I just want to make sure that I’m not stepping on any landmines.’ And they’re probably going to tell you what you don’t want to hear, but you might be surprised. So I’m just a big fan of transparency and asking in advance. This is not one of those things that typically lends itself to asking for forgiveness after the fact, at least knowing where the outer limits are with your employer.

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