The Patent Office report from the GAO basically said that the work hours were "unaccounted for." So some employees claimed time but wasn't logged in on the computer. Were they working (reading printed stuff, books, doing administrative tasks etc.)? The report said no they weren't because if they weren't logged into the computers they were stealing money from the government.

Note also that the PTO is the most unusual possible government employer. Most of its employees who were reviewed are at the GS13 level or above. The examiners have a quota system. So they're required to do X amount of applications during Y amount of time working. Some employees are going to take less time than Y because they are people with multiple Ph.D.s who can type 200 words per minute and know the technology better than anyone else. Some employees are going to take less time than Y because they are doing a crummy job. Some employees are going to take more time than Y because the patent application is challenging or they are just slower than average at typing. So if a person is doing a great job and finishes 8 hours worth of work
In 5 hours, and logs off of their computer, the GAO says that person is stealing 37.5% of their salary from the government. Doesn't matter if they were cleaning their office, talking to other people and helping them do their work, etc.

Note also that the GAO report said that a single digit percentage of the employees reviewed were responsible for about 50% of the total theft. Note also that there was no comparison whatsoever to similar agencies in the private sector. In other words, how much time was unaccounted for at a large patent law firm??

So it's a catch 22. How do you keep the truly exceptional people working there if you're now going to micromanage them on their time sheets and require them to sit in front of their computer doing nothing after they've maxed out their production and their eligible bonuses? You cant treat them any different from the people doing the crummy jobs. Unfortunately the incident will be used to point out dangers of teleworking, and it won't compare at all to other agencies.



[Post edited by Hokie madman at 01/26/2017 11:08AM]