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Furthermore, because there is significant financial gain in the deception, the actions taken would almost certainly meet the legal requirement for fraud in a mo

Furthermore, because there is significant financial gain in the deception, the actions taken would almost certainly meet the legal requirement for fraud in a modern jurisdiction.

camiller 9y ago
Assuming they are salaried not paid hourly, they seem to being doing the job asked at the agreed upon rate, not sure how it is fraud. That said, just because it might be legal doesn't mean it is ethical. Personally I'd tell the boss "I've gotten this task down to where I have some spare time, what else could I do" and try to get some more work to do.
- untog 9y ago
  > Assuming they are salaried not paid hourly, they seem to being doing the job asked at the agreed upon rate, not sure how it is fraud. I'm not sure I've ever had a job that outlined my specific duties in the contract. It usually says that I am to work X hours a week.
  - barrkel 9y ago
    Yup; and the company is making a bet that you produce more than you cost. Sometimes employees generate a lot more value than they cost; the company usually keeps most of the winnings there, and only gives you enough to stop you going somewhere else. That is, the competitive pressure on employee wages is much higher than the competitive forces within most companies that control whether they get to keep the windfalls from particularly efficient employees.
rayiner 9y ago
I don't think it's ethical, but it's not legally fraud. Fraud requires, among other things, a misstatement (or an omission of some fact the party is bound to disclose) that is material, and that the other party actually relied on and which reliance proximately caused the other party harm. He's not under any legal duty to disclose to his employer how he does the work. The original post suggests that he might have misstated when he completed each batch of work (though, even there, he could have phrased it in a way that simply omitted that information). And the incorrect entries might count as misstatements. But neither of those facts is likely material. And even if they are, there's no harm to the employer arising out of those misstatements. The harm has to be traceable in some more or less direct fashion to the material misstatement. Any misstatement about when the author did the work, or the errors the author introduced did not cause the employer any harm. Any harm that occurred to the employer--say, paying the author for a job that was automated--arose from the employer not knowing about the automation, not from a false statement the author made. Finally, even if the author flat out said "I'm doing this by hand, not using a script," it's not clear any causation would be sufficiently direct. The scenario in which the company saves money by firing the author is a speculative outcome, not a certain one.
s73ver 9y ago
I can't really call it "significant financial gain" considering the likely outcome of telling their employer is that they get fired. Keeping your existing job doesn't fall under "significant financial gain" to me.

Furthermore, because there is significant financial gain in the deception, the actions taken would almost certainly meet the legal requirement for fraud in a modern jurisdiction.

camiller 9y ago

Assuming they are salaried not paid hourly, they seem to being doing the job asked at the agreed upon rate, not sure how it is fraud. That said, just because it might be legal doesn't mean it is ethical. Personally I'd tell the boss "I've gotten this task down to where I have some spare time, what else could I do" and try to get some more work to do.

untog 9y ago
> Assuming they are salaried not paid hourly, they seem to being doing the job asked at the agreed upon rate, not sure how it is fraud. I'm not sure I've ever had a job that outlined my specific duties in the contract. It usually says that I am to work X hours a week.
- barrkel 9y ago
  Yup; and the company is making a bet that you produce more than you cost. Sometimes employees generate a lot more value than they cost; the company usually keeps most of the winnings there, and only gives you enough to stop you going somewhere else. That is, the competitive pressure on employee wages is much higher than the competitive forces within most companies that control whether they get to keep the windfalls from particularly efficient employees.

rayiner 9y ago

I don't think it's ethical, but it's not legally fraud. Fraud requires, among other things, a misstatement (or an omission of some fact the party is bound to disclose) that is material, and that the other party actually relied on and which reliance proximately caused the other party harm. He's not under any legal duty to disclose to his employer how he does the work. The original post suggests that he might have misstated when he completed each batch of work (though, even there, he could have phrased it in a way that simply omitted that information). And the incorrect entries might count as misstatements. But neither of those facts is likely material. And even if they are, there's no harm to the employer arising out of those misstatements. The harm has to be traceable in some more or less direct fashion to the material misstatement. Any misstatement about when the author did the work, or the errors the author introduced did not cause the employer any harm. Any harm that occurred to the employer--say, paying the author for a job that was automated--arose from the employer not knowing about the automation, not from a false statement the author made. Finally, even if the author flat out said "I'm doing this by hand, not using a script," it's not clear any causation would be sufficiently direct. The scenario in which the company saves money by firing the author is a speculative outcome, not a certain one.

s73ver 9y ago

I can't really call it "significant financial gain" considering the likely outcome of telling their employer is that they get fired. Keeping your existing job doesn't fall under "significant financial gain" to me.