We had someone do that, then brag about it during end-of-the-year reviews. The managers were quite upset that the person had spent valuable time working on thi

We had someone do that, then brag about it during end-of-the-year reviews. The managers were quite upset that the person had spent valuable time working on things that not only hadn't been assigned to them, but also hadn't been brought into the process for scheduling them or even brought to the attention of anyone else in IT. So no, it's not hard to blame someone for working on the wrong things when they should have been working on something else.