4 ms·

This headline needs more context: woman was an accountant who put in billable hours that the court decided were not legitimate.

izzydata 4y ago
That does seem like an important piece of information. I would be pretty upset if I hired a lawyer and they billed me for 100 fake hours.
- nickff 4y ago
  It’s billing fraud, and a critical part of the film version of “The Firm”.
- n0tth3dro1ds 4y ago
  Never hire a lawyer, then.
  - mindslight 4y ago
    I hired an attorney once. I reviewed the invoices, the hours looked reasonable. Cue 4 months later with him saying he had forgotten to generate an invoice from a second record in his billing system - it had around 70% of additional hours. Between this and that he had been apparently ignoring one of my main concerns the whole time, only to wring his hands of responsibility when it ran aground, that relationship went south real fast.
- krapht 4y ago
  Law firms know this, and get around it by delegating everything they possibly can to paralegals and junior staff while representing much more hands-on involvement by senior, experienced staff. Sorta like software outsourcing, actually.
colechristensen 4y ago
Was she billing clients hourly or at one of those places that requires everybody to track their time down to some very small unit?
- olliej 4y ago
  She was an accountant. I am not sure whether she was hourly or not, the issue is that accounting firms often bill clients by the hour, so internally they need correct records of the time employees are spending on jobs. So even if she were not being paid hourly (though the court ordered repayment implies she was?), the company would have required accurate recording for billing clients. The company also didn't just arbitrarily install the monitoring software. She was already underperforming, and on some PIP-equivalent setup when they got her consent to add monitoring software - I would guess that they were already thinking she was falsifying her time sheets at this point.
Swenrekcah 4y ago
Also it seems it may be (although not clear from the information given) that originally she was simply fired for cause and not made to pay anything back. Then she sued for wrongful termination and got that result. Because the first thing I thought was: What kind of petty employer sues for $2000 instead of just letting them go.
- jonas21 4y ago
  Yes, that's correct [1]. It's also worth noting that it was handled in small claims court where both parties represented themselves. [1] https://decisions.civilresolutionbc.ca/crt/crtd/en/item/523029/index.do https://decisions.civilresolutionbc.ca/crt/crtd/en/item/5230...
  - msrenee 4y ago
    Reading the details of the civil suit completely changes the tone of this story. So she also owed ~$3k on the unforgiven portion of an advance from the company for her CPA course, which would have been fully forgiven after 24 months. They withheld her final ~$1800 paycheck due to that. So she was actually ~$1100 ahead and then decided to sue. It also looks like the 50 hours she billed that couldn't be accounted for occurred over 6 weeks or so. I really wanted to be upset with the company here, but it sounds like she shot herself in the foot.
    - tsuujin 4y ago
      > I really wanted to be upset with the company here, but it sounds like she shot herself in the foot. Both of these things can be valid at the same time. She was certainly technically in the wrong and made some questionable choices (with the huge caveat that it’s possible context we don’t have may change the story entirely), but I still think the company is overbearing to the point of absurdity. If she slacked off for 50 hours over 6 weeks, that’s like an hour and a half a day (which may not have been contiguous). I can’t think of a job I’ve ever had where I didn’t have an hour of down time a day on average. Even working crappy manual labor jobs I’m sure I dicked around with my coworkers for like an hour a day. She may be a bit on the high end there, but not so much that I wouldn’t have worked with her to correct it before firing her.
themitigating 4y ago
That's a huge change in context. My initial assumption was that it was just a salaried employee caught not working
krisoft 4y ago
> This headline needs more context Yeah. It is called an article. Typically provides the context for the title. The article is beautifully written and links to the actual small claims decision. Which is honestly so rare that I don’t even know when have I seen in non-specialist media. What the headline needs is people reading beyond it, and not reacting from first instinct. Grumble grumble :)
- tsuujin 4y ago
  Genuine question: what makes you sure I didn’t read the article (because I did). Nothing in the article contradicts my post. The lady was almost certainly billing time she didn’t work, but I would still ask myself what I’ve done to enable that before I just fired her. I’m disinclined to assume the good faith and intention of a company using invasive software to monitor every minute of the day.
  - deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
  - krisoft 4y ago
    > Genuine question: what makes you sure I didn’t read the article (because I did). I was not sure that you didn’t read the article. I was just suspecting it. > Nothing in the article contradicts my post. Au contraire. You wrote: “The idea of weaponizing ‘time theft’ as a first recourse is just sickening to me.” That is not what happened in this case at all. The company was unhappy with her performance and they let her go. She sued them. Does that sound like the company weaponised anything? So why are you talking about “weaponising” and “first recourse”? How can it be “weaponised” when she was the one who was suing the company What is first recourse about this? In fact if you read the small claims court case (linked from the article), you can see that she started working in October 12, 2021. They first talked about performance problems with her manager in February the next year. That is when they installed the time tracking software! She was put on a PIP in March 16. And she was dismissed on March 29th. So clearly they were not weaponizing time theft, nor was it their first recourse. Maybe you were just commenting in general how sickening it is to weaponise time theft as a first recourse. In which case I would have expected some mention that you are just speaking in general, noting that in this specific case that did not happen. Since you didn’t say that I suspected that you either didn’t read the article carefull enough to understand the case, or didn’t read it at all.
tsuujin 4y ago
Yes, but that is not in opposition to what I said above. Hours were certainly logged fraudulently, I’m not debating that. I’m saying that rather than firing her, I would have asked a lot of questions about the situation and if I pushed her to feel like she needed to. The software they were using sounds like what I have seen myself in the past, and it is a huge burden to try and justify every moment of every day the way they want you to. It’s basically a guarantee for burnout and lack of loyalty.

izzydata 4y ago

That does seem like an important piece of information. I would be pretty upset if I hired a lawyer and they billed me for 100 fake hours.

nickff 4y ago
It’s billing fraud, and a critical part of the film version of “The Firm”.
n0tth3dro1ds 4y ago
Never hire a lawyer, then.
- mindslight 4y ago
  I hired an attorney once. I reviewed the invoices, the hours looked reasonable. Cue 4 months later with him saying he had forgotten to generate an invoice from a second record in his billing system - it had around 70% of additional hours. Between this and that he had been apparently ignoring one of my main concerns the whole time, only to wring his hands of responsibility when it ran aground, that relationship went south real fast.
krapht 4y ago
Law firms know this, and get around it by delegating everything they possibly can to paralegals and junior staff while representing much more hands-on involvement by senior, experienced staff. Sorta like software outsourcing, actually.

colechristensen 4y ago

Was she billing clients hourly or at one of those places that requires everybody to track their time down to some very small unit?

olliej 4y ago
She was an accountant. I am not sure whether she was hourly or not, the issue is that accounting firms often bill clients by the hour, so internally they need correct records of the time employees are spending on jobs. So even if she were not being paid hourly (though the court ordered repayment implies she was?), the company would have required accurate recording for billing clients. The company also didn't just arbitrarily install the monitoring software. She was already underperforming, and on some PIP-equivalent setup when they got her consent to add monitoring software - I would guess that they were already thinking she was falsifying her time sheets at this point.

Swenrekcah 4y ago

Also it seems it may be (although not clear from the information given) that originally she was simply fired for cause and not made to pay anything back. Then she sued for wrongful termination and got that result. Because the first thing I thought was: What kind of petty employer sues for $2000 instead of just letting them go.

jonas21 4y ago
Yes, that's correct [1]. It's also worth noting that it was handled in small claims court where both parties represented themselves. [1] https://decisions.civilresolutionbc.ca/crt/crtd/en/item/523029/index.do https://decisions.civilresolutionbc.ca/crt/crtd/en/item/5230...
- msrenee 4y ago
  Reading the details of the civil suit completely changes the tone of this story. So she also owed ~$3k on the unforgiven portion of an advance from the company for her CPA course, which would have been fully forgiven after 24 months. They withheld her final ~$1800 paycheck due to that. So she was actually ~$1100 ahead and then decided to sue. It also looks like the 50 hours she billed that couldn't be accounted for occurred over 6 weeks or so. I really wanted to be upset with the company here, but it sounds like she shot herself in the foot.
  - tsuujin 4y ago
    > I really wanted to be upset with the company here, but it sounds like she shot herself in the foot. Both of these things can be valid at the same time. She was certainly technically in the wrong and made some questionable choices (with the huge caveat that it’s possible context we don’t have may change the story entirely), but I still think the company is overbearing to the point of absurdity. If she slacked off for 50 hours over 6 weeks, that’s like an hour and a half a day (which may not have been contiguous). I can’t think of a job I’ve ever had where I didn’t have an hour of down time a day on average. Even working crappy manual labor jobs I’m sure I dicked around with my coworkers for like an hour a day. She may be a bit on the high end there, but not so much that I wouldn’t have worked with her to correct it before firing her.

themitigating 4y ago

That's a huge change in context. My initial assumption was that it was just a salaried employee caught not working

krisoft 4y ago

> This headline needs more context Yeah. It is called an article. Typically provides the context for the title. The article is beautifully written and links to the actual small claims decision. Which is honestly so rare that I don’t even know when have I seen in non-specialist media. What the headline needs is people reading beyond it, and not reacting from first instinct. Grumble grumble :)

tsuujin 4y ago
Genuine question: what makes you sure I didn’t read the article (because I did). Nothing in the article contradicts my post. The lady was almost certainly billing time she didn’t work, but I would still ask myself what I’ve done to enable that before I just fired her. I’m disinclined to assume the good faith and intention of a company using invasive software to monitor every minute of the day.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- krisoft 4y ago
  > Genuine question: what makes you sure I didn’t read the article (because I did). I was not sure that you didn’t read the article. I was just suspecting it. > Nothing in the article contradicts my post. Au contraire. You wrote: “The idea of weaponizing ‘time theft’ as a first recourse is just sickening to me.” That is not what happened in this case at all. The company was unhappy with her performance and they let her go. She sued them. Does that sound like the company weaponised anything? So why are you talking about “weaponising” and “first recourse”? How can it be “weaponised” when she was the one who was suing the company What is first recourse about this? In fact if you read the small claims court case (linked from the article), you can see that she started working in October 12, 2021. They first talked about performance problems with her manager in February the next year. That is when they installed the time tracking software! She was put on a PIP in March 16. And she was dismissed on March 29th. So clearly they were not weaponizing time theft, nor was it their first recourse. Maybe you were just commenting in general how sickening it is to weaponise time theft as a first recourse. In which case I would have expected some mention that you are just speaking in general, noting that in this specific case that did not happen. Since you didn’t say that I suspected that you either didn’t read the article carefull enough to understand the case, or didn’t read it at all.

tsuujin 4y ago

Yes, but that is not in opposition to what I said above. Hours were certainly logged fraudulently, I’m not debating that. I’m saying that rather than firing her, I would have asked a lot of questions about the situation and if I pushed her to feel like she needed to. The software they were using sounds like what I have seen myself in the past, and it is a huge burden to try and justify every moment of every day the way they want you to. It’s basically a guarantee for burnout and lack of loyalty.