'I've never been caught': Worker confesses to leaving job site while nobody is watching, stirring controversy and sparking discussion in online community

Brad Dickson • Managing Editor

Oct 4, 2024 6:00 PM EDT

Having a job generally means that you do that job and get paid for it—simple, right? Like, it doesn't really take anyone telling you that to figure it out. But what should you do if you do the job that you're being paid to do and it doesn't take you nearly as long as your employer expects it will? This happens all the time, and depending on the job—and the person—and the place, and the time, your approach to this situation might be different.

The more motivated among us who couldn't simply stand sitting around with nothing to do would seek out additional work, choosing to be more productive than our pay grade for the simple fact of not being bored to death. There's a certain amount of exploitation that happens here, with some employers hoping to ensnare such workers and milk them for all they're worth with relatively little compensation in return.

Still, others would argue that once your tasks are complete, you're basically being paid to be "on call" and fill a seat, having no obligation to "seek out" more work. This sort of makes sense; it's really impossible to be productive for the full 8 hours a day people normally are expected to be at work anyway—with many estimates being that people actually spend half that time (or less) doing any actual productive work.

But, there are limitations to this—surely. Where's the line? Certainly, it's somewhere before the point where you're leaving the site where you're supposed to be overseeing and testing equipment that is vital to the workers' safety on site.

This worker, who worked collecting air samples to test for asbestos at work sites, found their job to be rather boring. Their motivation was not helped at all by the incredibly poor compensation they were receiving. They found that during lengthy periods, they were simply supposed to be monitoring the pumps running. They could actually just leave the site and attend to other businesses elsewhere.

One would hope that they're still actually running the appropriate tests and doing a good job monitoring for the contaminants they're supposed to be looking out for. Even if they are, it's a worry that with this lack of accountability, there are likely other testers who are.

This behavior divided even this employment community, which boasts a heavy bias towards employees and their entitlements. See the worker's story, along with some of the responses from their original post, below.

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