At the moment, I think that the biggest time bandits at my workplace are surfing the net (maybe even stopping by DD!!!!
) and personal calls.
Strictly speaking, these time wasting activities, such as net surfing and coming in late etc, are stealing. Employers have a right to expect workers to devote their attention to their work during working hours, in return for which employees receive a salary. Put another way - how would those who waste time appreciate their salaries being reduced in keeping with the time they have wasted?
That said, my company is fairly relaxed about certain things. We are quite a small company and expect people to behave in a grown up and self-disciplined manner. It generally works well, and in the years I have been here we have had negligible abuse of company time.
We have written policies, including computer and telephone use, which state that our company recognizes we may need to use the computer or telephone for personal matters. This is not encouraged, but it is not frowned on if the use is reasonable. I can think of a few colleagues who, in the past year, have simply had to make personal calls during work time (either on mobile or company phones) because they had sick and/or dying relatives.
