Your colleague ask you to sign her out; you shouldn’t

QUESTION: Our time keeping system is online, and we are required to clock out for breaks, lunch and at the end of the day. Sometimes web end the rules and take a short lunch in order to leave early, or skip our morning break ifwe get into the office late. These things are technically not allowed, but the managers either don’t not ice or don’t really care.

Recently, one of my colleagues has started asking me to clock out for her at the end of the day. She comes in after me but wants to leave early. On days when I am staying late, she will ask me to sign her out when I leave. I’ve noticed that this co-worker does not sign out for any breaks or lunch, although she takes long breaks and a two-hour or longer lunch every day.

Do I report her time fraud? I’m afraid of repercussions for myself( since I have signed out for her a handful of times ), and I’m also afraid that this could cause all of us to lose control over our own time sheets. This woman’ s job does not directly affect me, so I guess I don’ t have a professional reason to be bothered by her cutting corners, but I find it annoying and don’t want toge tin trouble for doing her dirty work. She’s an intense lady whom I’m afraid to say no to and who is senior to me; we work in close quarters, and things would get extremely awkward.

A: What your colleague is asking you to do is commonly called“buddy punching ”- and while the nickname makes it sound like some goofy teen pas time, here area few professional reasons to be bothered by it:

First, claiming pay one didn’t earn is theft. Second, phantom time reporting could skew productivity tracking and hiring decisions, which in turn could affect an employer’ s budget. Third, ifa company is doing contract work for clients, padding time sheets is a serious violation. And finally, as you note, abuse of the honour system is dem or ali sing to honest coworkers a nd je opardises t hat privilege for everyone.

So while Isym path isewi th your awkward position, you have to find a way to tell her no. “I know I clocked you out before as a favour, but I’ m just not comfortable doing that anymore. I don’ t want us both toge tin trouble.”

If you need backup, your employee handbook may contain stern language about time- sheet fraud that you can cite, or you can point out that your employer may be able to track whose computers time sheets are being filed from.

Should you rather out? In general, monitoring others’ coming sand goings makes for a paranoid, retaliatory work environment-and, as you say, you would be in trouble, too. But if your“buddy” starts making life miserable after you turn her down, you may have to throw yourself on HR’s mercy and come clean about the illicit request from a senior colleague that you were “afraid to say no to .”— WP- Bloomberg