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Question

I am new to my current workplace, they've got flexible working hours, so sometimes I stay after regular working hours (because I came late, or simply want to get more things done).

After I am done, I sometimes stay for some time doing other stuff that are not related to my job. It's mainly because the Internet speed is good, the workplace is convenient, and I tend to concentrate better when I am there, rather than when I work at home.

I am wondering if this is unethical, or is considered an abuse of my workplace's resources like internet bandwidth, electricity, etc.. I am pretty sure my direct boss won't mind that, but I never really asked...

What resources of theirs are you using? Just the network, or also their computers? Are there relevant IT policies? — Apr 18 '14 at 22:06
This depends on what you're doing, and the nature of your employer's business. If, for example, you're posting social media contents, and your employer is a retailer and expects employees to be good at social media, this isn't likely to bother anyone. If it's a defense contractor, I would keep computer use on the straight and narrow. — Apr 19 '14 at 2:37
1 - Don't worry about ethics. Not your call. 2 - Read your employee handbook. The policy is most likely in there. Follow it. 3 - If you situation isn't specifically addressed, ask your supervisor/manager. That's what they're there for. — Apr 19 '14 at 15:16
@WesleyLong, "employee handbook".... do you guys actually use such a thing? — Jul 13 '15 at 0:43
@Pacerier - Yes. It's an electronic collection of documents, and not the 1990's "Binder," but yes. — Jul 13 '15 at 15:00

Kate Gregory 105k40232334 · Answer 1 · 2014-04-19 00:17:13Z

We had a policy asking people not to do it. There were a variety of reasons, some that would sound petty to you and others that were very real.

if you're in the habit of playing at work (we had people using our highspeed internet for online gaming back in the day when internet connections at home were less common and generally slower) then it can be hard to remember to work at work later. This was the biggest one for me personally

we had an incident where two staff members in after hours playing started looking through other people's desks and reading personal things including pay stubs. This caused a great deal of hoo-ha and would not have happened if they had not been in the office by themselves

we provided pop and snacks, and after these late night gaming sessions typically it would all be gone. This irritated the person responsible for buying them, and some other staff members were irritated on our behalf about the money (I wasn't, the entire pop and snack budget was far less than one billable hour a week, so if they consumed a week's worth one night, it wasn't going to hurt the bottom line.)

on at least one occasion people who didn't work for us were invited in to use the bandwidth etc. This is an obvious security issue.

typically the place was much messier the next morning, which irritated everyone who hadn't made the mess. If anyone complained the next morning, they cleaned up, but that cut into their work day.

there were some issues with total bandwidth consumption and with space taken on disk drives, with one person not wanting to install something because their drive was full of maps and things related to this online game.

Sure, more mature and responsible staff could probably have stayed an hour or two some nights to let the traffic die down and whiled away the time online without ever causing a problem. But once a problem was caused it had to be addressed. Our policy was simple in the end:

We don't expect that employees, whether working or "just visiting", will be in the office after hours. If you have a good reason to stop by the office over the weekend or during the evening, check with your manager first. We don't want it to be a regular habit to hang out in the office while you're not working.
To put it simply: while you're in the office, work hard -- and then go home.

[We already had a no-overtime-without-permission and all-overtime-is-paid-overtime policy, to reduce burnout and make sure we knew if someone was struggling.] All the non-stay-and-play people were made much happier when this was implemented, and the stay-and-play people weren't really that ticked off. They knew they had pushed it too far. It wasn't a saying back in the day, but this is why we can't have nice things. Nobody was fired or punished, they were just told "don't do that anymore" and the policy was added to our policies.

If your workplace doesn't have a policy like this yet, my advice is to do everything you possibly can not to be the person whose behavior causes them to need a policy.

You stated they're "looking through other people's desks". But how would they have the password to unlock the computer? — Jul 13 '15 at 0:45
Physical desks. You know, with drawers and things. That a person might put a piece of paper into. True story. — Jul 13 '15 at 2:16

MÃ³Ã…Â¼ 1,81911523 · Answer 2 · 2014-04-18 23:14:40Z

It's much better to ask. They might say no, but better to hear that when you ask than when you're being fired. They're quite likely to say yes, but make a reasonable use policy about how much of it you can do. It's unlikely they'd be happy with you staying at work playing games until 4am every night of the week, for example.

Most obviously, if what you do brings in a virus or exposes company information you could end up in trouble.

But they will very likely have records of what you do (they should), and if you do anything that even looks dodgy that could come back to bite you. For example, logging onto reddit, even if you're not participating in r/pro-rape or r/racists - is clarifying the distinction really a discussion you want to have with your boss?

Communityâ™¦ 1 · Answer 3 · 2017-04-13 12:48:42Z

If it's for work, it's generally okay, but don't think twice about asking your boss to make sure - asking for permission for this is very unlikely to be viewed negatively.

If it's not for work, don't do it if:

You're planning to do anything illegal, or not safe for work, for that matter.

That's a no-brainer.

This could also bring viruses along with it, which can be considered a separate point for things to avoid.

You plan to make good use of the high bandwidth (download lots of (legal) stuff) and there is or may be any work-related downloads happening after hours (which may interfere with each other).

At my current employer, for example, our support team often downloads databases from clients, which could reasonably be expected to happen after hours.

You think upper management may fire you without warning for doing this.

I, for example, know that upper management of my current employer is a pretty friendly bunch. Not to be taken advantage of, of course, but I'd expect someone to at least get a warning if they were to do something wrong before being let go. At bigger companies, where I don't know upper management too well, I'd be much less inclined to do things that have any risk of being seen negatively.

You're planning on searching for other jobs or do anything which may put your job at risk if discovered by your employer.

Again, a no-brainer.

There aren't any similar things happening.

At my current employer, (before I started) a few of the employees got permission to play games on the network during lunch. And you don't have to look far to see the occasional browsing of Facebook or something which can't reasonably be considered part of doing work during work hours. If I were to stay after hours to do non-work-related stuff, that would be similar and, although not officially allowed, isn't something you'd expect to be reprimanded for, assuming fair use (don't stay there all night, for example).

We do have an internet usage policy, but, as I remember it, it is fairly prohibitive, which isn't in line with what actually happens, so I think it's more a case of them making it easier to get rid of bad apples than something to be strictly enforced.

There are logistical reasons why you can't.

Perhaps a third party locks up at some point. You wanting to stay past that point for non-work-related reasons is probably not a particularly good idea.

It may cost the company money.

It could be the cost of the electricity to keep the lights and/or aircon on, the cost of bandwidth, which, while probably uncapped at most companies, shouldn't necessarily be assumed to be, or perhaps something else. In any case, don't do it if there's a significant chance that it will cost the company money to do so.

It will distract others who may still be working.

If there's a guy/girl sitting behind / next to you and they're is still working, playing a game or watching a video (even with earphones) could be very distracting to them, or even browsing Facebook, depending how easily distractable they are.

Your performance isn't great.

And I don't mean "your performance is bad". If it's average or even slightly above average, I still don't really suggest doing it.

Employers tend to allow great employees a bit of leverage when it comes to things which aren't officially allowed but don't hurt the company.

This is a greatly more applicable point when you have flexible work hours (which you do) as the exact point when you stop working might not be obvious, and if you're often seen doing something non-work-related (perhaps your boss walks past your desk every day on his way out after the end of your work hours) when one might still have considered you to be within work hours, this is likely to draw negative attention to yourself.

You don't want to risk it.

If you feel that this involves a risk that's not worth it, don't do it.

As mentioned in one of the other answers, you could consider getting official permission from your manager (either verbal or written) (although you should take all the other points into consideration to determine whether asking is a good idea).

I thought I'd just mention separately - always keep in mind that anything you do on company machines or the company network could be monitored, regardless of whether it's inside or outside of work hours.

Glowie 1,38911119 · Answer 4 · 2014-04-18 22:11:15Z

up vote
2
down vote

I would try to avoid using work resources for anything other than work. Of course we all may indulge in checking FB, personal email on company time as long as we get our work done, but it's better to avoid.

Now, using work resources AFTER work simply because it's convenient??? That's not a good idea.

I heard of a lady at my organization who conducted ran her own business using company resources, i.e. Internet during lunch and after work hours and she got terminated because of that.

answered Apr 18 '14 at 22:11

Glowie

1,38911119

You seem to be saying that doing non-work-related stuff during work hours is better than doing them after hours (even though you say both are not particularly good), which I don't really agree with.
â€“Â Dukeling
Apr 19 '14 at 0:51

@Dukeling: Well, since OP is on the computer working on something, he might take a minute or two to check FB status (which is not a good habit), but when work is done, why not just go home and do non-work related stuff there .... when the OP said "staying at work for convenience", to me it seems to be taking the company's resource for granted ... it's the intent. If OP had some emergency he had to take care of and couldn't use Internet at home or hotspot and office was the only place, then he has no choice but to should use the office Internet.
â€“Â Glowie
Apr 19 '14 at 1:03

There might be better times to do certain things, which may make doing them at work a preferred option (playing games while more people are online, for example) or certain things may be done better if done more often (checking for, and answering, questions on The Workplace, for example). It just doesn't really make sense to say checking FB status during work (presumably done a few times a day) is better than (or even equal to) spending the same amount of time after work doing something similar (regardless of the fact that you can just go home to do it).
â€“Â Dukeling
Apr 19 '14 at 2:15

add a commentÂ |Â

thursdaysgeek 24.1k103998 · Answer 5 · 2014-04-18 23:27:23Z

Many companies have internet use policies, some specifying no personal use, many limiting the personal use to some degree or another. If your company has a policy, the first thing you should do is make sure you are not violating that.

If your company does not have such a policy, or it's not clear if you're exceeding the personal use allowed, then ask. Ask your manager if he has any objections to you using the better bandwidth speed, and be specific about what you are doing and for how long.

If he's fine with that, then get some sort of written confirmation of that from him. That will protect you if highers up decide it's a problem. If he's not willing to give you something written, then he's not completely ok with it, or thinks others may have a problem. In that case, don't do more than what the policy says, or what he is willing to formally allow.

All of this protects both you and your boss. It's better to ask and know, than to hope and be wrong after all.

Getting confirmation (written or otherwise) from your boss doesn't protect your boss if he didn't, in turn, get confirmation from the higher-ups (unless it's verbal and he chooses to deny agreeing to it). And asking for written confirmation may come across as wanting permission to do whatever you want on the net after work, despite any clarification to the contrary. — Apr 19 '14 at 0:05

lorenzog 1,264815 · Answer 6 · 2014-04-20 08:42:49Z

The best answer is ... "it depends". As others pointed out, there are many factors involved and I won't repeat them there.

However, the question you're asing has an underlying problem waiting to happen: your work-life balance. It always starts with coming in late and "oh I'll stay late and catch up". It often ends with you clocking way more hours at work than you are paid for, without actually doing that much work, and possibly burning out on the long run.

This is a problem for the company and for yourself:

If the company invoices a customer based on the amount of work you do, then by staying late you're skewing the actual costs. For example you estimate "2 work days" for a task (meaning more or less 8 hours), but actually spend 3 days because you end up staying late. The customer is invoiced for 2 man-days. Then a new employee comes in and is given that task; what happens when they will complete it in 3 working days because that's how long it takes? The company would expect 2 days, and lose money. It's a simplistic example but gives you the idea.

If there's no boundary between work and personal life, you'll end up doing personal stuff at work and work-related activities from home. There's a good chance you'll start replying to work e-mail during weekends and off days, and waste hours reading news at work. So what happens when you'll performance will be evaluated? Are you working too much or too little? Can you take on new tasks or does the company need to hire more people?

On the long run it's much healthier to keep work and personal life as separate as you can. It will be easier to understand if you're too busy at work (e.g. you need a raise, or an assistant), or too bored at home (e.g. you need a social life).

starsplusplus 1,2741220 · Answer 7 · 2014-12-19 12:56:00Z

If the nature of your work allows flexible scheduling and your organisation is helping you with the same, it is not unethical. The provision has been given to do so and it's good that you are trying to make the best use of it.

The important point here is co-ordination and team work. You might lose out on working with and contributing to the team.

Also, remember that work-life balance is very important. As long as you are able to give enough time to yourself and your family, there is no problem with flexibility.

Kate Gregory 105k40232334 · Answer 8 · 2014-04-19 00:17:13Z

We had a policy asking people not to do it. There were a variety of reasons, some that would sound petty to you and others that were very real.

if you're in the habit of playing at work (we had people using our highspeed internet for online gaming back in the day when internet connections at home were less common and generally slower) then it can be hard to remember to work at work later. This was the biggest one for me personally

we had an incident where two staff members in after hours playing started looking through other people's desks and reading personal things including pay stubs. This caused a great deal of hoo-ha and would not have happened if they had not been in the office by themselves

we provided pop and snacks, and after these late night gaming sessions typically it would all be gone. This irritated the person responsible for buying them, and some other staff members were irritated on our behalf about the money (I wasn't, the entire pop and snack budget was far less than one billable hour a week, so if they consumed a week's worth one night, it wasn't going to hurt the bottom line.)

on at least one occasion people who didn't work for us were invited in to use the bandwidth etc. This is an obvious security issue.

typically the place was much messier the next morning, which irritated everyone who hadn't made the mess. If anyone complained the next morning, they cleaned up, but that cut into their work day.

there were some issues with total bandwidth consumption and with space taken on disk drives, with one person not wanting to install something because their drive was full of maps and things related to this online game.

Sure, more mature and responsible staff could probably have stayed an hour or two some nights to let the traffic die down and whiled away the time online without ever causing a problem. But once a problem was caused it had to be addressed. Our policy was simple in the end:

We don't expect that employees, whether working or "just visiting", will be in the office after hours. If you have a good reason to stop by the office over the weekend or during the evening, check with your manager first. We don't want it to be a regular habit to hang out in the office while you're not working.
To put it simply: while you're in the office, work hard -- and then go home.

[We already had a no-overtime-without-permission and all-overtime-is-paid-overtime policy, to reduce burnout and make sure we knew if someone was struggling.] All the non-stay-and-play people were made much happier when this was implemented, and the stay-and-play people weren't really that ticked off. They knew they had pushed it too far. It wasn't a saying back in the day, but this is why we can't have nice things. Nobody was fired or punished, they were just told "don't do that anymore" and the policy was added to our policies.

If your workplace doesn't have a policy like this yet, my advice is to do everything you possibly can not to be the person whose behavior causes them to need a policy.

You stated they're "looking through other people's desks". But how would they have the password to unlock the computer? — Jul 13 '15 at 0:45
Physical desks. You know, with drawers and things. That a person might put a piece of paper into. True story. — Jul 13 '15 at 2:16

MÃ³Ã…Â¼ 1,81911523 · Answer 9 · 2014-04-18 23:14:40Z

It's much better to ask. They might say no, but better to hear that when you ask than when you're being fired. They're quite likely to say yes, but make a reasonable use policy about how much of it you can do. It's unlikely they'd be happy with you staying at work playing games until 4am every night of the week, for example.

Most obviously, if what you do brings in a virus or exposes company information you could end up in trouble.

But they will very likely have records of what you do (they should), and if you do anything that even looks dodgy that could come back to bite you. For example, logging onto reddit, even if you're not participating in r/pro-rape or r/racists - is clarifying the distinction really a discussion you want to have with your boss?

Communityâ™¦ 1 · Answer 10 · 2017-04-13 12:48:42Z

If it's for work, it's generally okay, but don't think twice about asking your boss to make sure - asking for permission for this is very unlikely to be viewed negatively.

If it's not for work, don't do it if:

You're planning to do anything illegal, or not safe for work, for that matter.

That's a no-brainer.

This could also bring viruses along with it, which can be considered a separate point for things to avoid.

You plan to make good use of the high bandwidth (download lots of (legal) stuff) and there is or may be any work-related downloads happening after hours (which may interfere with each other).

At my current employer, for example, our support team often downloads databases from clients, which could reasonably be expected to happen after hours.

You think upper management may fire you without warning for doing this.

I, for example, know that upper management of my current employer is a pretty friendly bunch. Not to be taken advantage of, of course, but I'd expect someone to at least get a warning if they were to do something wrong before being let go. At bigger companies, where I don't know upper management too well, I'd be much less inclined to do things that have any risk of being seen negatively.

You're planning on searching for other jobs or do anything which may put your job at risk if discovered by your employer.

Again, a no-brainer.

There aren't any similar things happening.

At my current employer, (before I started) a few of the employees got permission to play games on the network during lunch. And you don't have to look far to see the occasional browsing of Facebook or something which can't reasonably be considered part of doing work during work hours. If I were to stay after hours to do non-work-related stuff, that would be similar and, although not officially allowed, isn't something you'd expect to be reprimanded for, assuming fair use (don't stay there all night, for example).

We do have an internet usage policy, but, as I remember it, it is fairly prohibitive, which isn't in line with what actually happens, so I think it's more a case of them making it easier to get rid of bad apples than something to be strictly enforced.

There are logistical reasons why you can't.

Perhaps a third party locks up at some point. You wanting to stay past that point for non-work-related reasons is probably not a particularly good idea.

It may cost the company money.

It could be the cost of the electricity to keep the lights and/or aircon on, the cost of bandwidth, which, while probably uncapped at most companies, shouldn't necessarily be assumed to be, or perhaps something else. In any case, don't do it if there's a significant chance that it will cost the company money to do so.

It will distract others who may still be working.

If there's a guy/girl sitting behind / next to you and they're is still working, playing a game or watching a video (even with earphones) could be very distracting to them, or even browsing Facebook, depending how easily distractable they are.

Your performance isn't great.

And I don't mean "your performance is bad". If it's average or even slightly above average, I still don't really suggest doing it.

Employers tend to allow great employees a bit of leverage when it comes to things which aren't officially allowed but don't hurt the company.

This is a greatly more applicable point when you have flexible work hours (which you do) as the exact point when you stop working might not be obvious, and if you're often seen doing something non-work-related (perhaps your boss walks past your desk every day on his way out after the end of your work hours) when one might still have considered you to be within work hours, this is likely to draw negative attention to yourself.

You don't want to risk it.

If you feel that this involves a risk that's not worth it, don't do it.

As mentioned in one of the other answers, you could consider getting official permission from your manager (either verbal or written) (although you should take all the other points into consideration to determine whether asking is a good idea).

I thought I'd just mention separately - always keep in mind that anything you do on company machines or the company network could be monitored, regardless of whether it's inside or outside of work hours.

Glowie 1,38911119 · Answer 11 · 2014-04-18 22:11:15Z

up vote
2
down vote

I would try to avoid using work resources for anything other than work. Of course we all may indulge in checking FB, personal email on company time as long as we get our work done, but it's better to avoid.

Now, using work resources AFTER work simply because it's convenient??? That's not a good idea.

I heard of a lady at my organization who conducted ran her own business using company resources, i.e. Internet during lunch and after work hours and she got terminated because of that.

answered Apr 18 '14 at 22:11

Glowie

1,38911119

You seem to be saying that doing non-work-related stuff during work hours is better than doing them after hours (even though you say both are not particularly good), which I don't really agree with.
â€“Â Dukeling
Apr 19 '14 at 0:51

@Dukeling: Well, since OP is on the computer working on something, he might take a minute or two to check FB status (which is not a good habit), but when work is done, why not just go home and do non-work related stuff there .... when the OP said "staying at work for convenience", to me it seems to be taking the company's resource for granted ... it's the intent. If OP had some emergency he had to take care of and couldn't use Internet at home or hotspot and office was the only place, then he has no choice but to should use the office Internet.
â€“Â Glowie
Apr 19 '14 at 1:03

There might be better times to do certain things, which may make doing them at work a preferred option (playing games while more people are online, for example) or certain things may be done better if done more often (checking for, and answering, questions on The Workplace, for example). It just doesn't really make sense to say checking FB status during work (presumably done a few times a day) is better than (or even equal to) spending the same amount of time after work doing something similar (regardless of the fact that you can just go home to do it).
â€“Â Dukeling
Apr 19 '14 at 2:15

add a commentÂ |Â

thursdaysgeek 24.1k103998 · Answer 12 · 2014-04-18 23:27:23Z

Many companies have internet use policies, some specifying no personal use, many limiting the personal use to some degree or another. If your company has a policy, the first thing you should do is make sure you are not violating that.

If your company does not have such a policy, or it's not clear if you're exceeding the personal use allowed, then ask. Ask your manager if he has any objections to you using the better bandwidth speed, and be specific about what you are doing and for how long.

If he's fine with that, then get some sort of written confirmation of that from him. That will protect you if highers up decide it's a problem. If he's not willing to give you something written, then he's not completely ok with it, or thinks others may have a problem. In that case, don't do more than what the policy says, or what he is willing to formally allow.

All of this protects both you and your boss. It's better to ask and know, than to hope and be wrong after all.

Getting confirmation (written or otherwise) from your boss doesn't protect your boss if he didn't, in turn, get confirmation from the higher-ups (unless it's verbal and he chooses to deny agreeing to it). And asking for written confirmation may come across as wanting permission to do whatever you want on the net after work, despite any clarification to the contrary. — Apr 19 '14 at 0:05

lorenzog 1,264815 · Answer 13 · 2014-04-20 08:42:49Z

The best answer is ... "it depends". As others pointed out, there are many factors involved and I won't repeat them there.

However, the question you're asing has an underlying problem waiting to happen: your work-life balance. It always starts with coming in late and "oh I'll stay late and catch up". It often ends with you clocking way more hours at work than you are paid for, without actually doing that much work, and possibly burning out on the long run.

This is a problem for the company and for yourself:

If the company invoices a customer based on the amount of work you do, then by staying late you're skewing the actual costs. For example you estimate "2 work days" for a task (meaning more or less 8 hours), but actually spend 3 days because you end up staying late. The customer is invoiced for 2 man-days. Then a new employee comes in and is given that task; what happens when they will complete it in 3 working days because that's how long it takes? The company would expect 2 days, and lose money. It's a simplistic example but gives you the idea.

If there's no boundary between work and personal life, you'll end up doing personal stuff at work and work-related activities from home. There's a good chance you'll start replying to work e-mail during weekends and off days, and waste hours reading news at work. So what happens when you'll performance will be evaluated? Are you working too much or too little? Can you take on new tasks or does the company need to hire more people?

On the long run it's much healthier to keep work and personal life as separate as you can. It will be easier to understand if you're too busy at work (e.g. you need a raise, or an assistant), or too bored at home (e.g. you need a social life).

starsplusplus 1,2741220 · Answer 14 · 2014-12-19 12:56:00Z

If the nature of your work allows flexible scheduling and your organisation is helping you with the same, it is not unethical. The provision has been given to do so and it's good that you are trying to make the best use of it.

The important point here is co-ordination and team work. You might lose out on working with and contributing to the team.

Also, remember that work-life balance is very important. As long as you are able to give enough time to yourself and your family, there is no problem with flexibility.

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Staying at work for convenience [closed]

closed as off-topic by Jim G., yochannah, Jan Doggen, Elysian Fieldsâ™¦ Dec 22 '14 at 18:03

closed as off-topic by Jim G., yochannah, Jan Doggen, Elysian Fieldsâ™¦ Dec 22 '14 at 18:03

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What does second last employer means? [closed]

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