This actually is a little overdue

In Temp Town, on almost every project (especially when they are capped at 40 hours) there will be a temp who games the system and tries to work two projects simultaneously. Obviously, this is highly unethical, and probably criminal. It certainly would be a good way to lose your law license were the Bar to find out about it.

Normally, it's also difficult to pull off. Both projects have production benchmarks, and if you aren't coding enough documents at either (or both) you're fairly likely to be cut. It's easier on big projects, where the agency and firm are a little less likely to notice long absences, and the tolerance for a few slowpokes is higher.

On a project like this, at the stage where we are -- no work, just being held in the bullpen in case we're needed -- it's actually pretty easy. Come sign in, go to another 40-hour project, work there, come back here for your lunch break to be seen around the project room and make it look like you're still here, then go back to the real project. Finally, you come back here to sign out for the day. A pretty fair number of people have been absent a lot during the day. I don't know where they go, but we got a little indication today.

The agency sent out an email reminding us:

In regard to billing of time, please be professional, ethical, and honest in the hours you record. While I neither require nor expect you to be at your review station for the entire time you bill for the day, your time should reflect an honest accounting of how long you were on site and available to be put to work.
I want to thank those of you who have always done this, those whom I see whenever I pass through the review floor. I am forced to make the announcement above due to the abuse of the few, one of whom we have had to release for fraudulent timekeeping.

BOOM! Almost undoubtedly not the only person doing it, but I think we might see the practice halt, at least for a while. It looks like this project is going to continue staggering along, so it will still be tempting for those so inclined to try and double bill. Always does my heart good to see one of them get the ax as a result.

Pelosi and ethics: words you don't expect to hear in the same sentence and really shouldn't here

House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Cal.) apparently is insisting that Speaker of the House John Boehner (R-Ohio) must somehow force the resignation of a Republican representative convicted of tax evasion. Naturally, Nancy sees no irony here at all, or even any hypocrisy. Unfortunately for Nancy, her hypocrisy is not invisible to Republicans:

Boehner spokesman Michael Steel said Tuesday that his office won’t comment on the matter “until the Speaker discusses the matter with Mr. Grimm."
But a senior GOP aide pointed out that Pelosi didn't call for the resignations of several House Democrats who found themselves ensnared in ethical controversies.
“After standing behind Reps. Bill Jefferson, Charlie Rangel, Jack Murtha, and many others, Rep. Pelosi has zero credibility of these issues,” the aide said.

Charlie Rangel (D-NY) was never prosecuted, for reasons that escape me, but was censured by the House for his ethics violations, including tax evasion. Pelosi never called for his expulsion, nor did she support his censure. Worse, with Jack Murtha, (D-Pa.), she backed his candidacy for a major leadership position despite his being ethically, um compromised:

House Speaker-designate Nancy Pelosi's endorsement of Rep. John P. Murtha's bid for House majority leader set off a furor yesterday on Capitol Hill, with critics charging that she is undercutting her pledge to clean up corruption by backing a veteran lawmaker who they say has repeatedly skirted ethical boundaries.
Pelosi (D-Calif.) directly intervened in the heated contest between Murtha (D-Pa.) and House Minority Whip Steny H. Hoyer (D-Md.) on Sunday by circulating a letter to Democratic lawmakers. The letter voiced her support for Murtha and put her prestige on the line in a closely fought leadership battle. Some Democratic lawmakers and watchdog groups say they are baffled that Pelosi would go out of her way to back Murtha's candidacy after pledging to make the new 110th Congress the most ethical and corruption-free in history.
Murtha, a longtime senior Democrat on the House Appropriations Committee, has battled accusations over the years that he has traded federal spending for campaign contributions, that he has abused his post as ranking party member on the Appropriations defense subcommittee, and that he has stood in the way of ethics investigations. Those charges come on top of Murtha's involvement 26 years ago in the FBI's Abscam bribery sting.

Murtha was scum, but looked like a choir boy compared top "Dollar Bill" Jefferson, who took $90,000 in bribe money from an undercover FBI agent (and who knows how much in actual bribes) and stashed it in his refrigerator:

WASHINGTON — Former Representative William J. Jefferson was convicted Wednesday afternoon of using his office to try to enrich himself and relatives through a web of bribes and payoffs involving business ventures in Africa.
A federal court jury in Alexandria, Va., deliberated for five days before finding Mr. Jefferson, 62, a New Orleans Democrat who served in Congress for 18 years until being defeated in 2008, guilty of 11 of 16 counts of bribery, racketeering and money laundering. He was acquitted of obstruction of justice and violating the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act, which makes it illegal to bribe foreign government officials.

Funny how Nancy Pelosi had no problem with any of these scumbags staying in office. Should Grimm go? Yes. Should anything Nancy Pelosi says about it have any impact? No. She is at least as sleazy as the Democrats she refused to move against. If Grimm were a Democrat, he'd probably be in line for minority whip under Pelosi. Pelosi's ethics are purely situational, which is a fancy way of saying non-existent.

This is why they don't trust us

There is a general perception about temps. It consists mainly of the central theme that we can't be trusted. This explains much of the shabby treatment temps get.

That said, temps earn that treatment almost every day. Maybe not all temps, maybe not all the time, but enough to make the rap stick. The other day, the woman about whom I have been warned, in a conversation with another temp, blurted out, "This is document review, there are no ethics."

I have no idea what the conversation was about, but I immediately recognized this as an attitude that is at the root of the problems this industry labors under. In short, temps are not trusted to be professional because far too many temps, even if not a majority, demonstrate through word and deed that they cannot be trusted. Face it, if you were an attorney at the firm employing that temp, and you heard that statement, how would you feel about temps as a group?

Don't cry to me about everybody being unfairly tarred with the same brush. Too many temps take the attitude that, since they aren't really "practicing law" in any meaningful way, they also no longer are bound by the ethical obligations incumbent upon attorneys. They take shortcuts, code documents poorly, lie about their hours, spend hours on the phone when they're being paid to work, blah blah blah blah blah. We've all seen it. Well, guess what? So have the firms that hire us. So don't bitch about getting no respect.