Caught in the Act: Visiting Illicit Web Sites While on the Job

Abstract

Stephanie Hughes, supervisor at DMD Systems, received a phone call from Devin Collins, the Human Resource Manager, asking if she could meet with him in his office.  When she arrived, he informed her that  IT had discovered that one of her employees, Jeremy Phillips, had breached the system’s firewall and had been spending between one and two hours each day of work time over the past two weeks on firewalled (blocked) Internet sites.  Stephanie was upset. “That jerk, how could he do that to the rest of us?”  Devin told Stephanie that he understood her frustration, but there was more to it.  The Internet sites Jeremy visited were pornographic.  When she heard this, she sighed and shook her head in disgust.  “I can’t believe this.  I am so angry that Jeremy would do this.  He is such a nice guy but he has been stealing time from us during a period when everyone has been working under a lot of pressure and feeling a lot of stress.”  Devin hesitated for a number of seconds and then changed direction. “Stephanie, I know retention of LMS’ employees has been a challenge this past couple of years, and that you have been working hard to upgrade the quality of workers in your department.  I recognize that this might impact what you think we should do.” Devin then asked her straight out.  “What do you want us to do?”  Stephanie realized she had an important decision to make.