Taking Time For Personal Matters At Work
QUESTION 71: TAKING TIME FOR PERSONAL MATTERS AT WORK
If a person expects to be involved in something that might take up lots
of time at work, such as buying and selling a house, what is the correct
procedure for making sure that a person doesn't exceed what is permitted?
Even it it's a less time-consuming activity, such as buying a car or computer,
is it necessary to inform one's boss?
RABBI BELSKY
Everyone is allowed to spend a little time on personal things. People have
a tendency to do more than what they really ought to be doing, and border
on doing what they shouldn't be doing. If it's going to take an hour a day
buying and selling a house, it's time taken away from your employer. The best
thing to do is to ask if it is possible to use that hour and to make it up
by staying later. Five, ten, or fifteen minutes a day - I suppose that
would be considered 'within reason'. As a rule of thumb - a person should
try to make up for lost time for anything that takes more than fifteen
minutes.
NEXT WEEK'S QUESTION 72: BILLING HOURS WORKED
I'm an attorney. I have to record my hours for each case I work on.
Although I try to be strict with my billing, I'm far from exact. For
example, I'm not equally productive on all days. Also, when I have less work
to do, I might spend more time on a case than I would otherwise - with the
result
that the client will be billed for more hours. Another difficulty is that
when I
am in the middle of working on a case I may be interrupted by a phone call or
distracted by some other matter. I don't usually work on one case nonstop. I
might be interrupted by phone calls or speak about other matters
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