Posted on 07/31/2014 7:36:09 PM PDT by Steelfish
Federal Paralegals Had No Work, So They Surfed the Internet 101 More
By Lisa Rein July 31
Dozens of federal employees at an obscure agency that handles appeals of patent applications went years with so little work to do that they collected salaries — and even bonuses — while they surfed the Internet, did laundry, exercised and watched television, an investigation has found.
The employees, paralegals making $60,000 to $80,000 a year, were idle with full knowledge of their immediate bosses and multiple layers of managers and judges who “sat on their hands” waiting for work to give them, a year-long probe by the Commerce Department inspector general’s office uncovered.
The underworked paralegals did little as a backlog of appeals of patent examinations that many of them were hired to help process doubled from about 12,500 in fiscal 2009 to 25,300 last year. Soon after the appeals board brought on additional legal support staff to address a deluge of challenges to decisions by patent examiners, the Patent and Trademark Office imposed a hiring freeze that halted hires of judges needed to handle the appeals.
But they took home more than $4.3 million in pay and about $700,000 in annual performance bonuses of up to $3,500 apiece for “outstanding” work from 2009 through 2013, the report released Tuesday found.
The employees also worked from home. The Patent and Trademark Office set an early example for other federal agencies years ago when it encouraged employees to telework. But the inspector general found that for paralegals in the appeals office, working from home was a green light to abuse the privilege by doing laundry, washing dishes, reading books and a host of other personal activities.
(Excerpt) Read more at washingtonpost.com ...
ObamaCare Navigators did the same. and they processed 2 applications a month.
insane
More than one Chinese Dynasty was destroyed by the overburden of government workers. We are not unique, just super stupid in following what is a certain path to political destruction.
“...appeals of patent examinations ...doubled from about 12,500 in fiscal 2009 to 25,300 last year.”
Sounds to me like the Patent Office just needs more money in their budget. That will solve the problem.
So what. It should be posted on a daily basis as a reminder of how screwed up this country is.
This nonsense is what killed NJ; bloated government payrolls. In my town we still staff a large paid fire department as though we still have our manufacturing and port facilities in use (they shut down decades ago). Naturally many of the firemen, while extolling the virtues of a paid fire department for your loved ones when somebody suggests cuts, live in towns that have volunteer departments...
Fire the managers, claw back the bonuses, and file indictments. Time to make some examples.
I the “real world” those same “surfers” would have been let go and joined the ranks of the un-employed. The “gubmint” is NOT the real world.
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