City Workers Reprimanded for 3,000 Hours on Facebook

About two dozen Dallas city employees were reprimanded or received counseling for spending 3,000 hours on Facebook when they were supposed to be working.

The worst Facebook fanatics? According to the Dallas Morning News via TMCNet:

Topping a list of 50 habitual users was an office assistant in the Trinity watershed management department who racked up 198 hours.

One code inspector accumulated 164 hours. Tallying more than 100 hours each were several more office assistants, a convention center crew leader, a water utilities engineer, a cultural affairs coordinator and others.

Together, the employees on the list clocked in more than 3,000 hours on the site in a three-month period ending in January. If a three-month period is 12 weeks at 40 hours a week, that's around 480 work hours. Anything over 100 hours is close to three weeks of Facebook browsing at taxpayer expense.

Cesar Baptista, an assistant director in the city's water department, had Facebook open for 68 hours, according to the Associated Press. But Baptista said he often left the social network site open in the morning and didn't close it. Now he says he no longer uses Facebook at work. (The city has now instituted social networking rules for employees.)

One of the odd things about the news was that the city's survey of Facebook usage was prompted by a TV station request. The next odd part was why the city reprimanded some employees and gave others  counseling. Counseling? For using Facebook?

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