The stereotypes about lazy California state workers have finally been disproven. A state worker has been busily working away at her privately-owned catering company from her state office. Ok, we don’t really know if she is lazy when it comes to her state job since her time is focused on her catering, but doesn’t it count for something that she is doing any work at all in her office?
According to a Los Angeles Times (September 21, 2007) report on newly revealed waste in state offices, “…[t]he whistle-blower office receives about 4,000 calls and letters each year, many leading to reforms of wasteful practices and, in some cases, disciplinary action and criminal prosecution.” Surely a few of these calls were made about a certain “state employee at the Employment Development Department, [who] was found to have used state time and resources to conduct her private catering business in violation of state law.”
“[The EDD employee] used her state computer and email account to promote her personal business, auditors said.” “Promoting” is an understatement. She didn’t just promote her business. She employed her own coworkers to conspire on her side job. “She conducted her personal business at work with the knowledge and assistance of her supervisor and directed a coworker to assist her.” Maybe this employee is not only hard working, but resourceful and financially shrewd, too – using both coworkers and state facilities certainly reduced her business overhead.
Sadly, this state worker is not a model of entrepreneurship. There is yet another element of catering deception. “The employee did not have a valid permit, thereby also violating state food-preparation laws.” Maybe she couldn’t apply for a permit because her state building lacked a full kitchen or, better yet, because she wasn’t supposed to be running her business out of this building in the first place.
Although “[t]he employee received a written reprimand…,” she should have just changed jobs if she was that anxious to profit in the private sector. It is disheartening that not just one woman was running an entire side business out of a state office, but that her two coworkers were accomplices. This is shameless waste and a blatant manipulation of a system that puts a lot of trust in its workers. All taxpayers owe thanks to whistleblowers who are helping to prevent state employees, like the caterer, from having their cake and eating it too.
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