Two workers in Spain fired for skipping work... for 15 years
A driver and gardener in the town of Jerez de la Frontera, southern Spain, have been fired after the town hall discovered they had been collecting pay but not going to work for a period of up to 15 years.
In socialist Spain? I'm surprised they weren't promoted for being so successful... :shock: :doh
Big deal. Happens in the U.S., too, with the government. Wasn't it the EPA who had a man who didn't show up for years and said he was on assignment with the CIA. Found it:
"Not John C. Beale. As a senior policy adviser in the Environmental Protection Agency’s Office of Air and Radiation, Beale dealt with his workplace malaise by convincing his bosses that he was a CIA operative whose top-secret work required him to be out of the office for long periods of time—including one stretch that lasted 18 months. Sometimes Beale claimed to be in Pakistan. Other times he claimed to be at CIA HQ in Langley. In reality, the agency’s top climate-change expert spent most of his time puttering around his Northern Virginia home or at his vacation house on the Cape, collecting his salary (plus bonuses!) while doing zero work. To break the monotony, he would take deluxe personal trips, on the EPA’s dime, of course, running up fat tabs for first-class airfare, limos, and five-star hotels.
How long did this fraud go on? Hard to say. Two decades, maybe longer. Beale resigned in April, after learning that he was under federal investigation. Court documents trace his shenanigans back through 2000. In its probe, however, the EPA’s inspector general turned up evidence that Beale had been making (unrelated) stuff up since 1989. For his part, Beale reportedly told the IG’s office that he started spinning spy stories in 1994 out of boredom and a need for attention. (From 1990 to 1993, Beale worked to reauthorize the Clean Air Act; afterward, he claimed, regular office life lacked a certain snap, crackle, pop—which he sought to recapture with his 007 fantasies.) At the time of his resignation, Beale was the EPA’s highest-paid employee. In September, he pleaded guilty to stealing nearly $1 million in salary and other perks from the government. Beale was sentenced to 32 months in federal prison on Wednesday in Washington."
The EPA?s Million-Dollar Con Man - The Daily Beast
