My Second Visit from a United States Marshal*
My company was under contract to design and construct multiple overseas facilities for the military. Because the work was within an area of occupation, my company had been awarded a design fee that many times what the design fee would be in the States. My team had to be really resourceful to get all the drawings completed. We were able to cut design time by setting up a 2 am architectural and structural model synchronization of folders in three offices (this was the 2000’s when that was novel). We also were able to standardize a lot of drawing details and specifications. I had two other projects, water treatment plant design projects with an estimated constructed cost of $55 million. I worked as much as I could but we were all at 60 hours and I had three major projects.
Some time later, a U.S. Marshal came with a search warrant for my original timesheets and those of the design team (it was paper and ink then). More time passed. One day we received an urgent order from legal to complete mandatory time sheet training. All employees had to comply within a short period of time. Those who did not would be terminated. Questions in the final test included:
You worked 4 hours on Project A and 4 hours on Project B on Monday. You record on your timesheet under Monday (a) 8 hours, (b) (b) 6 hours (c) 4 hours (d) ask your project manager how many hours the project can carry or (e) none of the above.
My 20 hours a week on the military project somehow became 40 hours a week in the pay claims submitted to the United States Department of Defense. To avoid being barred from federal contracts, every last employee at the company had to complete remedial training and pledge their oath to always record time accurately and to never falsify timesheet information.
* My first visit from a United States Marshal is another story.