There, but for the grace of God and...and half a clue...go I

Never use company equipment for personal use. Never use company equipment for personal use. Heck, I bring my own laptop to the day job and write on my lunch hour. Because I KNOW BETTER than to ever use company equipment for personal use. Have I? Yes. Did I stop? Oh, yes! Was I caught? Kind of. Was it one of the worst moments of my life because I value my day job and employer? Yes.
Never use company equipment for personal use. Now...that said...I hope this lady's novel rocks!

Lusty novelist paged for writing on the job

December 26, 2007 4:47 PM

Unfortunately for Tanja Shelton, her job didn't include writing bodice rippers. She was supposed to be doing whatever it is a production control scheduler for an industrial machine maker does.

Typing, lots and lots of typing, made Typing Tanja's boss suspicious.

No sharply chiseled hero came to Typing Tanja's rescue. She got fired for her romantic ruminating...

After the writings were discovered, the company fired Shelton and challenged her claim for unemployment benefits. That led to a state hearing, at which Shelton testified that her writing was a way of honing her job skills during slow periods at work.

"I was writing, but it wasn't necessarily a book," she testified. "I was just typing my thoughts down, trying to keep my brain moving. I wanted to improve my typing skills."

She said she didn't consider her fiction writing a violation of the company policy that prohibits personal use of the computer.

Now she's got plenty of time to finish just what the world needs, another romance novel. As the reporter said, "Unbridled lust! Unspoken passion! Unemployment!"