He did only have to pay a year back. It was worth the gamble.
I’ve had managers I wish had done the same as this employee. On a related note, I work in the water industry. There are a LOT of water system employees who do nothing.
I did a job years ago on a government site. Flew to the site with all of our gear - took two days to meet up with the guy to get started. We would get there early and his secretary would say “Oh - you just missed him, he’s at a morning meeting. Come back at noon.”
Anyway, on the third day we caught him as he was heading out the door in the morning and he got us squared away and we went to the project site.
Explained to the guy at the site the reason for our delay.
“Oh yeah - Tom doesn’t do any work here. He comes in early in the morning, turns on his lights and computer. Then he heads into town for his second job for an engineering firm. Drives by on his way home to turn everything off again.”
I used to work in public broadcasting. There were some true masters of doing nothing and disappearing whenever for however long with no questions.