When I worked at Honeywell in the early ‘80’s, at a campus in Clearwater, which had 5000 total employees, one of them would check in at first light and have coffee with his buddies. He’d then get into his car and drive two miles to Hercules, where he’d do the same thing. As I understood, he seldom, if ever, did any work at either facility. The IRS caught him and reported him to both employers. Hercules fired him. But, Honeywell only cared that he wasn’t also at Hercules. I don’t know how he finally ended up as I left. Both companies were very like their customer, the government.
I used to live in a subdivision where many state employees lived. Listening to them talk, it seems they did little work. For example, a couple of them had a regular golfing appointment on Thursdays during the day. I asked and they laughed about making up the time. They were allowed, as professionals, to set their own schedules. Believe me, they weren’t very high up on the totem pole.
There were quite a few gov-co drones who were nobodies and they had better than banker’s hours.
They could come and go whenever and would whine about all the vacation time they had to use or give up.
My time sheets were scanned for the slightest discrepancy.