If you walk into an employees office.............

[Carrie]

I tend to take things on a case by case basis.
Was his work done for the day?
Was his work done for the first half of the day and it was around lunchtime?
Was it lunchtime and he was taking his lunch break at his desk rather than leaving the building?
Is he doing something with the company that is sports-related (ie you wouldn't want to fire the person running the football pool here on Oprano for looking at ESPN...)?
Is this the first time you've caught them surfing?

Many factors, but first and foremost - creative, hardworking people do *not* work "typically". They work in bursts, then get their mind off of it for a bit to refresh the batteries, then they go back into a burst. During one of these "bursts" they can output 3 times the work that a normal employee will do, but they also might seem to be "goofing off" 3 times more than a normal employee is.

Just walking into your office and finding someone doing something one time like surfing a bit isn't grounds for serious discipline... this is what an office manager is for. The office manager can be there full-time and *know* which employees are the "slow and steady" mules and which are the "rabbits" who do their work in bursts. The office manager is the person to make these decisions, not someone who wanders through maybe once a week and doesn't know the employees and their work habits.