At some point in May, Wells Fargo, a large banking company, fired more than a dozen employees for lying about actually sitting at their desks.

Our sister site Tom's Hardware shared a report confirming that Wells Fargo had fired employees who were simulating keyboarding.

The termination was revealed by a disclosure the bank shared with the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (Finra) in June; Finra's disclosure alleged that the terminated employee was simulating keyboarding and using a "mouse joggler" tool, it alleges. [A Wells Fargo spokesperson told Bloomberg that "Wells Fargo holds its employees to the highest standards and does not tolerate unethical behavior."

The fired employees apparently worked in the lender's asset and investment management department. They used readily available tools to pretend that they were doing their jobs. According to the report, the employees were not even at their computers.

The Finra report does not explain how Wells Fargo caught the AWOL employees, but there is a program that takes screenshots of employees' computers to see if the mouse is actually moving around. Or maybe they just checked their desks.

Because of the need for telecommuting, employers have increased monitoring of employees who have too much downtime by tracking the status of chat applications such as Slack, which can be idle if the mouse is idle for too long.

Apparently, it has become fashionable among employees to purchase a tool that moves the mouse to avoid Big Brother. This tool can be purchased on Amazon for less than $20.

The mouse juggler can be used to prevent the computer from going into sleep mode.

Wells Fargo has been using a "hybrid flexible model" since 2022. Of the major banking groups, Wells Fargo seems to have been the most accommodating in requiring employees to return to company offices. Most employees must be in the office three days a week. The reports we have read do not clarify whether those laid off were working at home or in the office.

Apparently, Wells Fargo's investment management department has a history of bad behavior. According to Bloomberg, in 2016, a number of advisors fled the firm with lucrative clients; in 2018, Wells Fargo fired a number of employees who had abused expense policies to try to get the bank to pay for "unqualified" dinners.