Dismissal for gross misconduct- advice needed

I'd have fired you.

I worked at a company that had free international calls, but these were for business use only.

Any personal calls were not permitted other than in your lunch break from your own mobile.

They checked the phone bills, and those few who did have permission in advance to make personal calls abroad paid for them. (We had quite a few foreign workers).

Why not turn up to the meeting with your cheque book, and offer to pay them bill immediately and beg to keep your job?

You will probably have to pay the bill anyway, so all you can do is grovel.

Undervalued wrote: »

Maybe, but that is only relevant for calculating how much (if anything) needs to be paid back.

Plus, the fact that the company may have got the calls for free doesn't not give somebody the right to use them for non business purposes.

In any case, as said before, with only seven months service he can be dismissed for no reason at all.

I don't disagree, it just annoys me when people throw around things like 'theft', 'stealing' for what could have been an innocent misunderstanding. Maybe I'm just prepared to give people the benefit of the doubt rather than label them as criminals though.

Deleted_User wrote: »

Yes me personally would accept payment for the calls and that would be the end of the matter. But we are dealing with heartless corporate entities here. They don't care about peoples lives.

Tell me about it! (long story)

Deleted_User wrote: »

They don't care about peoples lives.

Companies aren't there to be surrogate parents and give you a cuddle when you misbehave/do something stupid. Many try to be accommodating, but some people do take the mickey bliss hugely as you've doubtless seen yourself.

That means having to have strict rules and following them so the boundaries don't erode until someone says "well you let Mary come in late so why not me, is not fair, I'm calling the union, boo boo I want compo as you're discriminating against me because I'm (whatever)". Corporations are made of people, people aren't unreasonable, but have to protect the company (that employs multiple people) from unthinking or malicious individuals fairly and consistently for the sake of all employees (which means having rules).

As for VoIP, there's still an associated cost, although cheaper than POTS (normal landline). It still requires QoS and decent bandwidth to have low latency talks, so is still use of company resources and time.