Possible Dismissal for Gross Misconduct

JustAnotherSaver

FredG wrote: »

I just find this authoritarian slant of employers owning employees and the general acceptance of it by many to be quite weird. I do not mention my employer by name on social media, I do not state where I work and I'm sure that's the common sense approach.

While i agree with you 100% i've found (at my cost) that it doesn't seem to apply.

I don't know whether my employer could legally do what they did. My guess is they could since they seem to be able to do everything other than assault or discriminate (& even that last one you'd probably have a battle proving). Whether they can or can't .... in my case they did.

Basically the part i highlighted in bold there. I'm the exact same.

However one day a co-worker put up a status. Totally unrelated to work.
I made a joke. Let's say i put something like "yeah, like that slimeball we know". It wasn't that but it was something like that.

I was called in. I didn't know a manager was a friend with this co-worker & had seen it.

Basically i was put on a final warning & the outcome involved the "company into disrepute" line that gets thrown around in these cases as well as "integrity".

They said they knew full well who i was talking about. The place i work for serves the public & they said that the public could read that & it could look bad on the company, so on & so forth.

I argued that my comment could be about any random Joe on the street. I've not named the company, i've not named the person.

It didn't work. I ended up with a final warning.

As a result i deleted everyone on my list associated with work, blocked them all & blocked the ones from work who i didn't have on my list as well as associates of theirs that i knew of.

I still don't go talking about work but it's not worth the risk to me.

Smodlet

Someone earlier said, "work and drink don't mix"... All I can say is, they used to, before (anti)social media came along; that and work certainly do not mix, imo.

Why do people want to "socialise" on the internet with people they work with, anyway unless they are actually real friends? What happened to leaving work at work? Yeah, I still miss the stegosaurus wandering majestically, etc.

JustAnotherSaver

Smodlet wrote: »

Someone earlier said, "work and drink don't mix"... All I can say is, they used to, before (anti)social media came along; that and work certainly do not mix, imo.

Why do people want to "socialise" on the internet with people they work with, anyway unless they are actually real friends? What happened to leaving work at work? Yeah, I still miss the stegosaurus wandering majestically, etc.

Yeah i work with someone who was speaking to me about this.

Told me they'd added various people at work that they can't trust just because they sent a request & they didn't want to appear rude by rejecting or ignoring it.

I just told them to delete them all & if they're THAT bothered about it then make it so they can't be found or that their content can only be seen by friends. Block everyone from work that they don't want to associate with.

And if anyone says anything - no offence but i like to keep my private life private.

Like you say, at the end of the day it's a friends list, not a people i've met list.

Smodlet

I completely agree with the sentiment but understand the technology not at all. This is the extent of my social media exposure and it is quite hazardous enough out here, in the land of exclamation marks, thank you.

skullboy

In my case I had an arguement with colleague through private messenger I which we both used swear words. My colleague accused me of something which was not work related and I took offence to this and reacted badly. Almost immediately I apologised through messenger in fact 3 times I apologised, but got no reply. Approximately a week later when I was back in work, I was suspended. After 8 months of investigation and disciplinary I was dismissed for bullying and intimidation. This was because of one argument outside work which was in response to a false allegation by my colleague which was unrelated to work. Admittedly my language was a bit worse than there's but we both sweared and my colleague started it. Seems so unfair. Before this argument I had been diagnosed with social anxiety disorder and was on medication for this which did make me feel strange sometimes so I think in some way this had contributed to the way I reacted. This was my first disciplinary with my employer but I still got dismissed. Went to tribunal and lost my case. 2 years of stress for one arguement!! Going to tribunal is such a stressful thing and I'm still on meds till this day. Hard to take being dismissed but what choice do u have.

Smodlet

Skullboy, I know it is none of my business, so please feel free to tell me to mind my own but, unless this was at work, how is it any of their business? I can only assume it was on their time...

Things were always hard but they seem next to impossible, now. When did it become legal for an employer to dismiss someone for no reason at all if they had less than two years' service? The world (or this country, at any rate) has gone mad, imho. It must be over-population; employees seem to be valued less than bin liners these days, and to be more disposable. I despair.

Witless

McKneff wrote: »

Only my opinion of course but if I am paying your salary my opinion is the only one that counts....j

Unless I'm very much mistaken the only thing that counts is employment law, not your opinion.

skullboy

In my case this did not happen during the employers time nor at any event connected to my employer. Baffles me that I got dismissed for this and the tribunal upheld the dismissal. That's the world we live in nowaday. I thought it was a private matter and had nothing to do with my employer.

chubsta

it is exactly this sort of thing that makes me glad i don't attend 'works dos' any more - even when things go well and everyone has a good time there is the inevitable talk for days afterwards about who said or did what to whoever and i really don't want to get involved in it all.

The same with social media - i have heard of so many people falling out at work because of trivial slights on fb etc that i cannot understand why people put every little detail and thought out there for the whole world to see.

CKhalvashi

skullboy wrote: »

In my case this did not happen during the employers time nor at any event connected to my employer. Baffles me that I got dismissed for this and the tribunal upheld the dismissal. That's the world we live in nowaday. I thought it was a private matter and had nothing to do with my employer.

Possibly something along the lines of bringing the company into disrepute. My staff, contractors and some clients (for anything we're the legal joint publishers of) are expected to adhere to a strict social media policy.

However if it was a private messenger conversation, outside of work time, not involving a client etc, I can't see how it's anything to do with the employer personally.