Marching orders for Clacton office worker
By Lester Haines • Get more from this author
Posted in Bootnotes, 26th February 2009 15:54 GMT
A teenager from the international financial powerhouse that is Clacton-on-Sea, Essex, was given her marching orders after bosses discovered she'd described her office administrator's post as "boring" on Facebook.
Kimberley Swann, 16, was dragged before the powers that be on Monday morning and summarily dismissed from her job at Ivell Marketing & Logistics, the Telegraph explains. She was handed a letter which read: "Following your comments made on Facebook about your job and the company we feel it is better that, as you are not happy and do not enjoy your work we end your employment with Ivell Marketing & Logistics with immediate effect."
Swann described herself as "shocked" at the perfunctory nature of her ejection as a result of the comment "on her personal site". She protested: "I did not even put the company's name, I just put that my job was boring. They were just being nosy, going through everything. I think it is really sad, it makes them look stupid that they are going to be so petty."
She justified: "I was an office administrator so of course it was boring at first and I knew it would get more interesting."
Stephen Ivell, owner of Ivell Marketing & Logistics, insisted the "global product development and sourcing company" had done everything "by the book". He defended: "It is just a shame that it did not work out because she is a lovely girl. For a small company, when a decision is made, one thinks long and hard about it."
The TUC, though, begged to differ. The organisation's general secretary, Brendan Barber, insisted: "Most employers wouldn't dream of following their staff down the pub to see if they were sounding off about work to their friends." ®
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