Case Study: “Expensive Paperweight” Gets Fired

In April 2010, an employee of the Social Development Ministry Authority of Auckland (New Zealand) was sacked for posting on her Facebook account, referring to herself as a “very expensive paperweight,” “highly competent in the art of time wastage, blame-shifting and stationary [sic] theft.”¹ Her favorite Facebook post was “hey boss, can I go home sick???” The Employment Relations Authority in Auckland did not uphold a complaint from the employee that she was unfairly dismissed. Understandably, the employer had lost trust and confidence in her. Another Authority member said the employee’s online comments “endorsed a stereotyped view of slothful and exploitative public servants.”

¹Victoria Robinson, “’Expensive Paperweight’ Fired After Facebook Posts,” Stuff.co.nz Dominion Post (December 20, 2010), http://www.stuff.co.nz/national/4472229/Expensive-paperweight-fired-after-Facebook-posts.

Although postings alone do not automatically justify a firing, the employee’s other past actions combined with the postings to get her fired. The employer was able to add the posting comments to her file and justify termination.

Unfortunately, we don’t know what the Ministry did in terms of training employees regarding the proper use of social media. It is interesting to note that the employee had posted on several occasions that she wanted to go home sick. What we know the Ministry did correctly was to gather data about what was being said about the organization in public spaces. We aren’t sure how long it took for the Ministry to find this post, but they are addressing the fact that attacks can come from outside the corporate firewall from areas like Facebook that are really not under organizational control.

What did the Ministry do wrong in previous cases? Was she reprimanded for her previous posts? Did the Ministry even know what she was posting up to this point? In current firings due to social media use, no mention is usually made of prior incidents, so we don’t know if the employee received a warning or referral to policies or in-house social media training courses. Not having these policies and trainings in place could lead to unjustified firings. Many companies do have a policy on what it takes to get fired. But these policies are usually somewhat vague and open to interpretation, which is why there are so many lawsuits. With social media postings, the reasons for being fired can become even vaguer. We will see how this develops over the next year.