Overly Productive Employee

When is it a vice to be too productive? A consultant to travel agencies in Texas asked herself that when she received a call from a client travel agency with an employee who was causing complaints from coworkers about her raw language at the office. It seems that when talking with customers on the phone, she would use all kinds of unrepeatable obscenities and generally vulgar language. Some employees started telling the employer they felt it was a hostile work environment, which made the employer concerned enough to tape some of the calls*. Listening to the calls, it became apparent that the customers, all of whom just happened to be men, were talking just as badly as the employee, and the employee was even overheard making what appeared to be "dates" with the customers. The employer conducted a review of the employee's bookings over the last few months and discovered that most of her bookings seemed to be for stays of a few hours at a time, or at most overnight, at posh downtown hotels. The consultant called to ask what legal options the employer had. Told that one option would be to discharge the employee for using foul language in violation of the company policy against such talk during work, the consultant said she had thought of that, too, but that her client had said "oh, no, we don't want to fire her - she's our top producer!"

(* Be very careful when conducting any type of monitoring or surveillance on employees. State and federal laws provide varying restrictions on such activity. Always check with your attorney or local law enforcement authorities for information on applicable laws. ELANet )

Nobody Understands - You Can't Eat Oatmeal Plain!

An unemployment benefits claimant was fired from his job as a jailkeeper/deputy for a final incident in which he left his assigned post, leaving keys and telephones accessible to jail inmates. He also failed to notify the other deputy on duty that he was going down to another level of the facility. At the appeal hearing, he explained that he had left his post to get some sugar and milk for his oatmeal. Despite admitting that he had been warned and even suspended for various policy violations several times in the two years preceding the discharge, he said the final incident was not serious because the keys he had left unguarded only opened a "supply closet". That was fortunate, because it is well-known that escaping prisoners would rather steal keys that open regular jail doors on a direct path to the outside.*

(*Please excuse the bit of sarcasm. ELANet )

Top Prize So Far for Unluckiest Unemployment Benefits Claimant

Another claimant in an unemployment case has to win the prize for the unluckiest claimant to ever apply for benefits. He had been fired for testing positive for an illegal substance. In explaining that he was not guilty of what the drug test revealed, he offered the following story: Worried that he might be tested that day and that the test might reveal his recent marijuana use, he took the precaution of taking a small container along to a men's room in another area of the plant. He scooped up a portion of an unflushed accumulation in a urinal, put the lid on, and kept it in a pocket close to his body in order to lend the foreign liquid some warm authenticity. (Testing procedures often involve temperature checks of samples submitted.) Sure enough, he did get an order to report to the men's room in his area to give a urine sample for testing. He poured the liquid from the other urinal into the collection vial to submit as his own specimen. He accidentally dropped the lid of the vial into the toilet, which had blue dye in it to discourage falsification of urine samples. In fishing the lid out, he got the coloring all over his fingers, which he wiped off on his underwear. Unfortunately for the claimant, the sample he submitted as his own tested positive for cocaine. His employer, not impressed with his explanation that he had submitted someone else's urine and was really only guilty of marijuana use, discharged him. During testimony at the appeal hearing, he attempted to submit the underwear as proof of the blue dye problem. The hearing officer declined the evidence, apparently because he was willing to believe the claimant's explanation that all that was really involved was simply falsification of the drug test and an admission of recent marijuana use. Unfortunately again, those things were also misconduct that called for benefits disqualification.

(If anyone out there has a better nomination for "unluckiest claimant" or "unluckiest employee", please submit it - we will post the best entries and give credit to the ones who submitted them (unless you would rather not have anyone know! ELANet - send by e-mail to the address below.)

Contact the Employment Law Advisory Network:

© 2000
Employment Law Advisory Network, Inc.