"She didn't add any smiley faces!" Woman fired for not using emojis
A Queensland woman has won an unfair dismissal case, after the ex-wife of the business owner demanded she was fired immediately over sending a text message that didn’t include any smiley face emojis.
According to the Fair Work Commission (FWC), Phoebe Wang who was overseeing her ex-husband’s Sens and Goya cafes on the Gold Coast had smashed her phone on the counter, jumped up and down while screaming “Kristen Gordon must be fired” immediately after receiving messages from her about a staffing issue.
Ms Gordon had been employed by the business for about 14 months and was a casual working full-time hours. Part of her job included rostering staff and time sheets.
Her colleague, who was there at the time of the incident, told the FWC she asked to see the messages to understand why Ms Wang was so angry however, she found the messages to be normal.
Allegedly, Ms Wang said that Ms Gordon was arguing with her because there were no emojis included.
Ms Gordon told the FWC that she had been told Ms Wang repeatedly stated she “didn’t add any smiley faces! There are no emotions!”.
Ms Gordon went on to say she was unaware her “completely reasonable text message” had caused so much upset.
The next day after working a full shift, Ms Gordon was told by a manager they were forced to dismiss her. Fair Work Commissioner Chris Simpson concluded that Ms Gordon was dismissed at this point, despite any attempts for it to appear otherwise.
Commissioner Simpson ordered Sens Catering Group Pty Ltd to pay Ms Gordon $5357.80, plus 9.5% superannuation.
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