Woman goes AWOL. Woman gets sacked. So?
A woman who ‘pulled a sickie’ to watch England’s semi-final win at Wembley was sacked after her boss saw her celebrating on TV.
Nina Farooqi, 37, dodged work in Yorkshire after her friend won last-minute tickets to the historic match against Denmark in a work raffle.
She said she thought that she was unlikely to be granted the day off to attend, due to work being short-staffed, and so decided to call in sick and catch the Wednesday lunchtime train from Leeds to London Kings Cross, before heading to Wembley.
But the face of the digital content producer, from Ilkley, near Bradford, was beamed around the world when a TV camera zoomed in on her and her friend celebrating England’s equalising goal.
Oh dear, how sad, never mind. Look upon it as a life lesson.
I’ve never pulled a sicky in the whole of my working life. I used to feel bad about calling in sick when I was ill. So, I don’t really have much sympathy for someone who does it and gets caught. Maybe she didn’t know that it was going to be on the telly.
Aussies think they have a right to take all their available sick leave, sick or not. They are quite shameless about ‘chucking a sickie’.
Likewise. It’s fraud and should be treated as such.
Was she wearing a mask?
Nina Farooqi? Must have been sacked because she’s black
My sister in Canada (works in the health care sector) has an alloted number of ‘sick’ days per year. Any not taken are ‘banked’, to be taken when you like, next year, the year after etc…….
Another one here who’s never pulled a sickie, never taken a day off sick at all come to that and am fed up to the back bloody teeth carrying the same useless bodies time after time
So what she’s got the sack couldn’t give a tuppeny one, however, what’s the betting her boss gets pressured into re-instating her for the usual reasons and ends up paying for the pleasure.
I dunno, he’s on firm ground here. She went AWOL which is fraud, so he’s well within his rights to instantly dismiss her. It’s a pretty straightforward case of gross misconduct.
I remember a colleague got caught on camera in the front row at Wimbledon tennis one year. He wasn’t with his wife but another woman, cost him more than his job !!!
What about the bloke who was meant to be at work in the world trade centre on September 11 2001. By now the buildings are dust and rubble, his wife frantically calling his phone, he says “I’m at work honey”, when he’s actually in the cot with some bird. Totally busted.
I was just happy, in the versions I read, that Ilkley was correctly identified as part of Bradford and not Leeds, as the residents would wish 🙂
Some fifty years ago a neighbour was a postman. He and his colleagues took their sick leave allowance every year, sick or not. I suppose it offset the crappy wages.
It’s this sense of whiny entitlement that sticks in my craw.
“It’s not fair, I’ve done nothing wrong?!”
She might have got away with it, but didn’t, so tough!
She did do something wrong, though. She stole from her employer. People don’t see it that way, but what else is it?
If she was due to still be paid while sick, then she has committed the offence of obtaining pecuniary advantage by deception, a criminal offence under the theft act. She’s lucky her employer didn’t press charges. So she’s a crook as well as a liar and hypocrite.
Many years ago one of my colleagues sacked a subordinate for exactly this. The union realised that they were on a loser as soon as he cited the theft act.
I was surprised in the past on hearing about an employer (public sector, natch) that allowed workers to claim sick days while they were on holiday, then add those days back to their holiday allowance.