Compliance May 8, 2006

Employee Fired For Surfing Net

May 8, 2006 (PLANSPONSOR.com) - Flouting a judge's suggestion that a worker should only be reprimanded for using the Internet at work, a supervisor for the New York City Department of Education fired the employee.
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According to the Associated Press, the 14-year department veteran, Toquir Choudhri was accused of ignoring his supervisors’ warnings to stop surfing the Internet at work. Last month, Administrative Law Judge John Spooner said Choudhri’s behavior only deserved a reprimand, ruling that “ It should be observed that the Internet has become the modern equivalent of a telephone or a daily newspaper, providing a combination of communication and information that most employees use as frequently in their personal lives as for their work” (See Judge Rules Reprimand is Appropriate for Worker Using Internet ).

“The penalty of termination is appropriate and not shocking to one’s sense of fairness,” schools Chancellor Joel Klein wrote of Choudhri, according to the AP.  The fact that the employee was abusing the Internet “at the time he is supposed to be performing his job demonstrates his disinterest in the job,” he added.

  

In February, Mayor Michael Bloomberg ordered a city worker fired for playing solitaire on his computer at his desk (See Bloomberg to Workplace Solitaire Players: Quit It ).

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