April 30, 2003
Sacked by SMS
Howard Rheingold on Smart Mobs reports on an incident in Australia where a traffic controller was fired... by SMS: "Its official, you no longer work for JNI Traffic Control & u have forfided any arrangements made." Mr Eid, 37, is taking his former employer to court - not for offences against the language, but over the procedural fairness and validity of his dismissal.
"While the method of dismissal is not crucial to the case, the sacking of the traffic controller by SMS is believed to be the first case of its kind in Australia and raises "important issues about the use, or possible misuse, of technology in the workplace." Per an article in smh.
The first report of an employee being sacked by SMS I ever read about occured in England, in February 2001, when an office adminstrator, Zoe Halls, received an SMS from her boss, stating: "We don't need you in at work tomorrow, I'll phone you AM to explain - John". Other than calling him a coward, Zoe Halls had little recourse in fighting her case as she was still in a probation period. (cf archived article in The Register).
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