Teen sacked for 'boring' job Facebook comment

A teenager from the international financial powerhouse that is Clacton-on-Sea, Essex, was given her marching orders after bosses discovered she'd described her office administrator's post as "boring" on Facebook.

Kimberley Swann, 16, was dragged before the powers that be on Monday morning and summarily dismissed from her job at Ivell Marketing & Logistics, the Telegraph explains. She was handed a letter which read: "Following your comments made on Facebook about your job and the company we feel it is better that, as you are not happy and do not enjoy your work we end your employment with Ivell Marketing & Logistics with immediate effect."

Swann described herself as "shocked" at the perfunctory nature of her ejection as a result of the comment "on her personal site". She protested: "I did not even put the company's name, I just put that my job was boring. They were just being nosy, going through everything. I think it is really sad, it makes them look stupid that they are going to be so petty."

She justified: "I was an office administrator so of course it was boring at first and I knew it would get more interesting."

Stephen Ivell, owner of Ivell Marketing & Logistics, insisted the "global product development and sourcing company" had done everything "by the book". He defended: "It is just a shame that it did not work out because she is a lovely girl. For a small company, when a decision is made, one thinks long and hard about it."

The TUC, though, begged to differ. The organisation's general secretary, Brendan Barber, insisted: "Most employers wouldn't dream of following their staff down the pub to see if they were sounding off about work to their friends." ®

Bootnote

Barber's assertion may be true for the majority of cases, but it ain't so down at Vulture Central. A couple of months ago, the Strategy Boutique employed someone described as "VP in Charge Of European Web 2.0 Development" - a right shifty character who's been seen hanging around post-work knees-ups drinking nothing more than tea tree juice, a sure sign that he's a management stool pigeon sent in to gauge on-the-ground editorial reaction to the decision to outsource our Playmobil coverage to a call centre in Poland.

Of course, once his bladder finally succumbs to an excess of antioxidants, we'll corner the bastard in the pub bogs and administer the traditional punishment - flushing his BlackBerry down the pan so he can't touch base with his dark masters. Enough said.