Woman loses unfair dismissal appeal after SMS calling boss ‘a complete dick’

A WOMAN who was fired after sending a text message to her boss describing him as “a complete dick” has lost her application for unfair dismissal.

“Please delete without reading.”

A WOMAN who was fired after accidentally sending a text message to her boss describing him as “a complete dick” has lost her application for unfair dismissal.

Louise Nesbitt, a former office administrator with Perth-based minerals company Dragon Mountain Gold, took her case to the Fair Work Commission after being sacked last year.

In January, Ms Nesbitt had arranged for plumbing work to be carried out by her daughter’s boyfriend at the company’s office.

In a text message intended for the plumber, she described her boss, Robert Gardner, as “a complete dick”, adding “we know this already so please try your best not to tell him that regardless of how you feel the need”.

Realising her mistake, she texted Mr Gardner saying: “Rob please delete without reading. I am so so so sorry. Xxx.”

In a follow-up text, she wrote: “Rob I need to explain ... that message came across so wrong. Rob ... that is not how I feel. My sense of humour is to exaggerate.”

She described it as a “joke within our family”, but added that she felt her ideas were ignored “but that’s ok it’s not my building and all I can do is put forward suggestions and hope one or two get implemented”.

“It is not how I feel,” she went on. “It is so far out of context. Please forget it and just go on as normal. I am very very sorry.”

The company sacked Ms Nesbitt the following week citing “gross misconduct”.

In her application for unfair dismissal, Ms Nesbitt argued the message should have been viewed as a light-hearted insult and taken in the context of the intended recipient.

Commissioner Cloghan dismissed the application, writing that it was “far from a ‘light-hearted insult’, it was a hurtful and unpleasant appraisal of the Chairman and Managing Director of her employer, for whom she earned $95,000 per annum”.

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