25 October 2008

if you chuck a sickie, don't brag about it on facebook

Poor Kyle Doyle. He did what is commonly done by Australian workers and that is to be too ill to work on the day following a heavy night of drinking. From The Age
Sickie faker busted by Facebook [*sic]

Asher Moses
October 23, 2008

A Sydney telco employee has learned the hard way the perils of sharing too much information on Facebook [*sic] after he was caught by his boss faking a sickie after a big night out.

In an email exchange doing the rounds of office blocks, Kyle Doyle was asked by his employer, AAPT, to provide a medical certificate verifying a day of sick leave in August.

Doyle, a call centre worker, protested, saying his contract stipulated he did not require a medical certificate for taking only one day off.

His boss replied that this was usually the case but in this instance the company had determined that the leave was not due to medical reasons.

"My leave was due to medical reasons, so you cannot deny leave based on a line manager's discretion, with no proof, please process leave as requested," Doyle responded.

The manager then sent Doyle a screen grab of Doyle's Facebook [*sic] profile, highlighting a status update written on the leave day in question.

"Kyle Doyle is not going to work, f--- it i'm still trashed. SICKIE WOO!," it read.

Sprung and with no room left to move, Doyle replied to the boss: "HAHAHA LMAO [laughing my ass off] epic fail. No worries man."

Doyle did not respond to a request for comment sent over Facebook [*sic] but a friend of his confirmed the incident was not a hoax.

The employer would not comment.

Update 24/10 - AAPT today released a statement saying it had completed an investigation of its email records and the exchange between Doyle and his boss "never occurred".

However, a spokeswoman confirmed that both are current employees with the company. AAPT would not give any further details and would not say whether the emails were part of a prank by Doyle or one of his colleagues.

"This issue will continue to be dealt with internally, as a matter of standard company process," AAPT's statement read.


I think that it is quite legitimate to have a sick day from work if a person is too ill to go to work, regardless of the cause. This includes being 'trashed'.

Silly boy, he should have written "Kyle Doyle is home and too unwell to go to work". It wasn't even a 'sickie' which is euphemism for taking a day off from work (to play golf, go fishing etc) and claiming sick leave for it.

*note to The Age, facebook is not capitalised. It makes it look funny.

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I was too tired to blog on Thursday and Friday nights.

Emily came over on Thursday night for dinner and I made a beef madras curry. She is a curry addict. On Friday late afternoon, Anthony came over after we had an after work beer. It's nice to have visitors.

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