Would you sue your boss if he was paying you to stay at home ?
By topffer
@topffer (42156)
France
December 14, 2016 1:40pm CST
There is something nice for public servants in several European countries : they have a job for life and they cannot be fired. The best way to get rid of a public servant is to offer him/her a promotion in another administration/place, because a promotion cannot be refused. The other way is to encourage a public servant to request a transfer or to resign.
To revoke a public servant needs to prove that he/she committed a serious professional fault and is very rare. At worst they are sent to home for a few weeks/months until the administration assigns them another job, and it is what has happened in November to a public servant working at the interior ministry in Belgium since 2006. This public servant is making end meets by working in the porn industry. Being a shopkeeker/merchant is forbidden to a public servant, being an occasional movie actress is alright, and her coworkers knew what she was doing out of her working hours, would it be only by an interview that she gave for a TV documentary. But she mixed the two activities and took a few naked photos/selfies at her work that she posted on Twitter. I can understand her somewhere : ministers are so rarely in their offices, that it is a pity to not use and show more these offices full of beautiful furniture in gilded wood, and ministries are full of nice conference rooms inoccupied most of the time...
When the tweets have been discovered, she has been invited last November to return her entry pass and her laptop and to stay at home, where she will continue to receive her wages. She decided to sue her administration at the Belgian Council of State for invasion of her privacy and vexatious measure. She has been dismissed this month "because she took herself the risk to damage her reputation by taking porn photos on her working place and diffusing them on the Internet." Now she will have more time left to become a real porn star, until she gets a new assignement from her administration.
Would you sue your boss if he was paying you to stay at home ?
12 people like this
8 responses
@topffer (42156)
• France
14 Dec 16
Exactly. The judges dismissed her because she took AND she posted the photos. They let think that they could have decided differently if someone else had posted the pictures. She should have better not sued the state. I think that after this decision, she is at risk to be revoked.
1 person likes this
@topffer (42156)
• France
16 Jan 17
What is the "backward attitude towards the job security" here ? It is very useful to have a public servant able to do his/her job without any pressure coming from politicians. You should understand that it is a big progress. "Re-thinking" it would be doing a step a century backward in the past.
1 person likes this
@scheng1 (24650)
• Singapore
19 Jan 17
@topffer When public servants think like those in private sector, they can cut down on red tape, and they can really contribute to the economy.
That can only happen when public servants work hard and work smart in order to preserve their jobs.
If there is no way to fire public servants, then the work attitude is very different.
1 person likes this
@topffer (42156)
• France
19 Jan 17
@scheng1 The main difference between us is that I do not think that a public servant has to contribute to the economy. He has to do a public service benefiting to the population : a post office in a small village or a hospital in a small town costs certainly to the economy but it is useful. A policeman or a fireman cannot be seen in terms of "economy", etc. Somebody that cannot be easily fired will be in a better position to provide the service honestly that somebody that you can fire. It is sure that some of them might abuse, but usually they work hard.
1 person likes this
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@celticeagle (160015)
• Boise, Idaho
14 Dec 16
No, I wouldn't sue. It is her choice to do what she does after hours and the choice of her superiors to have her stay home.I don't see where anyone is doing anything wrong.
1 person likes this
@celticeagle (160015)
• Boise, Idaho
15 Dec 16
@topffer .....Sometimes people jump and don't think before doing things.
1 person likes this
@topffer (42156)
• France
14 Dec 16
They asked her to stay home because of the photos she took on her working place, not because of what she was doing after her working hours. She should have better not sued the state and should have waited for a new posting : now that she lost this trial, she is at risk to be revoked.
1 person likes this
@arthurchappell (45002)
• Preston, England
14 Dec 16
I'd love it if any employer paid me not to turn up
1 person likes this
@arthurchappell (45002)
• Preston, England
15 Dec 16
@topffer not so much paid as paid off
1 person likes this
