NYC Ignores Judge and Fires Employee for Websurfing

Posted on May 6, 2006

The Associated Press reports that a New York City Department of Education employee has been fired for surfing the Internet. The worker's employers completely ignored the good advice given by Administrative Law Judge John Spooner. In an earlier story the wise judge compared websurfing to "reading a newspaper or talking on the phone." The judge said that a reprimand would be enough punishment. None of the articles say this particular employee read blogs but if an employee can be fired for reading web articles than they could just as easily be fired for reading blog posts. Hopefully, most employers will follow Spooner's advice and simply reprimand employees if they think they are spending too much time reading blogs or websites.