UK banker fired for boasting about #6K redundancy payout on Facebook

LONDON - A bank worker in UK was fired after her employers saw her messages on Facebook boasting about receiving a big redundancy payout.

RBS worker Kate Furlong posted the messages minutes after her bosses announced they were planning to cut 3,500 jobs. Furlong, who was off work sick at the time, received a phone call from her manager that day telling her she would have to take redundancy or relocate to Birmingham.

Minutes later, she wrote her first post on Facebook at 5.58pm. It said, “WoOOOOooooOooooHOoooOooOoo’ it was pretty damn obvious something like this was coming. I’m neither stupid nor naive…quote (sic) honestly it is the best news ever as far as I am concerned!” the Daily Mail reports.

At 6.02pm she continued, “They will give us the option to take early retirement (for those eligible obviously), transfer to Birmingham and if so, the possibility of a travel allowance, or redundancies. Either way, SCORE!!!”

And at 8.17pm she wrote, “I’ve just hung on by my fingertips to stick around long enough for a nice payout when they could’ve had me out long ago without a penny! More fool them! Haha! Xx.”

A colleague who saw the comments reported her to her boss who suspended her when she returned on September 13 for breaching the company’s ‘declaration of secrecy’, which they claimed amounted to gross misconduct. She was also denied the payout.

She said, “I can’t believe I’ve been treated so appallingly for what essentially amounts to having a chat with my mates outside of work.”

“The information was already out there and all I was doing was having a chat with mates. I don’t feel I should have been sacked. They got rid of me so they didn’t have to pay any redundancy.”

Furlong started legal proceedings against RBS yesterday.

An RBS spokesman said, “We do not comment on individual staff matters.” (ANI)