Is it possible to get fired for doing a TikTok video? The chances seem far off but the experience of a TikTok user states that it is quite possible to get fired for making a TikTok video (during a meeting). It is a fact well-known that the need to post every minute detail about your daily life on social media is a growing trend among users, and we are not the ones to judge as long as it makes them happy. However, is there something called an appropriate time to make videos? Is it ideal to shoot a video for TikTok while you are in between a meeting? Read along to know more.
Right or Wrong?
Recently, a tech worker got fired from her company on the grounds of gross negligence on her part. All she did was make a small TikTok video while she was in between a company meeting at 4:30 in the morning. A 4:30 am meeting sounds a bit too odd, but that is a discussion for later.
Chelle was comfortably settling into her 4:30 meeting when she suddenly noticed that she forgot to keep a mug under the Keurig machine, and coffee was being spilled all over the place. A coffee situation is indeed something that is TikTok-worthy and Chelle thought the same as she went ahead and made a TikTok video recording the whole coffee situation and her reaction to it. What Chelle did not know at that time was that she was to get a way too huge reaction from her employers, thanks to the video. While she got busy filming the whole situation, it completely missed her notice that the conference call was audible in the background. Her company later found out that she was filing during the meeting from this small slip-of-hand. Soon enough, Chelle got a call from HR, and she was fired from the company for “gross negligence.” She did not forget to post another video recounting the whole experience, and it has over 281,000 views.
“They were having a conversation that had absolutely nothing to do with me, so I went off-camera, took the 20-second video, and hit upload,” she recalls. “I did not think anything of it until the next day when I got called into a meeting with HR and my chief product officer, and they said, ‘Hey, somebody sent us this video, and we are immediately dismissing you from the company for gross negligence.’”
The video piqued the interest of users who blamed the company for the odd meeting timing and for the puerile nature of the whole offense. As Chelle acknowledges herself, the situation is rather complex, and the answer to whether the offense she committed was too big to result in the termination of her job is even more complex. However, Chelle has found a silver lining amidst the whole fiasco. Now that she has a lot of free time at hand, she is using it to launch her own business that is in sync with her passion. Perhaps the saying that “everything happens for a reason” is not an exaggeration after all.
