A SALES assistant at El Corte Inglés department store in Santa Cruz de Tenerife has lost her case against her dismissal for telling a seven-year-old child that presents came from her parents rather than Father Christmas.
The undisclosed employee was fired in December 2015 and took the company to court, but El Corte Inglés said the incident was 'the last straw' in a series of major disciplinary issues of which the young woman was aware – and which had even led to her being suspended from her job for a week.
According to County Court Number 6 in the Canary Island city, the staff member – who worked on the jewellery counter – told a little girl who was with her parents to take her dad to the perfume section so her mother could 'buy dad a watch from Father Christmas'.
The rest of the conversation has not been revealed, but it appeared to be enough that the employee had made it clear to the little girl that the mythical red-coated festive figure did not exist, leaving her 'desolate' and the worker's supervisor 'extremely embarrassed' by the parents' complaints.
El Corte Inglés said that in September of the same year, the young woman had been suspended without pay for 16 days for 'maintaining a negative, passive, uncooperative and unprofessional attitude' when serving customers, which had led them to transfer her from the perfume department to the jewellery section in February in an attempt to give her greater job satisfaction.
The company commented on the plaintiff's 'inappropriate' manner in serving customers, prolonged and unnecessary absences from her department, 'rudeness and unfriendliness' towards her colleagues, and 'slapdash' gift-wrapping – during which, on one occasion, she narrowly missed causing injury to a little boy when she flung a sharp pair of scissors across the counter.
According to the firm, her 'poor behaviour' at work was largely a bid to be made redundant since, if she left of her own volition, she would not get the pay-off she would be entitled to if she was fired or laid off – a substantial amount, given that she had worked for the store for over 10 years.
She had been heard to say to a colleague: “Let them get rid of me, that way they'll pay me what they owe me.”
A judge heard that the issues were not isolated incidents, nor resulting from specific circumstances, but were ongoing over some time, and that being suspended without pay for 16 days had not improved matters.
This, the company said, effectively 'forced' them to take the most drastic action possible and 'in accordance with the collective working conditions agreement' for the industry.
As well as not getting her job back, the employee – although she would have been entitled to a full severance pay upon being fired – is likely to have to spend a large chunk of it on legal costs for her case.
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