A court in Tasmania has ruled that when two co-workers in Tasmania who unfriended a work colleague that officially constituted ‘bullying in the workplace’. Which sort of really changes the landscape because it means that unfriending someone on Facebook can now be seen as something recognised by the law as ‘bad’.
According to the Mail, an industrial relations tribunal heard that two workers at a real estate agent’s office in Tasmania – Rachael Roberts, who had worked there for 10 years, and sales administrator Lisa Bird – disagreed on who was to blame for a lost sale.
Lisa stopped saying good morning to Rachael, blaming her for the loss, before unfriending her on Facebook and, when Rachael spoke to her superiors about the matter, called her a ‘naughty little schoolgirl running to the teacher’.
Rachael took this further and Nicole Well from the Fair Work Commission ruled that Lisa had behaved in an ‘unreasonable’ manner and shown a ‘lack of emotional maturity’. She also found that this behaviour posed a risk to Rachael’s health and safety.
‘Lisa took the first opportunity to draw a line under the relationship with Rachael when she removed her as a friend on Facebook, as she didn’t like her and would prefer not to have to deal with her,’ Nicole Well said. She went on to add that this showed ‘a lack of emotional maturity and is indicative of unreasonable behaviour’.
The lesson is, then, don’t unfriend your work colleagues, no matter how annoyed you are at them. And if they’re really effing annoying, then just unfollow them on your News Feed – way less harsh than deleting them as a friend, and less likely to get you done in a Tasmanian court.
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This article originally appeared on The Debrief.