Around The World in Eighty Days led a Dundee man on a journey to losing his job.
An employment tribunal has ruled that Lee Fettes (43) was properly sacked for playing a game, inspired by the famous Jules Verne novel, on his work computer.
Management at Dundee Cold Stores, of Gourdie Industrial Estate, resorted to an adventure of their own to catch Fettes in the act.
They climbed a stack of wooden pallets to see through his office window that he was playing the game on his work PC.
Fettes claimed he was unfairly dismissed by the company earlier this year. He was a shift manager and one of 27 permanent members of staff at the factory, which processes peas and broad beans.
One of the cold storage firm’s rules is that employees are not allowed, without approval, to download any computer software other than for official business.
The tribunal heard Fettes had previously received a verbal warning for playing a computer game at work. He had also been given a written warning for not reporting an absence, and both episodes were still live for disciplinary purposes.
Tribunal judge Mrs M. Kearns noted that Fettes had been involved in a minor incident on March 5 which resulted in damage to a factory wall. He was asked to complete a report and went to his office to do so.
Factory manager Colin Craig wondered why he was taking so long and climbed on top of some pallets outside Fettes’s office and saw through the window that he was playing a game on his PC. Another shift manager verified what Fettes was doing.
At a meeting with IT manager Anne Morgan, Fettes admitted playing Around the World in Eighty Days for five minutes while completing his incident report.
Fettes said the game had been on his PC for some time and denied downloading it. He admitted that it was not acceptable to play the game at work.
It was later found that there were three games on Fettes’s computer.
At a subsequent disciplinary hearing he did not dispute he had been playing the game when he should have been working. He was dismissed.
He appealed and named other employees who could have downloaded the games. One of them was on duty when Around the World and another game were downloaded. When interviewed he said Fettes’s door was locked at the times concerned.
Fettes also claimed that his superior had been sneaky by climbing on to pallets, but senior manager Peter Wilkinson did not agree and dismissed the appeal.
Fettes’s solicitor contended that dismissal had been unreasonable, but the tribunal judge said it was within the band of reasonable responses a reasonable employer might adopt in the circumstances.