EBay customer support agent sanctioned for four minutes of inactivity loses dismissal case

Irish Times

26-05-2025

An
eBay
customer support agent who quit after being written up for failing to explain four minutes of inactivity on his computer to his manager's satisfaction has lost his claim for constructive dismissal.
The employee told the
Workplace Relations Commission
(WRC) earlier this year he had 'people dying left, right and centre' in his personal life at the time of the events that led to the warning, including a friend who 'went into the river in Navan'.
His former manager said: 'Anything over 60 seconds is considered work avoidance.'
A claim for constructive dismissal brought by the worker, Eanna Donoghue, under the Unfair Dismissals Act 1977 against eBay Europe Services Ltd, has been rejected by the tribunal.
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Mr Donoghue quit on March 5th, 2024, the day he was told a company appeals officer had decided to leave a written warning for 'work avoidance' on his personnel file – effectively barring him from seeking promotion for a time, he said.
He had been in the €41,000-a-year job for just short of seven years.
The tribunal heard Mr Donoghue's former line manager, Niamh Seoighe, wrote to him on Thursday, December 21st, 2024 telling him she had observed on a screen recording that he closed off a customer issue by email in a minute and 36 seconds, but left the page open for a few minutes.
'I couldn't take it any longer,' Mr Donoghue said, telling the WRC the reprimand for 'work avoidance' followed a period when he had 'people dying left, right and centre' in his personal life, including a friend who 'went into the river in Navan'.
'For some reason that was just ignored. A perfect record for seven years, and she [his line manager] still thought it was reasonable and fair to give me a warning on that incident,' he said.
Mr Donoghue's said the reprimand over the four-minute inactivity incident in January 2024 and informal 'verbal counselling' on November 28th, 2023 for lateness was linked to filing grievances, starting with complaints against two operations managers on November 16th that year.
He said he was aggrieved to get 'a warning for going to the bathroom for four minutes, for not closing off an email' when he claimed he had called people out for 'doing 10 times worse' in the past.
Mr Donoghue had 'informal verbal counselling' for lateness in the months before the downtime issue arose, the tribunal heard. Three instances of lateness were officially recorded on Mr Donoghue's file. The company submitted he had actually arrived late on eight occasions.
The tribunal heard Mr Donoghue had car trouble at the time and was trying to get from Navan, Co Meath, to Blanchardstown, Dublin 15, by bus. He told the WRC the Minister for Transport had admitted to a newspaper 'the NX [bus] didn't turn up'.
'That was out of my control, I couldn't get to work,' he said.
Mr Donoghue's position during a disciplinary meeting had been that he 'forgot to close the email' before taking a break, and that 'he might have gone to get a cup of tea', counsel for the respondent Mark Curran BL said in cross-examination.
'To this day I'm not sure,' Mr Donoghue said. 'I took a couple of calls in this time,' he said.
'You did say you took a personal call about the person in the river,' he said.
'I took a personal call, but I'm not sure if it was in that four minutes,' the complainant said.
Ms Seoighe said in her evidence that she wrote to Mr Donoghue before Christmas that year looking for an explanation after observing on a screen recording from his computer that he had finished responding to the email but failed to mark himself as available for up to five minutes.
'It was call avoidance,' she said. 'If I'm going on the 'break unpaid' ops code, I'm being skipped; it's going to someone else on the team, they're getting additional calls,' she said.
'[For] idle time on an email, anything over 60 seconds is considered work avoidance,' she said. Her position was that the issue was exacerbated by Mr Donoghue's failure to use an hour specifically allotted for him to answer her queries on the downtime and because of that she 'had to follow up several times'.
The written warning given to Mr Donoghue by Ms Seoighe was upheld in a paper-based appeal.
In her decision, adjudicator Eileen Campbell wrote that she had 'every sympathy' for the difficulties Mr Donoghue had experienced in his personal life.
She wrote that Mr Donoghue 'appears to feel that he has been treated unfairly by the imposition of a first written warning for behaviour of a type he would have called out in respect of agents in the past'.
'When his team leader does her job and addresses an issue with the complainant he considers it to be unreasonable behaviour and alleges he is being targeted,' she wrote.
She noted further that Mr Donoghue quit 'without any attempt at raising a grievance' about the warning.
'I am not persuaded by the complainant that resignation was his only option,' she concluded, dismissing the complaint.