Woman fired after company uses keystroke technology to show she wasn’t ‘typing enough at home’

Her unfair dismissal case was thrown out of court.

Working from home (or WFH for short) has always been a blessing in disguise for those who like to spend most of their working day doing absolutely nothing. However one woman recently found out the hard way that sometimes you can only get away with doing nothing for so long. 38-year-old, Suzie Cheikho, was fired from her job after her boss tracked her computer and realised she wasn’t doing much (if any) work at all. Now the woman has revealed she is living off of job seekers allowance and fears she may never find another job again. The woman was fired from her role at Insurance Australia Group after 18 years when her boss found she was ‘not typing enough’.

Suzie Cheikho initially missed a few deadlines and meetings and was somewhat uncontactable. After she failed to lodge a product disclosure statement, her workload was subjected to a review of her laptop activity, including the exact number of times she had pressed the keys on her keyboard between October to December. On the day she did log on, it’s reported she had a ‘very low’ keystroke. Over 117 hours in October, 143 hours in November, and 60 hours in December, Cheikho recorded zero strokes. When she was eventually questioned about this, Cheikho questioned the accuracy of the findings and said: “I have never not worked.” The Fair Work Commission rejected her unfair dismissal claim last month which started a debate on whether bosses should be allowed to track your behaviour while working from home. Cheikho explained to the Daily Mail:

"It’s embarrassing that this story has gone viral. Nobody is going to hire me. In 18 years of work there I only ever got one warning."

But it’s not all bad news for Cheikho as her new found fame has meant she has developed a bit of an influencer status which is earning her a little bit of cash that helps towards paying her bills. She said: “I make a small percentage of money off TikTok – just enough to cover my bills. It’s all to do with my mental health you see – I’m an advocate because of the mental health issues have suffered – so I raise awareness by talking about it on ‘lives’.”

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