An employee has won a legal case to be boring in his job after he was sacked by a French company for not taking part in the “fun” environment.
Consulting firm Cubik Partners dismissed an employee Mr T, whose full name has not been disclosed, for being “insufficient professionally” because he didn’t get involved in team building activities with colleagues.
Now a Paris court has ruled that the company was wrong to sack him on the grounds that he did not get involved in the “fun”.
Mr T had taken the case to an industrial tribunal and then an appeal was heard in court this month which sided with him.
Court papers said that the team building exercises would take place out of working hours including “weekend drinks”.
It said it led "frequently to excessive alcoholism encouraged by colleagues who made available very large quantities of alcohol, and practices pushed by colleagues involving promiscuity, bullying and incitement to various excesses".
Mr T claimed that he had a right to “refuse company policy based on incitement to partake in various excesses”.
He joined the company in 2011 and then became a director in 2014 before his dismissal a year later.
A letter from his employers cited “his disagreement with the management methods of the company and the criticism of their decisions”.
Cubik Partners also claimed that he was a poor listener and difficult to work alongside.
But the Court of Cessation ruled that Mr T “could not be blamed for his lack of integration in the fun environment”. It based this also on the fact that amongst other things this meant “excessive drinking at weekends”
It ordered Cubik Partners to pay out £2,574 to the former employee.
The court said that the company couldn't make him "forcibly participate in meet-ups and weekend drinks that frequently ended up in excessive alcohol intake, harassment by colleagues who made very large quantities of alcohol available."
The "fun" events would also mean sometimes sharing a bed with colleagues after being out drinking along with "humiliating and intrusive practices regarding privacy such as simulating sexual acts."
It was ruled that Mr T had a fundamental right to dignity and respect for his private life.
