I was fired for supposedly calling my boss a name. - Florida

by Melanie
(Sanford, Florida, USA )

I was the financial controller for the company for 3 years, we had done 2 layoffs and everyone including myself had just agreed to a 10% cut in pay. I had a disagreement with the city dispatcher, he went and told the owner that I called her a name. She came to my office and screamed at me how dare i call her any name and she fired me. she did not ask me my side, she did not ask my employee who was sitting right there during my arguement with the other employee if i had called her anything. i have never gotten a warning of any kind for conduct. i have done my job. i was notified three days after i was terminated that the owner hired a part time non benefits employee to do part of my job because it was better for the long term financial health of the company. can i be denied unemployment benefits under those circumstances?


Hi Melanie,

I usually go on and on and ask questions about whether the employer followed their own policy ... yada yada. But it's also important to understand that a one time event will be precisely what the state makes their determination on.

My feeling is, if it happened just as you said, that you will get unemployment. I also think you should give some serious consideration to asking the employee who was sitting right next to you if they would be so kind as to write a statement for you. You can tell them that if they get fired as a result, they would be the victim of a retaliatory measure and could get unemployment and you would be their witness:) Testimony would be better because it wouldn't be hearsay, which by the way is what the employer based their decision to terminate you on. If your ex-boss were to offer up the dispatcher as a witness ... you'd be wise to have your own to rebut the testimony with.

I think the employer will be found to have failed to establish good cause because she failed to investigate and accepted without reservation the work of someone who was pissed off at you.

I think I've mentioned somewhere before that for a website, I've learned you need to find out what people are searching for and tailor your content with that information. Well, I inserted the words "how to fired", thinking I might see what people were asking about how to collect unemployment if you are fired. I was stunned when the top three results had to do with "how to get someone fired".

Who does that?? If anyone has any comments or stories about vindictive co-worker .. I'd love to hear them.