After ten years of successful employment, Sharon Smiley was fired from her job as a receptionist for a local real estate agency, incredibly, for working too hard.  Her workload had become increasingly heavy and, as a result, she decided to work through her lunch break.  She knew her employer’s policy required that she clock out for lunch and so she did.  Reasonably believing, however, that once she clocked out what she did with her time was her business, she sat at her desk and continued to work on a special project a supervisor had assigned her that morning.  She had not planned on eating, and thought she would use her time to get the project done. 

Ms. Smiley’s supervisor asked her to leave her desk but Ms. Smiley refused, explaining that she knew she could not eat her lunch at her desk, but she was not eating.  Ultimately, the company terminated Ms. Smiley’s employment for insubordination and contested her right to obtain unemployment benefits. 

The Illinois Department of Employment Security sided with the employer and held that Ms. Smiley’s insubordination amounted to misconduct, denying Ms. Smiley benefits.  Representing herself, she appealed that decision three different times internally, but was ultimately unsuccessful. 

Finally, Ms. Smiley appealed her case to the Circuit Court of Cook County, which overturned the decision denying her benefits and, in January of 2012, the Illinois Appellate Court for the First District affirmed that decision.  The Courts’ decisions confirmed what the rest of the world knows is basic common sense – attempting to work through lunch, even if in violation of company policy, is not willful or wanton misconduct indicating a disregard for the employer’s interests. 

While I understand that Illinois is an at-will employment state and that the employer was allowed to terminate Ms. Smiley’s employment for any reason at all (so long as that reason was not discriminatory or otherwise unlawful), the notion that an employer would terminate a long-term, hard-working employee for attempting to go above and beyond by completing a project on her own time really angers me.  But the fact that her employer chose to contest her right to unemployment benefits after it terminated her for working too hard simply shocks the conscience – especially given the economic climate of the last few years and the dearth of employment opportunities out there. 

My hat’s off to Sharon Smiley for having the courage and conviction to call her employer on its wrong-minded efforts to deny her benefits.  Congratulations on a hard-fought win!

To read more about Ms. Smiley’s story, visit: http://abcnews.go.com/Business/chicago-woman-fired-skipping-lunch-wins-unemployment-benefits/story?id=15370896&page=2