Chinese bar worker fired for ‘OK’ emoji response via WeChat

閱讀中文版本

Citing “poor discipline”, an employer in China has fired an employee for replying with an “OK” emoji via WeChat – the Mainland’s most popular messaging app.

As was reported by online news site Btime, the manager of a bar in Changsha, Hunan, asked the employee in the team’s WeChat group to provide some meetings documents, and reacted negatively to her response.

“You should use text to reply to the message if you have received it. Don’t you know the rules? Is this your acknowledgment of receipt?” the bar manager allegedly replied upon receiving the emoji.

A short time later the bar manager told the employee to contact the HR department regarding her sacking.

A screen grab of the WeChat conversation went viral – with more than 280 million views on the microblogging site Weibo.

Consensus online over the contentious incident was strongly in favour of the fired employee.

“This is a real case. It (the sacking) is still being processed. I have worked for many years and this is my first encounter with this kind of stupid situation. I am good tempered, therefore, I didn’t retaliate,” the employee was reported as saying.