Staying on the clock for bridal shower gets employee fired

Most of the time, the employer is the one who gets burned by timekeeping troubles. Here, though, an employee was told to clock out before attending a bridal shower at work but chose to ignore the direct order and clocked out at her normal time (after the party). When she was fired for the falsification of her time records, she vowed to prove it was age discrimination, but failed.

Paid for partying?

Christine Tingle, who is over 40 years of age, worked for Merchants & Marine (M&M) Bank as an hourly employee in the loan department. On a Thursday afternoon in September 2017, M&M Bank hosted a bridal shower for an employee.

A manager notified employees, including Tingle, that the loan department would be closing at 4:00 p.m. for the shower and instructed all employees to clock out at that time. Nevertheless, Tingle didn’t clock out. Instead, she attended the shower and changed into tennis attire before clocking out at 4:30 p.m.

After the shower, the manager checked the time records to confirm her employees had clocked out at 4:00 p.m. as instructed. When she discovered Tingle had not done so, she reported the matter to HR.

The following Monday morning, when Tingle next reported to work, she was called into the HR office and asked why she hadn’t clocked out at 4:00 p.m. as instructed. She said she “just got [her] hours in” and decided to clock out at her normal time of 4:30 p.m. despite her manager’s instructions. During the conversation, Tingle changed her story to say she forgot and asked HR to change the time record.