Blogger sues after employer fired her

Catherine has kept her popular blog anonymous, never revealing her full name or workplace.

A 33-year-old British expatriate in Paris, she writes under the pseudonym "La Petite Anglaise" and tells of love affairs, single motherhood and office bloopers with self-deprecating, "Bridget Jones"-style humour.

Despite her attempts at secrecy, her office found out about the blog and fired her an anomaly in France, where workers have strong legal protections that usually make employers hesitant to dismiss anyone.

Now she is suing, and the case is generating buzz on both sides of the English Channel.

Her suit is seen as a test case in France, where there have been few stories of bloggers getting fired, unlike in the United States, where there is even a word for it. (Getting "dooced" is a reference to the author of www.dooce.com, Heather B. Armstrong, who was fired for writing about her colleagues.)

Catherine, who declined to reveal her last name because of the personal tales she recounts on the site, www.petiteanglaise.com, says she was careful never to reveal online the name of the British company she worked for as a bilingual secretary.

Most of her office stories were, she says, "fairly humorous anecdotes about things that happened to me" accidentally exposing her cleavage on a video conference screen or tumbling down a staircase. She also poked fun at the office portrait of Queen Elizabeth II.

"I wasn't describing what my employers did, or disclosing professional secrets or criticizing the firm or anything," she said in a telephone interview.

Her employers, the accounting firm Dixon Wilson, cited "loss of trust" and said they felt she had damaged their reputation, Catherine said. Though her name was never used online, her photo did appear in a French newspaper article about her blog.

Catherine's former company also pointed out that she had acknowledged taking off two half-days for childcare when she was really playing hooky, and that she sometimes used her work computer to update her blog both of which she admits are true, though she says she only blogged during downtime, when others would write e-mail or read newspapers.

Dixon Wilson did not return several calls seeking comment.

On July 10, Catherine filed a complaint with a workers tribunal, suing for up to two years of salary, or about US$110,000.

On her blog, Catherine revealed her predicament this week, describing how she tried to keep up her spirits for her 3-year-old daughter the day she got fired by throwing an impromptu birthday party for a doll.

She had 10,000 hits the day of the announcement, and now she has more than 300 messages from well-wishers.

"What's the French word for dooced?" one well-wisher wrote. "Maybe you could make one up."

Source: China Daily