Court Upholds Dismissal of City Web Surfer

Screen grab of employee web tracking software

A Manhattan court upheld the firing of city employee Toquir Choudhri for doing too much Web browsing on the City's time. Choudri, who was an education analyst for the Department of Education's Human Resources department, was fired in 2006 for spending far too much time online. He had been formally warned to knock of his Web-wandering ways, but an internal audit showed that despite the warning, Choudri visited more than 300 sites in six days, or more than 50 different sites a day.

According to the NY Sun, court papers listed some of the sites Chourdri was visiting were lonelyplanet.com [travel site], escapeartist.com [site about how to get out of the American rat race], and chinaadviser.com [travel-to-China site]. Choudri's firing may have been a blessing in disguise, because the guy obviously had some wanderlust that extended beyond surfing the Internet. But could he have claimed workplace disability because of an Internet addiction and protection under the Americans with Disabilities Act?

Some studies have indicated that allowing personal Internet browsing at work actually improves employee productivity. And this reminds us of a city employee in Albany who requested a picture with Mayor Bloomberg during a visit. When Bloomberg saw he was playing solitaire on his computer, the Mayor fired him on the spot.

Contact the author of this article or email tips@gothamist.com with further questions, comments or tips.

By Dave Hogarty in News on March 17, 2008 1:21 PM

Comments [rss]

Spirit of 76

Fifty different websites? Or different site's webpages? Fifty unique websites is a hell of a lot; I usually stick to about 10 here at work.

If it had been only fifty pages, he probably would still have a job. I can go through fifty pages in about ten minutes if I took my time. It's almost certainly fifty sites at many pages per site and hours a day. I don't even hit fifty sites a day at home. Consider that a compliment, Gothamist.

just saying

He probably wouldn't have visited so many sites if he had been given some work to do.

Give him a break, he was bored because he had nothing to do. At least he was at his desk, not like those dwebs who are always MIA.

Alex

Fifty different websites? Or different site's webpages? Fifty unique websites is a hell of a lot; I usually stick to about 10 here at work.

Kojak

"Choudri visited more than 300 sites in six days, or more than 50 different sites a day."

Lightweight

JMH

That graphic would've been better if Gothamist had been one of the sites.

Gothamist_Cynic

I'm glad I work for an Internet company where I can surf the web all day.

JacqueMehoff

now if they only applied this rule in the private sector. but then if they did Craigslist would be out of business.

zodak

GBTW

Bizzle

Good. I'm glad they upheld the decision to fire him. Employees shouldn't be wasting the company's money by surfing the net for personal use.

Now I have to get back to work.