A woman tried to sue her former employers for sex harassment including for not giving her a leaving card when she lost her job.
As one of 40 complaints, Karen Conaghan claimed the failure to acknowledge her ‘existence within the company’ was a breach of equality laws.
An employment tribunal heard that a card had in fact been bought, but since it was only signed by three people when the worker left, her colleague thought it would be ‘insulting’ to give it to her.
Ms Conaghan made a host of claims about her treatment and took the company to the tribunal claiming sexual harassment, victimisation and unfair dismissal.
However, they were all were dismissed with the panel ruling Ms Conaghan had adopted a ‘conspiracy theory mentality’ in which she mistook ‘normal workplace interactions’ for something more ‘sinister’.
In recent years, a ‘Karen’ has become a widespread meme on the internet and has come to mean a middle aged woman with a ‘sense of entitlement’ and a ‘willingness and desire to complain’.
The tribunal heard Ms Conaghan started working as a business liaison lead for the airline group IAG GBS in August 2019.
In December 2021, she was made redundant due to a company wide restructuring.
In light of her dismissal, she brought forward several claims to the tribunal.
Ms Conaghan, who represented herself, complained that one colleague had ‘copied’ her use of the word ‘whiz’ in a card for a co- worker but corrected her spelling, by writing ‘whizz’ instead.
The worker told the panel that on another occasion, another colleague ended a Teams call by saying ‘are you taking the piss Karen?’.
While the tribunal accepted that the ‘unprofessional’ language was used, they said it was in ‘reaction’ to Ms Conaghan, who suggested that she had ‘done all of the hard work’ and it was his ‘turn to do some’.
Employment Judge Kevin Palmer said this was evidence of the ‘uneasy relationship’ between the co-workers.
Ms Conaghan also complained that she was not added to a work group chat and this was an example of sex harassment.
The tribunal said this was ‘not done deliberately’ to ‘undermine’ her and there was nothing ‘malicious’ in the action.
It was also heard that Ms Conaghan moved permanently to Richmond, Yorkshire, in September 2021 – despite it being expected that all employees live within one to two hours of their office in Heathrow, London.
The tribunal said at no point did her boss consent to her moving up North, despite her alleging he did.
The worker – who launched a grievance about her treatment – said that colleague Shahid Aziz not providing her with a leaving card or acknowledging her ‘existence within the company’ was an example of harassment.
The tribunal disregarded this, accepting Mr Aziz’s evidence instead.
He told the tribunal that at that time, there were a lot of employees leaving the organisation due to ‘restructuring’.
EJ Palmer said: ‘We accept his evidence that by 27 December, only two or three people had signed [Ms Conaghan’s] leaving card and he believed that it would have been more insulting to give her the card than not to give her a card at all.
‘Subsequently more people did sign [Ms Conaghan’s] leaving card after she had left but Mr Aziz felt it was inappropriate to send such a card to [her] at a later date as she had raised a grievance against him and [another colleague].’
The tribunal said there were also two other males who did not receive a card so in this regard, there was nothing ‘inconsistent’ in the behaviour and could not be related to her sex.
It was heard Ms Conaghan did apply for another role in the company after she was made redundant, but it was a job based in London and she had relocated by that time.
EJ Palmer said there is ‘nothing to suggest’ any of the allegations made by Ms Conaghan were related to her sex.
‘Many of the acts relied upon either did not happen or, if they did happen, they were innocuous interactions in the normal course of employment,’ EJ Palmer added.
Referring to one of her allegations, the judge said it was ‘indicative’ of Ms Conaghan’s ‘view of normal interactions being something more sinister’.
‘And the fact that she did exhibit a ‘conspiracy theory mentality’ in respect of incidents and acts which were simple, normal workplace interactions,’ EJ Palmer added.