Newsable: Why you shouldn’t film TikToks on company time

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Side-hustles are the new black! We’ve actually covered them before on Newsable. But a key component of the side-hustle is the ‘side’.

Maybe, eventually, the side-hustle organically grows to the point where it becomes the main hustle – but until then, mixing the side-hustle with the main hustle is not always the most sensible idea, as a now-former Australian insurance worker recently found out.

Suzie Cheikho had been working for the insurance company IAG for 18 years when she was put on a performance improvement plan after reportedly missing a series of important meetings and missing crucial deadlines.

The plan saw Cheikho’s keystrokes monitored over a period of 49 days. And, as you might expect, the results were not especially flattering.

According to news.com.au, Cheikho averaged just 54 keystrokes per hour over those 49 days.

She was found to have worked fewer than her scheduled hours on 44 days; started late 47 times; and performed zero hours of work four times.

Cheikho was sacked, but ended up taking IAG to Australia’s Fair Work Commission, arguing the data wasn’t reliable.

The tribunal ruled against Cheikho – and the tale had another twist.

In addition to her work for IAG, Cheikho posts videos to TikTok as an influencer, which supplements her income.

Unfortunately for her, many of the videos are time-stamped – and it emerged she had been filming and posting videos during work hours.

Ill-advised, you might think – but then again, Cheikho has appeared on several prime-time TV programmes talking about the whole saga. Perhaps it was part of the plan all along.

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