What comes from crossing a naked woman, an octopus, an Internet video of multiple-limbed bestiality, and a group of seven workers at a Dagenham Ford plant? Unemployment is believed to be a distinct possibility.
British news reports said seven Ford employees were suspended after they were caught viewing the video, which featured a naked woman and an octopus engaging in sexual activity and reportedly made the Internet rounds over the past few weeks.
The British tabloid the Sun said the seven Ford workers thought it was merely an amusement, though the Ford plant management wasn't laughing.
"The video is vile, but a lot of the lads thought it was a scream," an unidentified man told the paper. "They gathered ‘round computer screens and roared with laughter. But management didn’t see the funny side."
An unnamed plant spokesman told the paper that dismissal was among the options management had for dealing with the octopussy plant workers.
The plant employs 5,000 people who make diesel engines for a range of family cars. Management at the plant was quoted by the Sun as saying there could be more firings after a full-scale investigation into the octopussy case was complete.
The reach of porn-on-the-job tentacles
Other cases of on-the-job porn surfing have had less extreme consequences. Earlier this month, Swedish workers were awarded compensation after being fired for watching Internet porn on the job. There have been several cases in the U.S. and elsewhere in recent weeks involving workers disciplined or fired for viewing adult entertainment websites at work, from ordinary blue-collar workers to workers in government-related offices.
But bestiality, as opposed to ordinary, humans-only, soft- or hardcore porn, is frowned upon even more severely in many countries in general and in workplaces in particular.
In recent weeks, porn-on-the-job cases have included a Rock County, Ill., jailer who was awarded eligibility for back pay and benefits after an arbitrator ruled the county had no proper cause to fire him but should only have disciplined him. The arbitrator said Dana Fichtner had seen only unwanted pop-up porn ads when he went to an online poker site.
Earlier this month, city workers in Columbus, Ohio, were reported to have continued surfing porn on the job or swapping raunchy emails in spite of requirements that they sign a five-page electronic communications policy upon hiring that prohibits using city computers for personal use in general and porn in particular.
One receptionist received a written reprimand over a raunchy email, while a buildings department field supervisor was suspended 10 days after he was caught visiting a porn site on the job. A public service worker was fired for surfing porn at work.
In a survey released early in May, online market research and security analysts Websense determined that while a quarter of the men they polled admitted accessing e-porn on the job, compared to 12 percent of the women, only 16 percent of men and 11 percent of women said they did it intentionally.
