SOCIAL media users have been left outraged after discovering a Tesco worker was sacked for calling her boss a “slapper” who “slept her way to the top”.
Last month, a tribunal ruled that using the insult at work was a sackable offence.
Lynda Pearson, who had worked at the for over two decades, made the remarks about her boss, Isabel Mumby, and was fired from her post as punishment .
The disgruntled worker, then took the case to an employment tribunal, where she claimed she was the victim of unfair dismissal.
However, the judge ruled that the sacking was a reasonable response.
Lynda, who had worked at the branch since 2005, first received a warning for misconduct in 2021, but this had expired by the time she made the offensive comments in April 2025.
The ex-worker told four colleagues last year that Isabel was a “slapper”, but denied saying she said Isbabel was “sleeping her way to the top”.
Isabel’s partner worked for Tesco’s management team.
Social media users were left baffled by the ruling, after one posted a video sharing details of the case.
One wrote: “I’m done then… The things I call my manager and colleagues, I should just quit myself.”
A second commented: “I’d have been fired from every job if we can’t call the managers names lol.”
“You should hear what line managers say about colleagues behind their backs,” a third remarked.
A fourth joked: “Today I learnt it would be really easy for my employer to sack me.”
Meanwhile, many thought the judgement was too harsh, with one writing that she should have received a “warning at most”.
“Always someone ready to grass,” another penned, while one person said, “shame on the snitches” in Lynda’s defence.
Lynda first made the comments in April 2025, though it’s unclear when her line manager actually became aware of the comments.
A disciplinary hearing was then launched in July, during which, Tesco judged that it was likely Lynda had made the comments.
She was then dismissed on grounds of gross misconduct.
Lynda attempted to appeal the sacking but wasn’t successful, so took claims of of unfair dismissal and wrongful dismissal to in . However, these were both dismissed.
The judge found that using the word is “clearly a repudiatory breach of contract, if nothing else it constitutes a breach of the implied term of trust and confidence”.
Lynda accepted that the word was “akin to slut or whore” that that was “is in and of itself, offensive”.
