A Sharp Exhale Of Air

‘YOU will be doubtless interested to learn that the matter of Storer v Bedminster Down Secondary School, Bristol, has reached an end.

A Bristol employment tribunal says that in the case of the ‘farting’ chair, Sue Storer had been “free to arrange” to buy a new chair.

Mrs Storer makes no comment. Although her chair is less than complimentary…

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JOIN us now in the Citizen’s Advice Bureau where Sue Storer is looking at her entitlements.

Smells like money

As the Mirror reports, Storer is a deputy headmistress at Bedminster Down secondary school, Bristol, driven to despair by her working conditions.

Last year, Ms Storer was “forced” to quit her £48,000 a year job because of her chair. As the art teacher explains: “It was very embarrassing to sit on. I asked for a chair that didn’t give me a dead leg or make those embarrassing farting sounds.”

Surely, Ms means “breaking wind”, but we are not here to talk about standards, and return to Ms Storer’s complaint.

As well as claiming that she suffered four years of “overwork and intimidation” since taking the job in 2001, Ms says the chair became a “regular joke” - “my chair would make these farting sounds and I regularly had to apologise that it wasn’t me, it was my chair.”

She wanted to change the chair. And when a new batch of seats arrived, she was optimistic. But it was not to be. “All the male managers received a chair,” she says. “I couldn’t understand why there wasn’t one for me.”

And while she awaits an explanation, and a possible apology from her superiors (if not the chair), Ms Storer would like an employment tribunal to award her damages of £1million for constructive dismissal and sex discrimination.

Which may or may not be enough for the plaintiff to buy a new chair, and cure her little problem…’

Anorak

Posted: 10th, April 2006 | In: Tabloids Comment | Follow the Comments on our RSS feed: RSS 2.0 | TrackBack | Permalink