Most posts had under 60 views and didn't even name the employer, but he was sacked anyway
New Zealand software developer who fired off late-night Instagram Stories complaining about long hours and his "boss cracking the whip" has won his unjustified dismissal claim, even though he accepted the posts were unprofessional.
In a determination released on 1 May 2026, Employment Relations Authority member Simon Greening ruled that FutureCo Limited had no proper basis to sack Daniel Bly for serious misconduct over the posts. The small software firm, which has nine employees, failed to investigate the allegations properly, did not genuinely consider Bly's response, and never considered alternatives to dismissal.
Bly worked as FutureCo's only full-time software developer, leading the build of the "KFC 6 & Shout" cricket-themed game running inside KFC's mobile app. The project had a tight November 2024 deadline, and by mid-November Bly says he was exhausted from the hours. According to git commit records, he worked an extra 278 hours over an eleven-week stretch, roughly 25 additional hours a week, with some commits logged between midnight and 5am.
During the evening of 25 November and the early hours of 26 November 2024, Bly posted a series of Instagram Stories venting about his workload. Most were "restricted" posts visible only to his roughly 60 followers, set to auto-delete after 24 hours. View counts ranged from 13 to 60. One post used a South Park image with a caption...
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