When 'shifts on hold' meets a heartbreak emoji, who decides if it's a dismissal
A casual worker said an emoji-laden group chat fired her. Her boss said it was just a paused shift. The Fair Work Commission had to decide.
On 4 May 2026, the Fair Work Commission handed down its decision in Emma Day v Minoba Pty Ltd, a case that turned on a confusing WhatsApp message, the challenges of translation, and a casual employee who believed she had been let go.
Emma Day had worked as a casual Body Sculpting Therapist at Minoba since 17 June 2024. Things came to a head on 16 December 2025, when owner Luisa Rueda sat her down to discuss repeated lateness. Rueda told the Commission that the most recent incident involved Day arriving more than an hour late for her shift, resulting in there being no one to open the clinic. At the meeting, Rueda advised Day that she was putting her shifts on hold because she could not rely on her to open the clinic while she was away on leave.
Day left that meeting believing she had been dismissed. Part of the reason, she told the Commission, was that she had asked Rueda when she should return her uniform, to which Rueda told her to hold onto it, as she may need it next year when she comes back. The Commissioner later observed that, if anything, this exchange suggested Day had not been dismissed. Day says that after the conversation, she was upset and called her father who then collected her from work, and she told him she had been dismissed.
The next day,...
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