Germans seem to be working quite hard, especially in banks. The Hessen labor court in Germany heard a case on Monday that surprised everybody. A tired bank employee fell asleep on the keyboard and mistakenly transferred 222 million euros ($293 million). The employee was supposed to transfer only 62.40 euros from the bank account of a retiree. But he fell asleep while pressing the number 2 key on the keyboard, transforming the order into 222,222,222.22 euros, reports AFP.
Bank Fired The Supervisor
This employee’s supervisor was fired by the bank for not noticing the error when verifying the order. Though another employee spotted the mistake and corrected it. There is no word whether the napper lost his job. The supervisor who was fired took the matter to the Hessen labor court. The incident had taken place in April last year.
The German court ruled yesterday that the supervisor should get her job back. The judge said that the bank supervisor was unfairly sacked for failing to verify a multi-million euro error. The Hessen labor court said she should only have been warned. The 48-year old supervisor, who has been working with the bank since 1986, told the court that she couldn’t notice the error and immediately approved the transaction.
Court Ordered The Bank To Reinstate Supervisor
The Hessen labor court heard that on the day of this “sleeping” transaction, the supervisor had to check 812 documents for mistakes. Most of those documents required only a few seconds of scrutiny. The judges ruled that she had no malicious intention. The court has ordered the bank to reinstate her, as her employment contract could not be terminated for this issue.
However, the names of the employee who made the erroneous transaction, his supervisor and the bank have not been revealed. Anyway, the case is one year old now. And since the mistake has been corrected, perhaps nobody is losing sleep over it.
