A WEST Wiltshire office worker who talked so much her colleagues referred to her conversations as the 'Tracey Trap', has had her unfair dismissal claim thrown out by a Bristol employment tribunal.

Tracey Bodman resigned from AA-Wargames in Westbury after she was given a warning by her bosses Charlotte and Steven Judson for her slow performance.

Her colleagues at the company, which sell toys and games on eBay, complained Ms Bodman would chat to them for up to half an hour, stopping them from getting back to work.

They claimed they felt unable to ‘break off’ from talking to her, while at the same time, Ms Bodman’s own pace of work became too slow, the hearing was told.

After her bosses discovered she was only sending a mere four or five emails an hour instead of the expected 15 or 20 messages, a disciplinary hearing was triggered.

Tracey Bodman took AA-Wargames, a branch of games company Triple Helix Wargames in Westbury, to the tribunal after she was warned by bosses about her slow performance.

Ms Bodman resigned from her role as a general administrator and later claimed she hadn’t been trained properly, was not allowed to use her phone unlike others, and was stopped from speaking with her co-workers.

She claimed she was subjected to an unfair disciplinary process and was effectively forced out, allegations which have now been dismissed.

The tribunal disagreed with her claims she was told to stop speaking to colleagues and concluded the warning was issued for her performance – not being on her phone or chatting.

Judge Hazel Oliver also dismissed Ms Bodman's various complaints about the disciplinary process and her treatment, saying: "This was an oral warning only.

"AA-Wargames made some mistakes in a muddled process, which caused some confusion. This was not done deliberately.

"I therefore find that AA-Wargames did not act in a way either calculated or likely to destroy or seriously damage the trust and confidence.

"I do not find that Ms Bodman was prevented from speaking with her colleagues, or singled out while others were allowed to chat.

"It appears from the disciplinary meeting minutes that Ms Bodman was not being disciplined for failing to deal with queries she had not been trained on.

"She was being disciplined for lack of productivity, where she was sending four or five emails an hour instead of 15 to 20. These findings mean that the claim for unfair constructive dismissal fails and is dismissed."

Ms Bodman started working as a general administrator for AA-Wargames, which is the second-hand ebay operation of Triple Helix Wargames, in May 2017, the hearing heard.

Part of her role involved answering emails but in September 2019, issues were raised about Ms Bodman not working fast enough. Just months later in January 2020, she was found to have only answered four to five emails an hour – instead of the expected rate of 15 to 20.

She was called in for a disciplinary action meeting with Charlotte and Steven Judson, who run the family business, on January 27 after her drop in performance.

Mr Judson told the tribunal that Ms Bodman would chat to colleagues for 20 or 30 minutes with some people referring to this as the ‘Tracey trap’.

At the initial disciplinary meeting, Mr Judson told her: ‘Some feedback has come to me that people find themselves engaged in conversation with you and don’t feel that they can break off.

‘I’ll pass that on I’ll make sure that people are aware that engaging in just chit chat often is not going to be the most productive use of their time and can particularly be disruptive to others, there are certainly those who prefer to have a chinwag and we’ll just have to cut that out a little bit.’

Mrs Judson also told the tribunal that during the meeting Ms Bodman became very emotional and ‘would not engage in discussion.’