An overly-suspicious boss was arrested after planting a tracker on the car of an employee as part of a long-running row over sick leave.
Shedding light on the situation, which occurred in Spain, media outlet Antena 3 reported that a man was arrested after the worker, who was off sick with anxiety at the time, found the GPS device hidden on the underside of his vehicle while he was cleaning it.
A Spanish court is now in the process of considering evidence and will now decide whether to proceed with criminal charges.
The incident allegedly formed part of an ongoing dispute between the employee and his boss.
The unnamed employee explained to Antena 3: “I got underneath the car and saw that the plastic had been broken and there was this device attached.
“Nothing like this has ever happened to me before and it creates a lot of insecurity, especially given the reason I was on medical leave."
He added that the situation “only makes it worse and heightens anxiety.”
Suspicious bosses in the headlines
Bizarrely, this isn’t the first time news has emerged of a boss taking extreme measures to find out what an employee is up to. In April 2023, a company hired a private eye to tail a worker who was enjoying several alcoholic drinks a day while on the job.
The man, an electrician working for a company in Spain, was followed on several occasions by the detective, and was spotted buying and drinking alcohol multiple times a day. On one occasion he was even seen walking into a bar before 9am.
But a court has now ruled that the firm was wrong to dismiss the man because it couldn’t be proven that his drinking impaired his job performance. The court even said the soaring summer temperatures could also have been a valid reason for him to cool off with a refreshing beer (or several) during the work day.
Bosses must now give him his job back or pay him more than €47,000 (£42k) in compensation.