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A single mom in Minnesota said she was fired from her school job because a 60-year-old coworker told their boss about a joke she made on the app TikTok.
Nicole Johnson, who is 29 years old, worked for eight years as a special education paraprofessional at a school in Minnesota. In May, she was fired because she made and posted a "unprofessional" video to a social media app, the mom said in recent TikTok videos.
On May 14, Johnson posted a video of herself sipping an iced coffee from Starbucks with the caption, "I tell my coworkers I can't come in early because I have kids, but every day I come in with a Starbucks." This was the first sign of trouble.
Five days later, with less than two weeks left of the school year, she was fired from her job, Johnson said.
@nicoleybridget3 I mean I’m not lying #fyp #trending #lol #starbucks ♬ sweetest Pie with wink - blair
The paraprofessional, who is finishing her degree to become a special education teacher, said she was called into a meeting with human resource managers who had printed out a picture of her TikTok from someone's phone. Johnson said she knew the phone belonged to her coworker who was over 60.
She said that posting what she thought was a silly video was "stupid" in hindsight.
“I put this TikTok out there didn’t like think anyone was gonna do anything with it,” Johnson said in an August 11 follow-up TikTok.
“I didn’t think I could get fired because I didn’t think it was unprofessional. It doesn’t swear, it’s not negative, it’s not harassing, it’s literally just me being like ‘I can’t come into work early, but I have a Starbucks.'”
She also said that she never got to work late with her coffee, but that she couldn't come in early because she has her own kids.
They said that Johnson's use of the "FYP" hashtag meant "F you people" and was aimed at her coworkers.
A lot of TikTok users use the acronym to stand for the app's "for your page."
The Starbucks video, which has been watched thousands of times, seemed to be the last straw that led to Johnson's firing, since she was already "on a thin line," she said.
Before posting the coffee video, Johnson said that she had been put on administrative leave for three weeks because of her November TikToks.
These videos called for justice for her niece, who got a brain injury when she was a baby and was being cared for by a man who was not named. This happened about 10 years ago. The man moved to the same town as Johnson and also started working as a special education assistant in the same school district, but in a different building.
Administrators at the school thought that the coworker was being harassed by the videos, so they put her on leave.
When she went back to work, administrators sent her emails about her attendance. After the Starbucks TikTok in May, she was finally fired. HR said that the video gave her coworkers a "slap in the face."
Johnson said that one of the biggest struggles after being fired is missing her students.
“I’ll never get to say goodbye to the students, though, they’ll think I just left them,” Johnson said in another TikTok.
Johnson, who was a union member, didn’t name the school or school district she was let go from.
