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CAN YOU REMEMBER what you were doing when you were a toddler?
The answer to that question probably isn’t ‘mastering the rudiments of climbing a vertical rock face’.
Well that is exactly what one 20-month tot has been doing.
Ellie Farmer has been rock climbing almost all of her short life, having been born to Rachael and Zak Farmer, both enthusiasts of the sport.
Ellie has been attracting attention since this video of her climbing a 7-foot wall was posted online by her parents. She was 19 months when the video was made:
Speaking to NBC News, the child’s mother, Rachael, explained that it was Ellie who first showed enthusiasm for climbing, and that, “she is very focused on foot movement and getting to the top”.
Ellie’s enthusiasm began to shine through once her parents placed a climbing wall into her nursery.
Currently she is too young to wear a harness, and so practices a style of rock climbing called ‘bouldering’. This sees her climbing at low heights, and allows her to fall onto a soft, protected surface to allow her to get used to it.
The child has been nicknamed ‘Little Zen Monkey’ and it is looking like she might be able to begin climbing with a harness by the time of her second birthday.
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People can be very precious sometimes
Like the last few articles on the EAT, they have no power, and take boths sides versions with equal credibility (i.e the employee and company can say anything unsubstantiated and it is taken as fact by the (usually ex-union) guy in the chair position). The employer is entitled now to go to a real court, and see if the unfair dismissal is valid, where by the employee not turning up for dismissal meetings and the company following due process will be taken into account. They have to with this against writing off work €7k.
It should be easier for employees to go to proper legal entity to weigh up the facts of a case. Too often, the EAT “judges” in favour of the employee, only for it to be overturned in court. This is unfair to both the employee and the company, and the only purpose is to make the hundreds of “quasi-judicial” chairs feel a bit of power for the day.
Rather than being chaired by impartial people, it has a mix of pro-employee and pro-employer people. If your case is heard by one or the other, the outcome is decided by the prejudices of the person presiding on the day, rather than the facts of the case.
If the parties have enough funds, the cases are nearly always appealing to the courts.
The tribunals are a waste of time and money, but you must go through them to get access to the court
I agree… It can go either way. In observations, all the reported cases are chaired by the pro-union adjudicators, but that is the ones where employees get the award (which tempts other employees to constructively get dismissed and take a case on the basis that there is a template for getting sacked and over 50% chance of getting a reward). This may be related to the non movable position of Kieran Mulvey in managing this charade.
It also hides the cases where competent employees are genuinely bullied and harassed in work, and lose their case due to an opinion of a pro-employer chair. The whole system is a joke, and it’s history was just to remove cases from courts, and give unelected union and IBEC guys a bit of power.
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