Fired for turning his job into a game

We can all imagine someone losing their jobs for playing the latest console games on company time, but how about being fired for making fun of your career in an satire videogame?

Last year, demoralised worker David Gallant released a little indie game called I Get This Call Every Day, a virtual representation of his life working in a call centre.

The aspiring teacher was so demoralized by his experiences on the bad side of the call centre phone that he released a title that shot to popularity with the online community and is now available on Steam Greenlight.

Speaking to Kotaku, Mr Gallant felt tied to his job to support his wife but wanted to make a game about the bizarre and strange calls he gets.

"The screamers, the criers, the terminally ill, the broke ones with massive bills, the single mother with a missing payment before Christmas," Mr Gallant told the website were some of his callers.

However, his humanizing and charming title didn't find support among his employers, the Canada Revenue Agency, who have subsequently given him the sack.

"The Minister considers this type of conduct offensive and completely unacceptable," commented a spokesperson for Gail Shea, the country's national revenue minister.

"The Minister has asked the Commissioner (of Revenue, Andrew Treusch) to investigate and take any and all necessary corrective action. The Minister has asked the CRA to investigate urgently to ensure no confidential taxpayer information was compromised."

James Lee

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James Lee is a freelance writer and analyst with extensive experience in the technology, media and games sectors. For the past few years he has provided content for internationally published industry reports, SEO companies and a variety of news-focused websites. Prior to this, James was responsible for covering news and producing in-depth features for GamesIndustry.biz while occasionally contributing to its sister-site. Eurogamer.net. In addition to this he has contributed to other notable sites such as CVG.co.uk, Edge-Online and DigitalSpy.