Nope, Texas had no problem denying my unemployment and appeal when the company had a major change in leadership and I wasn’t interested in playing politics. They came up with some made up excuse that I was not coming to the office daily per the policy. And my boss had already been pushed out of his role as COO and Executive VP and moved to a marketing director job with no real power, so he couldn’t help.

When I was fired the date they gave that I hadn’t come in I was able to present evidence to the unemployment when I came in the office and left because traffic was bad that day and I took the toll road and had the receipt. So, they came back with another day. That one I hadn’t used the toll road and since I wasn’t allowed to get other employees to say they saw me there, so I had no evidence that wasn’t fully under the control of the company. That was enough for them to rule I was insubordinate by not coming into the office for 8 hrs/day when it was policy to do so. Forget that I was paid salary and worked way more than 40hrs a week. And that I was doing way more than I was supposed to be based on my job title and I was barely being paid anything for what I was doing. They weren’t saying I wasn’t working enough. Just that I violated that one rule even one time was enough for unemployment to be denied. That’s all it takes. I could have appealed higher, but that would have required a lawyer and would have cost more than the pittance I would have gotten from the unemployment anyway.

So, yes, refusing a direct instruction, even once, is even more severe than that and likely would be enough to have your unemployment denied in a “right to work” state.