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A 34-year veteran of the Westfalen Construction Association in Dortmund, Germany, was fired after eating a burger from her boss's lunch cart.
The 59-year-old secretary, Magdelene H. (her last name was withheld due to German privacy laws), was fired after eating a frikadelle (flat, pan-fried meatball) and two halves of a roll without permission from a buffet she had just finished preparing last July for her boss and his guests, Spiegel reports.
A co-worker realized some of the food was missing and notified Magdelene's boss. When the boss asked about the missing items, Magdalene came clean.
"She was of the opinion that her behavior was acceptable," said her lawyer Wolfgang Pinkepank. "Bread rolls and burgers left over after conferences are always given to employees to eat." Magdalene had taken the sandwich beforehand, succumbing to a hunger pang.
Because the company refused to reverse Magdalene's abrupt firing, the case has found its way to the local labor court.
"Outwardly this of course seems like a trifling matter," the company's managing director, Hermann Schulte-Hiltrop, told Bild. "This is a highly sensitive case. When you lose your trust in someone you are left with a bad feeling."
The case will be fully reviewed in January 2010.
[Via Bild and Spiegel Online]
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10-10-2009 @11:26AM Kathy said... Are you kidding me???? Let's see if her boss can find another person willing to give 34 years of service to the company. He should be fired. Idiot! I agree with DLC...Natzi!
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10-10-2009 @11:28AM mdbcg said... Germans have always come across as weird and harsh to to me. It just boils down to another European trait to me that makes me squeamish. When you have employees stealing money and more tangible items than a hamburger, you are really going to be arrogant enough to say that the woman who prepped the prick boss's meal cart now cannot be trusted because she ate what she prepared after they were done!!!!! How completely ridiculous.
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10-10-2009 @11:29AM Andre said... I feel for you Franz! The last great Unions is the railroad, and SOME skilled trade unions. I have friends in the hospitality industry, and the biggest joke where the bulk of the employees should be jailed is the International hotel & restaurant Union!! They, and many unions today have nothing but a bunch of useless Dicks who come in when they want, take long lunches on the worker's dime, sit on their fat asses chewing the bull all day and leave early.
If you contact them with a serious legitimate problem with an employer, you usually are s&%# out of luck because they stall or tell you outright there is nothing they can do, and will side with the employer.
Truth be told, most grievances are are just filed away because those Dicks don't work on a thing, but will tell you how extensively they have worked for you! And no matter how much they want to cry foul to this post, the real truth is that YOU KNOW you are full of crap!!
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10-10-2009 @11:38AM brian said... It's terrible. However, I did have a boss who was there for 24 years and was fired, for good reason. And thats working with the homeless. Time doesn't mean the persons good, some things people are allowed to get away with run deep, and for years.
But this sounds stupid and cruel, and yes, as one of the people said here, (in CAPS), companies will keep on angling at you to get an excuse to fire you.
It is usually so they DONT HAVE TO PAY YOU UNEMPLOYMENT! Companies dont have the guts to fire someone just because they dont like a persons performance (usually because they are over working them), so they try for months to trip you up and go on these witch hunts, or twist things ever so slightly and you see it plain as day. They are horrible people.
My present boss asked me to "set up" an employee who was on pregnancy AND sick leave, yes, she wasn't a good worker. But my boss literally said to me, "You have to set her up when she comes back, you have to give her more work than she can do." Thats word for word, and in the non-profit sector, working with the homeless. And my boss publicly professes what a christian she is. So I know they do this as a regular practice. If a person does the work a company gives them honestly, and the bet they can, but isnt good, the company can fire them, but they owe them unemployment because its not the persons fault it didnt work out (most of the time its the companies fault for hastily just trying to fill a position). So I bet they were trying to avoid unemployment, so now they can say she was caught "stealing." She might have been anb employee that no one liked even, but yes, this dishonest, manipulative, "adolf" behavior by her boss has to be put in check, nipped in the bud. The economy is not an excuse to threaten or psychologically / financially abuse a human being. The boss should be demoted to sewage washer.
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10-10-2009 @11:40AM thegeorge said... 34 years as a secretary? Fired for eating left over food? Bosses motive: Can get cheaper younger woman who would keep her job "at all costs" if you know what I mean. Secretary motive: so drastically underpaid she had no choice but to eat leftovers from the table of a heartless selfish a**hole. Motive of the snitch: Miss placed sense of loyalty which was the fuel that kept Hitler alive.
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10-10-2009 @11:40AM alphama333 said... Yep! I smell a lawsuit here.
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10-10-2009 @11:42AM Kit said... What about the reverse problem, where I work, we have one of the bosses coming in and taking our food. We buy snacks, treats, lunches and she comes in daily and helps herself. Never offering to chip in... one day she actually ate someones whole lunch. We have resorted to putting up signs to please leave the food alone, she moves the signs and still proceeds to help herself. Can we fire her???
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10-10-2009 @11:50AM brian said... Biglib, you are a loser likee the boss here. you don't give a crap about the woman, you just use her situation to try and make a political statement against an american president. You are a joke. I bet it reaally angers you that your U.S. President Barack Hussein Obama won the Nobel Peace Prize this week. Think about people first, not yopur pompous political statements.
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10-10-2009 @12:01PM Sue Marten said... What's with the reference to "Adolf" mentality? Firing an employee unjustly has nothing to do with Nazi Germany's extermination of Jews. Jeesh. Go read a history book.
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10-10-2009 @11:57AM jjt said... get a grip on the important things in life - Boss man
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10-10-2009 @11:56AM Big Mac said... She better keep her dirty butt scratchers off my burger, too!!! That caries a penalty of two years hard labor on a cattle ranch. Then she can get all the burgers she wants.
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10-10-2009 @12:00PM Kate said... I know how that lady feels. I was fired from my job a few weeks ago for throwing out lost and found items that were found on a trash can. That poor lady was fired just to cut down the number of employees. She should be reinstated at a higher pay rate and the boss and the rat should be fired and fined for their behavior.
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10-10-2009 @1:56PM redconvoy said... That was the most stupid reason to fire someone. They need to do something about the snitch. In my place, they tell snitches to mind their own business or else!
As for the food, why the heck does this company give left overs to the employees? Do they think so little of them? In my office, if someone of importance comes, WE ALL PARTAKE IN FOOD IF WE DO A NICE WELCOME LUNCHEON, NOT JUST THE UPPER MANAGEMENT!!! This boss needs to learn a thing or two about the value of employees under him. Without them, the company is nothing!
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10-10-2009 @9:41PM louie sims said... I'd have offered to let her (pertake) of me...some of them 59 year old "girls" can be pretty "exciting".
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10-10-2009 @12:14PM Rob said... As Parable...
As Jesus sat at the Last Supper, He paused, looked at all, and said,"Today, One of you will betray me."
Didn't the secretary learn anything about Judas?
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10-10-2009 @12:13PM kickinback96815 said... It was not leftovers. She was first to eat food that was not hers. Who of you would not complain if part of your lunch was gone before you got to eat it?
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10-10-2009 @12:17PM Madeline said... I think this firing was disgusting. It obviously wasn't only about the food. They were looking for a reason to fire her. 34 years!!!! Good luck to her.
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10-10-2009 @12:18PM Vienna said... Oh, for God's sake, it's food. This boss was not only an insenstivie abusive a$$hole, but was looking for a reason to fire the 59 year old woman so he can bring in a pretty young idiot to manipulate and abuse.
Hope she wins in court and cleans more than his buffet cart of burgers.
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10-10-2009 @12:20PM John Johnson said... Maybe she felt she was entitled to having a hamburger from the buffet that she prepared... My company has a policy of not eating others' food and getting a reprimand if you do, but its not grounds for firing someone. Perhaps she was hungry.
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10-10-2009 @12:25PM LINDY said... I have heard of fricking stupid things, but her firing is just plain frickadelle.
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