where I work, with food, it happens constantly that employees take some of that food and before it goes to waste, they eat it. I’ve been doing it for the last 3 years. It’s really a lot of food.
Apparently somebody doesn’t like me and complained to our manager accusing me of eating some of that food. My manager and an employee who used to eat the food and even told me once to help myself, asked me if I took some of the food. ‘yes, like I’ve been doing for the last 3 years, exactly like him, otherwise it goes to waste.’
‘that’s stealing’ was all the manager said. ‘Don’t do that again.’
I just said fine and left it at that thinking that would be the end of it.
2 days later I get a letter from hr, asking about an accusation against me for stealing food and asking me to see them to tell them my side of the story.
It wouldn’t make any sense to lie at this point, because my manager and that other guy who used to eat that food before it goes to waste already heard me clearly stating that yes, and I don’t know who made the accusation. I did eat it, so I stuck to that story.
Stupid? Only you can decide, but would it have made any sense to claim otherwise at that point?
If this is something I should change in the future, how would I get away with it, or try to get away with it?
To those of you to the left tempted to write I shouldn’t tell on my coworkers, when one of my coworkers did exactly that, you really don’t see how stupid is that?
so the context is never relevant to you…
What the other workers are doing isn’t relevant to the HR investigation pertaining to you. If there was a concern about systematic practices it would have been communication to the entire team. Sounds like they are only doing paperwork on you. It doesn’t necessarily hurt to politely point out that it is common practice for employees to eat the food about to go to waste, but do so without pointing to any individuals. The goal in this would be to demonstrate they are taking an action (writing you up, terminating, suspension, etc) that they haven’t historically taken with other employees. After pointing that out the company has a couple options. They may realize you are correct and if there is tangible evidence of other employees eating the food and management being aware of that behavior without taking action against anybody previously and suddenly you now… Well that could be grounds for a wrongful termination lawsuit and HR’s whole job is to mitigate that risk. So they might drop it entirely.
The other option for the company, is for them to say “Well we didn’t know people were eating the food” write everybody and create a record of communicating to all staff the food is off limits moving forward. Thus creating that historical record they need to take actions in the future.
If the food is waste like you say, then odds are they are trying to push you out and they just need paperwork to do that. Would recommend you minimize communication, look for another job and/or be prepared to file for unemployment. If you can prove there was no written policy to not eat the food, that it was common practice amongst staff, and that you were the only one who was terminated for it, you’ll most likely win an unemployment hearing.