Posted on 02/19/2024 12:37:24 PM PST by nickcarraway
Single mum Gabriela Rodriguez was sacked from her £13 an hour job with Total Clean after eating a tuna sandwich left over from an event at Devonshires solicitors in London
A single mum working as a cleaner at a top London law firm was sacked after eating a leftover tuna sandwich from the kitchen.
Gabriela Rodriguez swiped the £1.50 snack left on a platter in the offices for Devonshire solicitors. The impulsive decision led to the 39-year-old being accused of theft by the contracted company she worked for, ultimately terminating her employment which she relied on to support her 10-year-old daughter.
Total Clean, who posted profits of £1.6million last year, told Ms Rodriguez the theft had "irrevocably destroyed" their trust by eating the sandwich. The mum, a migrant worker on £13.08 an hour, tried to appeal the decision but to no avail.
Now union bosses have slammed Total Clean's decision, describing it as "beyond the realms of reasonableness and comprehension". Ms Rodriguez had had an "impeccable record" in her £13.08 per hour job after working there for two years, UVW Union for migrant workers said, and had genuinely believed she was allowed to eat the food which had been left over from a corporate event.
In an appeal letter fighting for her job, the union wrote there were "various full trays of leftover sandwiches that had been laid out for staff to eat" when she took the food. "Gabriela understood she was also allowed to eat this food."
"It is so incredibly far beyond the realms of reasonableness and comprehension to dismiss an employee for eating a leftover tuna and cucumber sandwich. We now understand that the privilege of eating leftover sandwiches perhaps does not extend to the outsourced migrant workforce in the building."
(Excerpt) Read more at mirror.co.uk ...
Yep, if she got sick from the sandwich, lawyers would line up to sue the company.
Possibly. That should have been in her defense.
I always took responsibility for the actions of my staff.
If a subordinate said she could have it, I would be talking to the subordinate and not the cleaning company.
I think the person who fired him was named Javert.
She could have pooped it out, and returned it, as Totally Cleaned, processed by her company.
Yup, that’s about where I was.
Upper class twits?
If she had only waited until it was tossed in the dumpster to dig it out...
I got through residency eating patient’s leftover food.
We had a break room rip off one year. Could not catch. So we made some amazing enchiladas with a BIT of stool softener. Placed signs, danger, do not eat special enchiladas for party in three languages, English, Tagalog, Spanish and ebonics.
We caught her about two hours later. Kinda dangerous what we did but it was worth it seeing that woman logging a lot of time on the toilet.
No one was fired and no more food was stolen. All had a laugh including the culprit
It’s amazing you survived.
And it took two “journalists” to create this horrible composition.
Or she could have been accused by some obnoxious ‘Karen’ who just had a grudge against her.
I’ve worked in several places that ordered food for ‘working lunches’ - food was always over-ordered, and leftovers were ‘free pickings’. Nobody I ever worked with would have gone after a housekeeper for taking a sandwich.
She was accused by some really small person.
If evidence comes out that she had stolen anything of value, let me know. Otherwise, this is stupid.
Lol
She’s probably the one who would throw it out anyway.
:-)
It could have been one of her own housekeeping co-workers who ratted on her for eating a cheap tuna sandwich.
There’s nothing wrong with a 6-hour old pizza.
I ran many meetings from a few to 30 people in our corporate offices to large conferences with 1,000 attendees. We always had huge amounts of food left over and we never cared what happened to it. It was going stale, anyway. Te caterers took care of the leftovers.
This is petty beyond belief! A stale half sandwich that the health department says must be thrown away anyway and they FIRE her?
I’d say something else is going on. They want to downsize without paying RIF costs.
As I understand the story, she doesn’t work for the law firm, but for a contracted housekeeping service.
We had contracted caterers and contracted cleaning services. In my 40 years,, nobody cared at all where the leftovers went. Employees frequently took them home for famines. Lord knows where the rest of it went. All I know is the attendees were happy and the rooms were clean the next day.
My experience was the same.
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