Who among us hasn't cadged leftover meeting food? Drop into the kitchen for an innocent cup of tea and end up with a cookie, a brownie, a handful of chips, an already-getting-stale-around-the-edges slab of sheet cake...Who hasn't?
I was never one for grabbing a rejected sandwich, especially tuna or chicken salad, but if you're hungry enough? Why not?
And if the cleaning crew wants to help themselves to any leftover grub, who could possibly object to that?
Well, London's Devonshires Solicitors, for one.
Last December, these legal eagles, reported Gabriela Rodriguez, a cleaning lady and single mother from Ecuador, to Total Clean, the contracting service that employed her, for eating a tuna sandwich that was left in one of their conference rooms.
The sandwich was worth less than two bucks.
Rodriguez was fired. Just before Christmas. Feliz Navidad from Jolly Old England, Gabriela.
A spokesperson for Devonshires told BI in an email that it did not make a "formal complaint" and that it told Total Clean not to take action against Rodriguez.
The law firm said Total Clean, which did not reply to a request for comment from BI, decided to dismiss the cleaner after conducting its own internal investigation.
The spokesperson for Devonshires added: "This is a private matter between Total Clean and Gabriela but we have made clear to Total Clean that we would not object, as we never have done, to Gabriela attending and working on our premises if Total Clean changes its position." (Source: Business Insider)
Okay. So this is on Total Clean. They're the ones that did the deed of firing Rodriguez. But why did Devonshires rat her out to begin with? What was the big deal? The sandwich was leftover, not an item that was on a tray that was about to be set out for the solicitors. Were they concerned about the liability of someone getting sick on a tuna sammie that's been left out too long? Or were they just being meanspirited.
And if they didn't want someone to get fired, why report the grave misdeed to Total Clean? It's not like Rodriguez was pilfering the petty cash box, or snooping through the desks or briefcases of the solicitors. It's not like she lifted the powdered wig of one of the firm's partners.
Maybe, just maybe, before calling Total Clean, they could have put a sign up - in English and Spanish - saying that any leftover food was off limits. Maybe, just maybe, if they felt compelled to ring Total Clean, they could have told them that they should let their workers know that they weren't to take any food, etc.
I'm wondering where Devonshires wanted the purloined sandwich to go. Did they want any leftovers to go to employees working late? If so, there goes the potential "we don't want anyone to get sick" argument. Or did they want the cleaning people to toss any leftover food in the trash? Trashing perfectly good food: what a waist. (While we're on it, who leaves leftover food in the meeting room? I've worked in plenty of places where slobs left a post-meeting mess: half-filled coffee cups, crumpled up napkins, but I don't remember actual food being left anywhere but in the kitchen or on a counter outside an admin's cubicle. Where it was fair game.)
United Voices of the World (UVW), the UK union that represents migrant workers, is protesting Rodriguez' firing, claiming that it was motivated by racial discrimination.
Petros Elia, UVW's general secretary, said to the outlet that cleaners in the UK were often dismissed on trivial and discriminatory grounds.
Elia added: "Many describe feeling treated 'like the dirt they clean,' and Gabriela is one of them. We will raise our voices and unite to fight any employer — even big, powerful companies like Devonshires Solicitors."
Whether there's any racial element at play here or not, taking action aginst a lowly cleaner for eating a leftover tuna sandwich - let alone at Christmastime - seems especially nasty and petty.
Guess it could have been worse. In the 1800's, some hungry person in England with the audaciy to steal a sandwich would have been deported, packed off in a prison ship to colonize Australia.
Still, hard not to think that Devonshires Solicitors could just as well be named the law firm of Scrooge, Scrooge, and Scrooge.
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