It’s like the new saying goes: you can’t be fired over stale bread. Yes, it’s partly a take off the “no use crying over spilled milk” saying, but it’s also a reality. A labor court in Leipzig, Germany, ruled that a German supermarket can’t fire a cashier for taking stale bread meant for the dumpster. After all, the court ruled, the bread is stale and has no value to the supermarket, so there’s no harm in the employee taking it rather than tossing it out.
The cashier, a 44-year-old woman, took the bread from the supermarket. While she said she wasn’t going to eat it, the court decided that she probably was going to eat it no matter what she said. No matter what, the bread she took wasn’t enough to fire her, especially considering her 27 years of spotless employment with the supermarket and the fact that the bread was worthless garbage meant for the bio-waste container. Hopefully, if she did end up eating the bread, it wasn’t too tough to chew.
I don’t understand why more companies don’t just give away their stale stuff to employees. When I worked at the grocery store, periodically they’d have employee parties, which meant they’d put about-to-expire or day-of-expiry foods like cookies and sodas out in the break room. Sure, we knew it became a write-off for them at that point, but we didn’t care because, hey, it’s free snacks!
Tags: Leipzig, Germany, cashier can’t be fired for stealing stale bread, stale bread, cashier fired after taking stale bread to eat, bio-waste, stale bread firing illegal, employment law, unusual court cases