Melanie Milner, a U.K. nurse, was recently fired over soda. After wandering over to the office vending machine to purchase a single can, Milner watched 27 accidentally come out, and then decided to keep 16 of them for herself and hand off the others to colleagues, The Lancashire Evening Post reports.
She was promptly fired, then reinstated after she appealed, then issued an order of caution by the state-run health care system. Again, we're talking about soda here.
Look, workplace theft happens. In fact, it's estimated that U.S. businesses lose $50 billion to employee theft each year, according to WBBM. What makes Milner's case different is that she got caught at all: No one notices something like three-fourths of employee theft here in the U.S., according to Inc.
The real theft problem is in the U.S. retail sector, a historically underpaid area of the economy. That's where we see employee theft actually causing more harm to business that something like, say, shoplifting.
And Milner's soda theft wasn't even that big of a deal in the scheme of things. Consider the case of a medical worker in Washington D.C., who was fired this month for stealing around $400,000? Or what about the Walmart employee who faced felony theft charges in February after eating “multiple” Oreo cookies during her shift?
Now that is some serious stuff.
(Hat tip: MSN)
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