A secretary from Dortmund, Germany will battle her employer in court after she was fired from her job of 34 years for eating a meatball and two bread rolls.
The secretary, known as Magdalene H. took two rolls and a frikadelle after she finished setting up a meal for her boss at the North Rhine-Westphalian building association and his guests.
A colleague notified the boss that food was missing and she was confronted over the issue and fired her after she confessed to eating the food. She argued that the incident did not constitute typical theft and that Hermann Schulte-Hiltrop, the chief of the building association, should have given her a warning instead of terminating her position.
Magdalene’s lawyer, Wolfgang Pinkepank, remarked:
She believed her behaviour was in order. Bread and Frikadellen that are left over after conferences are allowed to be eaten by workers. If she had been reprimanded she would not have done it again.
Schulte-Hiltrop disagreed:
From the outside it naturally looks like a minor offense. But we work on highly sensitive information here. And if you don’t trust someone any longer, it’s not a good feeling.
The case will be heard in January 2010.
[ad#3_social_compact]
