Mark Zuckerberg's Meta has sacked a number of staff after they abused the company's $25 (£19) meal scheme to order household goods such as toothpaste and washing powder.
Almost 30 staff in the company's Los Angeles office were dismissed after they were found to be routinely using takeaway credits to order groceries and cosmetics, employees said.
The sackings included high-paid engineers earning six-figure salaries, according to posts on the anonymous chat app Blind.
Meta, which is currently worth $1.5 trillion, provides staff with free breakfast, lunch and dinner at its larger offices.
Those in smaller offices without staff canteens instead receive vouchers for delivery apps such as Grubhub, which they can use to order food when working at the office.
However, Meta recently discovered that some employees were using the $25 vouchers to order household items from stores that feature on the apps.
In some cases, staff were using the scheme to buy wine glasses and laundry detergent, according to the Financial Times.
(Score: 4, Disagree) by Tork on Monday October 21, @05:12AM (21 children)
🏳️🌈 Proud Ally 🏳️🌈
(Score: 5, Insightful) by pTamok on Monday October 21, @07:18AM (8 children)
Petty rules are often ones that are strongly enforced.
But the issue might not be so obvious: it could be a tax issue. Providing vouchers for food, and specifically food for consumption while working could well involve very different tax treatment than providing vouchers for 'general goods'. Food during working hours is expensable, whereas giving vouchers for employees to buy 'anything' forms part of the employee's taxable income (in some jurisdictions). So it is possible the employees, or the employers, or both could be prosecuted for tax fraud. Fraud is likely a sackable offence.
Yes, it seems weird and petty, but tax rules can be non-obvious and apparently unrelated to reality.
The bounds of confectionery, sweets, chocolates, chocolate biscuits, cakes and biscuits: The borderline between cakes and biscuits [www.gov.uk]
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Deep Blue on Monday October 21, @07:59AM (6 children)
Well then, how come the vouchers worked for 'anything' and not just food?
(Score: 1, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Monday October 21, @08:26AM (4 children)
Maybe Grubhub etc don't have such distinctions/restrictions on their vouchers.
So either you reduce choice to those who have such restrictions or you tell people they can't use it for such stuff.
To me if Meta did give a warning beforehand and people kept abuaing it then it's fair enough. But if they didn't then it seems rather harsh.
After all, it's not like Meta has a strict culture of NOT bending the rules: https://www.wionews.com/technology/google-meta-bend-their-own-rules-to-target-teenagers-with-ad-campaigns-report-748487 [wionews.com]
https://www.japantimes.co.jp/business/2024/04/08/tech/tech-giants-harvest-data-ai/ [japantimes.co.jp]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday October 21, @02:30PM (3 children)
Move fast and break things. Oop, not that.
(Score: 3, Funny) by DannyB on Monday October 21, @03:09PM (2 children)
Move fast and brake things.
If management put the brakes on this, and gave warnings, would people have stopped misusing the vouchers?
California bumper sticker: I brake for animals
Other state bumper stucker: I break fur animals
Some people need assistants to hire some assistance.
Other people need assistance to hire some assistants.
(Score: 2) by aafcac on Monday October 21, @03:52PM (1 child)
I'm assuming that there was more to the policy. Some of these things are things that I could see them using so that they could spend more time at work, which could be within the spirit of the program. Some of it looks to be BS that probably does deserve to be harshly punished though.
(Score: 2) by DannyB on Monday October 21, @04:40PM
Once I read the comment about "Stealth Downsizing", I suddenly thought that probably is the true explanation for this.
Some people need assistants to hire some assistance.
Other people need assistance to hire some assistants.
(Score: 3, Touché) by Mykl on Monday October 21, @11:47AM
Corporate credit cards work for anything, but there are rules about what can be claimed. This is the same thing.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Tork on Monday October 21, @02:32PM
We are talking about firing and not a warning or reprimand.
🏳️🌈 Proud Ally 🏳️🌈
(Score: 5, Insightful) by looorg on Monday October 21, @09:22AM (6 children)
Is it really? They have "high paying jobs", they get a $20 breakfast voucher, a $25 lunch voucher and another $25 dinner voucher. So you could score an extra "free" $70 worth of food per day, plus their high salary. Yet they feel some kind of need to buy toothpaste, wine glasses and laundry detergent? Or just something non-food related. To maximize their free FOOD vouchers. Cause they can't live on their high salary? Or they can't just not spend it. Don't they eat every day?
Clearly correctly fired for not following directions, despite warnings, and quite frankly just not being very smart. How hard is it to just eat all meals at work for free and then spend your salary to buy wine glasses? They are apparently both stupid and greedy. Clearly not the sharpest tools in the shed. If they are given vouchers by the company the company will know what they are used for. They had been warned. Yet did not learn. Now they are a cautionary tale and made an example of for the others.
That said I'm more wondering what food delivery services offer non-food stuff for delivery. Stores except food vouchers or gift certificates for non-food things? I guess you could go to like IKEA (or Walmart or whatever) and buy a $1 hotdog then $19 worth of furniture or whatnot and pay with the voucher. Still wrong.
(Score: 2) by mhajicek on Monday October 21, @09:45AM
Target, at least around here, has deli foods ready to eat, as well as groceries and household items such as wine glasses.
The spacelike surfaces of time foliations can have a cusp at the surface of discontinuity. - P. Hajicek
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Monday October 21, @02:34PM
Where I used to work, the professors making 250k apparently found it necessary to raid the students' travel fund to pay for their own travel. Guys that barely show up, barely teach and are constantly on travel.
In a fair world, these clowns would be canned - or at least exposed.
(Score: 2) by DannyB on Monday October 21, @03:15PM (1 child)
Maybe those vouchers would not buy food up to their standards? Unlike whine glasses which the vouchers could buy.
Some people need assistants to hire some assistance.
Other people need assistance to hire some assistants.
(Score: 2) by mcgrew on Monday October 21, @08:50PM
Maybe those vouchers would not buy food up to their standards?
Maybe that's why everything is so God damned expensive these days?
It is a disgrace that the richest nation in the world has hunger and homelessness.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Sourcery42 on Monday October 21, @04:53PM (1 child)
Couldn't agree more on the correctly fired statement. It isn't so much about the severity of this offense; misusing these vouchers is probably not even a rounding error to Facebook's NIAT. The issue here is more of a moral and ethical one, and I view this along the lines of the part of the iceberg you can see analogy. If these employees were willing to break the rules for petty little stuff like this, what other manner of no good might they be willing to engage in? This seems pretty brazen too; fucking around with your expense reports might be one of the easiest ways to get fired from white collar jobs.
You can teach skills and nurture culture, but you have to select for morality.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday October 22, @03:58PM
I could see it as harsh if the person brings their own lunch or has dietary restrictions, then that $75/day is unavailable while others get the perk. This could have been addressed, presumably, with an in-kind equivalent. On the other hand, the whole idea of it is to keep you at your desk another hour or two a day. Or perhaps the thing truly is a morality test?!
(Score: 4, Insightful) by VLM on Monday October 21, @02:42PM
Stealth downsizing.
(Score: 2) by mcgrew on Monday October 21, @08:45PM (3 children)
Petty is someone with a six figure salary STEALING. They should all have been fired and given bad references. Keeping THIEVES on your payroll is foolish.
Odd how you rich folk apologists are okay with that three strikes guy in California getting life for stealing a candy bar, but your panties are in a twist for firing a millionaire who steals what is chicken feed to him.
Also, PETTY is bitching about choice of subjects to post. Don't like what's posted? DON'T FUCKING CLICK IT!
It is a disgrace that the richest nation in the world has hunger and homelessness.
(Score: 2) by Tork on Monday October 21, @10:48PM (2 children)
Did they? If they were warned of it then I have no objection to their firing. However, I tried to read the article but the screen was blocked demanding I log in. I don't know if they were stealing or simply confused about what all they can get with that voucher.
I think you misunderstand me, sir. Further, the picture you have in your head about who I am is way off the mark. I am not rich. I am not a three-strikes proponent, I want our jails to have fewer people in them not more. Six figures is not a millionaire, and of course I am not one.
What I am, however, is someone who thinks being overzealous with employees will not raise productivity. Scaring them by stomping around in iron boots is not a long-term strategy, it makes the printer spew resumes. And assuming what Meta did wasn't a stealth layoff they're going to have to hire replacements. Is the cost of doing that going to be less than whatever they were 'bleeding' for Uber Eats? The vouchers had a $25 cap, how does that compare to pulling HR's resources to get new peeps? There's a saying where I'm from: Don't step over a quarter to pick up a nickel. Yes, petty.
Who did that? Most of my post was about how Facebook doesn't have a dislike button.
🏳️🌈 Proud Ally 🏳️🌈
(Score: 2) by mcgrew on Tuesday October 22, @02:53PM (1 child)
Who did that?
YOU did, and I don't appreciate being trolled. Go back under your bridge.
It is a disgrace that the richest nation in the world has hunger and homelessness.
(Score: 2) by Tork on Tuesday October 22, @07:36PM
🏳️🌈 Proud Ally 🏳️🌈
(Score: 5, Insightful) by pkrasimirov on Monday October 21, @08:49AM (2 children)
I think they just wanted to fire some people without severance and they found an occasion. If that was a real problem then it wouldn't have gone for so long and also it would have been communicated explicitly in advance.
In my megacorp they did so once by "finding" mp3 files on people's work computers and fire them for "illegal downloads", "copyright infringement" etc. A specific office in a specific expensive location, nobody else's computer was scanned in the world.
Cockroaches in suits.
(Score: 4, Interesting) by JoeMerchant on Monday October 21, @11:59AM
Agreed. This is another situation where UUBI would be both cheaper to administer and less potentially abusive of the recipients. The extra U is calling out Unconditional, no strings, no restrictions - real money.
Any conditions placed on the gift, allowance, benefit, whatever you want to call it, are at their core a power play, ripe for abuse by the grantor.
A better way to administer this program, IMO, would be to add the allowance to the eligible recipients' paycheck as a separate line item. Remind them through company messaging systems how they can use th benefit, and otherwise get the hell out of their employees' business.
Through the 1990s a lot of companies started merging sick time with paid time off, getting out of the business of determining when their employees were top sick to work. I believe that was a good thing, too bad employment at will usually came along for the ride.
In the early 1970s my mother was a school teacher, and pregnant. Her (obviously for the era: male) principal told her that child birth did not qualify for sick leave. Any appeals over his head would have been responded with retaliation worse than firing, and labor lawyers weren't really an accessible thing back then. Being the 1970s, the office administration grunt work was done by women, and the principal rarely (more like never) bothered to check the accounting details. He might have noticed two weeks of missing sick time on my mother's balance, but he never did notice that the admins gave my mother full pay for the two weeks she was out giving birth.
🌻🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 3, Insightful) by mcgrew on Monday October 21, @08:55PM
Cockroaches in suits.
The suit is the uniform of Satan's Minions, including the leash around the neck.
It is a disgrace that the richest nation in the world has hunger and homelessness.
(Score: 4, Funny) by shrewdsheep on Monday October 21, @09:55AM (1 child)
Another example of a company punishing good behavior. They were just having a party and pooled their school-money for some fine wine. Of course, you need some appropriate wine glasses for that. Being responsible, they also ordered laundry detergent to clean up after the fact.
About the cosmetics: one simply looks like shit after a good breakfast revelry. One simple has to cover up using some fine cosmetics. The toothpaste was ordered by one of them for all to share. What is meta thinking? Are you supposed to spend your full day there without cleaning your teeth?
Meta obviously wants a stinking, dirty work place with ugly looking people with rotting teeth.
(Score: 3, Touché) by Rosco P. Coltrane on Monday October 21, @11:15AM
Not at all: those execs were trying to imitate their boss' new douche style [ndtvimg.com]. But $25 only gets you teeth-whitening toothpaste. You need more than that for the illuminati gold chain and the special pubis hairdo comb.
Sadly they got caught trying to get the swag and Mark doesn't understand that imitation is the sincerest form of flattery.
(Score: 3, Touché) by Rosco P. Coltrane on Monday October 21, @11:04AM (1 child)
And Mark Zuckerberg knows a moocher when he sees one [propublica.org].
(Score: 1, Informative) by skaplon on Monday October 21, @07:18PM
So a moocher moochin' moochers
(Score: 2) by srobert on Monday October 21, @08:45PM (5 children)
I would not have fired these people. I would have gotten an accounting of the inappropriate charges and then informed them that they were in violation of our agreement. I would tell them that they must reimburse the company for the amount of the inappropriate charges. Some people just see that everyone is doing something and then they go along with it like sheep. It's not OK. But it seems like you wouldn't want to terminate your relationship with a valuable employee over a petty larceny.
Contrary to some people's perceptions, bellowing out a knee-jerk "You're Fired!" isn't an example of effective management or good leadership.
(Score: 3, Funny) by mcgrew on Monday October 21, @09:01PM (4 children)
On the contrary, only fools keep paying thieves. Odd how many here are okay with dishonesty, even thievery.
This world sure has changed since I was young. Stupid fucking kids think stealing is okay. I guess that's because you shits were all raised by corporate child care instead of your mom. Not your fault, when I was young the minimum wage was a living wage.
Explains the school shootings, too.
It is a disgrace that the richest nation in the world has hunger and homelessness.
(Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday October 23, @12:29AM
They learned it from watching you!
(Score: 2) by DadaDoofy on Wednesday October 23, @12:58PM (2 children)
"On the contrary, only fools keep paying thieves."
+1 Common Sense
"Odd how many here are okay with dishonesty, even thievery."
Not that odd when you consider how much lefties abhor the concept of private property
(Score: 3, Funny) by mcgrew on Wednesday October 23, @07:17PM (1 child)
Not that odd when you consider how much lefties abhor the concept of private property
Donald Trump is a proven fraudster. Fraud is theft. Are you calling Donald Trump a communist?
It is a disgrace that the richest nation in the world has hunger and homelessness.
(Score: 2) by DadaDoofy on Wednesday October 23, @08:36PM
Let me guess, you've detected a fault in the AE-35 unit.
To paraphase, "Your minds are going. We can feel it."
(Score: 2) by DadaDoofy on Wednesday October 23, @12:45PM
If they are misusing company funds in a way that would have been obvious to anyone bothering to check, it's reasonable to believe these people are likely cheating the company in others ways that might not be as easy to uncover or prove.
It reminds me of how Van Halen used to include a section in their contract rider that requested a bowl of M&Ms with the brown ones removed. If their people saw brown M&Ms in the bowl, they knew to investigate what other aspects of the rider were being violated.