Image: Itinerant TightwadRules are rules. You can almost hear the jobsworth justifying the suspension and possible dismissal of a 59-year-old shopworker who helped himself to melons and salad from a rubbish bin.
Monoprix will decide the fate of the employee, who has been identified in local French media reports as Kader, a father of six, on Monday.
Colleagues and union officials have said Kader had an unblemished record in his eight years working at the store in Marseille.
Until, that is, his steep fall from grace last Monday evening.
Kader, who is within two years of retirement, is not a man of limitless means. When he saw the melons - six of them, though one report I saw mentioned 11, plus two packs of lettuce - in the dump outside the store, he saw scope for a family meal.
Management has been quoted as saying employees were well aware it was forbidden to take any shop products, even from bins, without permission. If the melons had been discarded it was for a good reason: they were past their shelf life or otherwise considered unfit for sale.
Kader's punishment could be a warning, suspension or dismissal without compensation.
What would be truly uplifting would be for the company to issue a further statement along these lines: "We have had a word with the supervisor who took the decision, thanked him or her for being so conscientious and firm in applying regulations and suggested he or she should develop a sense of proportion.
"We have also initiated a study to establish why one of our employees is so impoverished that he had to dip into a rubbish bin for his family's evening meal."
No one should hold their breath.
Recent Comments