The staff who were let go routinely misused their vouchers, while others who misapplied them less frequently, were reprimanded but not fired.
Doing things by the book provides evidence that the process is fair, objective, and was reviewed by multiple people.
To fire someone in CA who does not have bad performance reviews, it much easier to find some other infraction as justification.
Here's a random guide found on google: https://www.jibble.io/labor-laws/us-state-labor-laws/califor...
"The staff who were let go routinely misused their vouchers, while others who misapplied them less frequently, were reprimanded but not fired."
The $400k employee was probably a higher up (or key SME Meta felt they needed to put in golden handcuffs) at one of these acquired companies and was probably already on his or her way out or they were in a position of authority and encouraging/condoning abusing the system.
You don't fire someone like that over ~$100/day unless there's more to the story.
Salaries in the rest of the world really can't compete can they!
In the US, basically all of my spending outside of the basics is on things you could classify as avoiding ever being poor/homeless. No vacations or eating out or streaming subscriptions or “toys” or whatnot. Maybe these kids feel that same pressure but took it too far, into fraudulent territory.
Instead of using the $25 credit to buy dinner and have it delivered to the office, some Meta staff opted to buy items like toothpaste and wine glasses with the credit
You can exclude any occasional meal you provide to an employee if it has so little value (taking into account how frequently you provide meals to your employees) that accounting for it would be unreasonable or administratively impracticable. The exclusion applies, for example, to the following items.
Coffee, doughnuts, or soft drinks.
Occasional meals or meal money provided to enable an employee to work overtime. However, the exclusion doesn't apply to meal money figured on the basis of hours worked (for example, $2.00 per hour for each hour over 8 hours), or meals or meal money provided on a regular or routine basis.
Occasional parties or picnics for employees and their guests.
However, once the employee is not using it in a way that qualifies as specified under De Minimis Meals, then it gets into an actual taxable bonus.
The employees that were doing this over a long period of time were causing Meta to inadvertently commit tax fraud. The accounting department probably didn't like that once they found out about it.
I have a business travel card for food when I travel. I'm not "obliged" or permitted to use the travel card for my personal household expenses.
I suspect in those cases, to most people, it is no different than saving for a trip and using the money on different expenses for _reasons_. If it is the case that people were entitled to the money, but then spent it on non-food, asserting that it is theft is just people trying to control people. You gave them money, they spent it on something you don't agree with, so you fire them. That's bullshit, you gave them the money.
I also suspect that these are the same people that give beggars cash and complain when the beggar buys some shampoo and a beer instead of food.
Every program of this nature that I have had was clear that they arent giving you money, but offering to pay for a specific thing. There are clear rules for what they are willing to pay for and when.
I dont think it is plausible these purchases happened by mistake.
The point of the program is to keep the kids at work longer than they'd normally stay. If you understand that and are working late, why would you not pocket the money?
My work has a free cab home program. That doesn't mean I can skip the cab and wander the halls taking staplers, or use my business travel card for beer.
I might argue that "hey, these things are equal value" but it doesn't matter. It wasn't what was offered.
There's no scenario where paying attention to this money helps more than having people put in more hours at work, so what's the goal of this exercise?
Giving an employee keys to the safe is not the same as giving them the contents.
The former sounds like extra money that I can do whatever I want with, while the latter is much more explicit.
If you buy a meal, they vouch to pay for it.
> "spending the money that you are entitled to"
Seems to be a disconnect or mental leap here.
If you can prove that you actually ate the toothpaste, you could probably sue them for libel.
> Meta Fires Employee Making $400,000 Per Year Over a $25 Meal Voucher Issue
This wasn't one $25 meal voucher, this was employees buying homegoods and pooling credit for other purposes:
> some Meta staff opted to buy items like toothpaste and wine glasses with the credit, per The Financial Times. Or they would get dinner delivered at home or pool their credit money together
> The staff who were let go routinely misused their vouchers
I agree that the other stuff is arguably abuse and defeats the point of getting the employees to come to the office and eat in the office.
Here's Matt Levine on one of the incidents: https://www.bloomberg.com/view/articles/2018-09-04/wells-far...
The logic is if you couldn't trust a banker to not defraud their employer by submitting dishonest meal receipts, how could you trust them with client money and confidential information. I don't disagree.
The one type of coworker no one gets along with is the dishonest, manipulative, penny-pinching narcissist. Fire them, and there are 10 honest people willing to replace them in this IT oversupply market, probably at lower salary. Win-win for Meta.
That said, what are you going to get on doordash for $25. half a sandwich?
It’ll likely depend on how the voucher was implemented.