A workplace dispute over lunch boxes has led to a corporate investigation after an employee was reported to Human Resources for eating her manager’s food. The issue came to light when a social media user shared screenshots of an e-mail thread between an employee named Melissa Grant and HR manager Rebecca Shaw.
The e-mail shows Shaw telling Grant, “CCTV shows you removing your manager’s lunch from the staff fridge at 13:07 on Monday 5 October” and “you later confirmed that you ate it without permission.”
The case has sparked an intense debate online about workplace etiquette and whether HR departments treat management and staff unfairly.
HR then wrote that the incident is being probed as a “potential gross misconduct” and that Grant was supposed to attend a disciplinary meeting. In response, the employee said that she repeatedly found her own home-cooked meals missing from the office refrigerator. She said she caught her manager taking her food, and despite telling her not to, the manager took the lunch from the fridge three times in two months.
