this post was submitted on 05 Jul 2026
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A Ford employee says he lost his job after being accused of stealing a $1.95 cookie, only for the company to later realize he’d actually paid for it.

60-year-old Kurt Kromm had worked at Ford’s Kentucky Truck Plant for 11 years, but told Shifting Gears he was fired after the company believed security footage showed him taking a cookie from the break room without paying.

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[–] azimir@lemmy.ml 105 points 5 days ago (3 children)

Lolz. Public corporations don't care about your well being. If there is an ROI on any action, it's worth taking and if that means no cookies because it ensure the shareholders get a fraction of a percent return, then no cookies for you.

I'm working hard to leave my current corpo. They're down to the "bring the dry pen back to get a new one" stage of bean counting. That's a sinking ship to disembark from ASAP.

[–] victorz@lemmy.world 19 points 5 days ago (4 children)

Last two companies I worked for treat their workers to a lot of goodies, like food, after work parties, stuff like that. Not everyone is that stingy. But of course, they only care in order to make workers happy to make more money for the company.

In the end, it's all about the moolah.

[–] SaveTheTuaHawk@lemmy.ca 1 points 3 days ago

Why doesn't UAW pay for this with their dues?

GM alone pays $17M a year for Viagra.

[–] Tollana1234567@lemmy.today 2 points 4 days ago* (last edited 4 days ago) (1 children)

thats pretty much with tech, all these conferences they go to are AI, and they get all these goodie bags, and free "ice cream", so they dont end up rebelling or "kicking and screaming out the door" when they are laid off.

[–] victorz@lemmy.world 5 points 4 days ago

Kinda curious about the quotes around "ice cream" tbh

[–] ponca@piefed.social 1 points 4 days ago

My current company pantry has a lot of snacks, because they are bought by employees using company money. Angry employees buy a lot.

[–] kuberoot@discuss.tchncs.de 1 points 4 days ago (1 children)

It's fine for companies to be motivated by money, what matters is that they make the right decisions. Regulations help with that, but this very post is a clear example of how a money-motivated company can instead try to squeeze their employees for more money instead of spending money on them to hopefully increase productivity.

[–] victorz@lemmy.world 1 points 4 days ago
[–] MrFinnbean@lemmy.world 15 points 5 days ago (1 children)

If large company needs to count bullshit like that, they are not in a healthy position.

[–] Whostosay@sh.itjust.works 11 points 5 days ago

Craziest shit is that has to cost way more than just buying an extra box of fucking pens

[–] Aceticon@lemmy.dbzer0.com 4 points 4 days ago (1 children)

If there is a short term easilly measured ROI on any action, it’s worth taking and if that means no cookies because it ensure the shareholders get a fraction of a percent return, then no cookies for you.

FIFY.

Their actions are not even competent by their own worldview - this kind of corporate management invariably sacrifice long term hard to measure yet large positive outcomes for the company (such as the gains from keeping highly trained personnel who stuck around because of goodwill towards the company rather than having the constant hiring and training costs as well as lower productivity from high turnaround) for miniscule but easy to measure immediate gains (like saving the equivalent of 1% of a single average worker's salary by not providing free cookies).

There really is no point in penny pinching if its going to increase employee turnaround in a domain were experience makes a significant difference.

[–] Mirshe@lemmy.world 5 points 4 days ago (3 children)

Loss of experience isn't a trackable metric, you can't put it in a spreadsheet, so it doesn't exist to the company.

[–] MrFinnbean@lemmy.world 1 points 2 days ago

You can absolutelly put it on to spreadsheet. Its just that its not a metric companies calculate normally.

I recommend everybody who is training new employees to track the time the training really takes, how much it takes away from your normal work effiency and how long it takes until newbies are ready to work shift solo. Do it enough times and you get average for new employers and you can calculate real life cost for new hires.

Then compare that to numbers the experienced guy would get during that time and how much money the employees training newbies would make. You get clear monetary difference between training new vs. keeping the old. If the experienced guy is competent they will always get better numbers on short term.

Then calculate median time people work in that position.

Now you can show a number that says: Hey, fire this guy and on average you loose this amount of money for new hire and if you want new employee who stays in the house as long as this guy you are firing has stayed, you need to go trough the training process this many times on average.

[–] anonymouse2@sh.itjust.works 1 points 3 days ago (1 children)

The cost of hiring and training a new employee is something a company of that size should know, and it's definitely more than the cost of a $2 cookie.

[–] MrFinnbean@lemmy.world 1 points 2 days ago

Most companies i have worked in have just decited in a meeting a number for how much they think new hire costs.

That number rarely is even close the real number.