The store accused him of taking a tuna sandwich out of the trash; Reese argues he set it aside, it was never in the trash and he was completely up front with the supervisor about his intention to eat it.
Was the sandwich really worth all this drama? To find out, I drove to the Whole Foods store in Overland Park to taste one of these pre-packaged "deli" sandwiches. I bought one, in a triangle-shaped clear plastic box, for $3.99. The two sandwich halves were visually attractive enough, but what about the taste? The list of ingredients didn't give much of clue: tuna, celery, red onions, chopped carrot, mayonnaise, you know, the usual ingredients. The tuna salad -- a little heavy on the mayo, I might note -- was spread thickly between two slices of wheat bread with a couple of pieces of romaine. I took a big bite and found it to be really boring. Not even worthy of a second bite. It's disappointingly mushy too, no marvelous crisp celery crunch that I could detect. The tiny bits of carrot at least gave it some color.
Whole Foods does sell, in the prepared foods case, a much tastier tuna salad made with cranberries. It retails for $9.99, which is a little more than I like to spend on tuna salad -- I can make it at home for much less, including the cranberries. Still, the Whole Foods cranberry version was so good, I might consider stealing it. And the pre-packaged version that Ralph Reese hated to see thrown away? I threw it away.
Showing 1-5 of 5
whole foods market fucken sux i got fired over samplying a fucken chip they said I broke the samplying policy its bullshit
That is such a moving story, Eight Belles. I used to grab the leftover sandwiches -- good, healthy sandwiches -- from a restaurant in Indianapolis that employed me as a waiter. There was a homeless man who kind of wandered around the railroad tracks on the way back to my apartment and I would give the sandwiches to him. It was totally an act of rebellion on my part, because the sandwiches were supposed to be tossed out. I never got caught, but yes, it was thievery, I guess.
The flip side of the story is this: at the same time I was taking the sandwiches, a friend of mine worked at this upscale joint owned by two dilettantes. The cooks would wait until the owners left in their big Cadillac, then they would sell steaks and cuts of beef out of the walk-in to "customers" who would drive up to the kitchen door after hours.
There's a moral here....
Regarding Ralph Reese and the Whole Foods firing fiasco over a tuna sandwich, I work at Aramark in concessions at the San Jose, California, HP Pavilion. I was working in prep one night during a San Jose Sharks game, and at the end of the night we had over 40 hot dogs (each individually wrapped) and about 15 polish sausages (also individually wrapped.) All these were thrown in the garbage. This was in just ONE STAND! When no one was looking, I grabbed all the hot dogs out of the trash (they were clean since they were on top) and I threw them into an empty plastic bag. I covered the bag with my jacket.
While I walked back to the employee parking lot, I passes a homeless guy sleeping on the street in an underpass. I asked him if he was hungry, and he said he was. I handed him the bag of hot dogs. He was so thankful, and told me he was going to go find his buddies to share his hot dogs.
If I hadn't seen the homeless guy, I would have taken the hot dogs home, and put them in the freezer. I am working for $8.00 an hour, and my husband is without a job. I just couldn't stand the thought of throwing away all that food.
If I had been caught, I would have been fired.
What seems to be missing from the discussions is that Whole Foods compounded things by using his "stealing" to deny him unemployment benefits. That was what brought the story to forefront; and he WAS eventually awarded the benefits.
And it brings up the larger issue that City Harvest (I believe that's the name) picks up unused/unsold food from restaurants in the city and distributes it to the poor and homeless.
Finally, someone once said that there are 2 kinds of people in the world, "smooth" and "crunchy", with corresponding personalities as well as food tastes. Me, I'm a smoothie, and hate crunchy celery in my tunafish....
The NitWits can nitpick the legal issues, but as Nick Lowe (by way of Elvis Costello) once said, "What's so funny about Peace, Love, and Understanding". (�:=
Hahahaha! Touche!
I see the point that the other commenters were making in that last post, and I'm a reasonable person...I know that it'd be an awfully petty reason to stop shopping at the store.
But then again, it was an awfully petty thing for them to fire a loyal employee over.
I'm at a loss...(and I also stopped buying those pre-prepared sandwiches from high-end grocery chains after I got seriously ill from eating one I bought at Dean & Deluca a couple of months back. ::shudders:: I don't trust their freshness anymore...)
like
dislike
