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.
It’s 100% some new eager to the position/role security kid who hasn’t made any progress so they chose to pick on the tiniest infringement to be able to get a nickel raise at the end of year.
It wasn’t about the cookie
But to even think of using it as an excuse…
In Norway/most of Europe a lawyer would’ve had a field day with this case.
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Johnny Cash enters the chat…
Well, it’s a '49, '50, '51, '52, '53, '54, '55, '56, '57, '58, '59 automobile
It’s a '60, '61, '62, '63, '64, '65, '66, '67, '68, '69, '70 automobile
What the fuck
its not an accident, they often use this excuse to get rid of legacy employees in other industries so they dont have to pay them more down the line, like when they retire or they are set to get more in investments in thier retirements, or thier salary is too high or thier insurance is costing them too much, they just got caught with thier hand in the cookie jar.
they are like testing the waters with the 60yo, then they can apply it to other employees. especially him being 60, likely will retire in 5ish years, ford likely knew that and trying to get rid of him now, but someone in managment made a mistake, and miscalculated when they should get rid of him.
they are like testing the waters with the 60yo, then they can apply it to other employees.
If I had to guess, I’d say we’re way past the “testing” stage and doing this at industrial scale. This just happened to be the kind of egregious implementation of policy that trickles into the news cycle.
For every Kurt Kromm, I’ll bet there’s a dozen employees fired due parking tickets or misentered vacation or failure to meet some impossible milestone in they’re performance plans. More traditional and acceptable routes for firings.
This was just a particularly lazy, sloppy execution
It’s worse without unions, but setting expectations beyond capacity and pointing a camera at points of failure is key to a good turnover rate.
If you’re looking at 300-400% turnover then you don’t really end up with that sort of issue in the first place.
Even if he did steal this cookie, imagine valueing your employees so little.
Imagine having cookies in the break room that you have to pay $2 for… wtf.
I’ve gone through psych evals in corporate hiring that ask a bunch of bullshit “would you steal a penny to feed a starving orphan” questions, intended to weed out anyone with an ounce of conscience.
They mostly just teach you to lie to your boss
Jesus Christ. Should’ve followed it up with the question, “why is the company purposely withholding a penny when it could be used to feed a starving orphan?”
It’s like with overly strict parents; the only thing they are teaching their kids is how to lie and sneak around
At one point in my life, I coveted and desired to own a Ford above all else.
Today, I can proudly say I have never owned a Ford, and I will NEVER own a Ford. Ford has become an exceptionally shitty company in the past decade or more. For all the history they have, I hope/desire/wish they will cease to exist in the near future.
They really had some great marketing hold on young people.
There always used to be a joke in the UK about Fords being cheap on the second-hand market. You could get parts easily, so they were cheap to maintain, as well. But you’d see the ads saying 50k miles, new clutch, new exhaust, new CVs, bearings, etc. because they fell apart all the time. This was back when Japanese cars were proving to the world how reliable cars could be. Nobody I knew wanted a Ford, though some people got them if they were really cheap.
Someone round my way has a Capri, I’ve seen it driving around a few times. Looks like early 80s, I have no idea how they’ve managed to keep that fucker alive. Actually looks in pretty good condition too.
He gets a new one each time he needs to drive.
I had two family cars that were Fords in the late 80s and 90s. One (Taurus) had its front windshield randomly explode on a hot summer day, and its oil pan later rusted out. The other (Mustang) somehow had no back seat floor by the time it was 10 years old (completely rusted out).
I have no idea how they treated their employees back then, but you weren’t missing much when it came to the vehicles unless you’re talking about a time before I was around.
I rented a Taurus back in the early '90s for a thousand-mile drive. At one point the window crank (which some cars still came with back then) fell off in my hand, fortunately with the window still closed as this was in December. I reported this when I returned the car and the rental place was like “yeah, of course it did” and they didn’t even charge me anything extra.
I had a buddy who went to the GM institute for college and then went to work for GM in the late '80s. His first project involved tearing apart a Lexus and an Infiniti when these first came out and counting the number of production defects they found. He said a typical American car at the time had 300-400 defects. The Inifiniti they tore down had 2; the Lexus had 0.
It’s a shame. My parents owned two ford vans for my entire childhood and both served my family extremely well for more than two decades. I have owned three and they have all been excellent. I can’t say that I’d buy a new ford with everything that I’ve read recently.
I used to be a Honda/Toyota fan but now Chinese EVs are looking like the future on all fronts… Quality, safety, features, range, and most importantly price. They completely wallop every other manufacturer.
Do you have a Chinese EV?
I’ve had extended test drives in a few plus long term hire for work and they definitely aren’t better than the European counterparts in any way.
I suppose if you are from the US they would seem good quality, though since Americans have astonishingly low quality expectations in their domestic vehicles.
Chinese EV are a bit cheaper at the moment partly because USA tariff means there is global oversupply elsewhere and partly because the Chinese government allows them to be sold at a massive loss.
Here in the UK they sell them but there are huge issues with getting basic service parts and if it needs accident repair (like a new wing mirror, any glass, lamps) it isn’t going to happen and you won’t be legally allowed to drive without a wing mirror in the UK.
Chinese manufacturing industry doesn’t have to complete with european environmental or labour standards and they have a lax approach to where the raw materials come from to say the least.
Make no mistake, the price will go up if they reach a monopoly level.
If you buy a cheap Chinese EV you are personally contributing to undermining the society we live in, exploiting child labour, and polluting our air and seas. I wouldn’t want that in my conscience.
Make no mistake, the price will go up if they reach a monopoly level.
They don’t really seem to do that. Any industry that the Chinese government points at and decides to dominate, it just happens.
Look at solar. It was expensive as hell and super slow to advance. They decided that they were going to do solar now. They set up a city, offered people an increased basic income to move there, Told the banks to offer extremely favorable loans to companies that were going to make solar/solar components. It’s been decades now and the prices haven’t increased.
Don’t get me wrong, I have a lot of problems with a lot of their humanitarian issues, but when they poked at tesla and said, let’s do those next. It’s just China doing what China does, and in the end, the worst of it will be putting the west’s auto manufacturing out of business. They’ve ready done it with textiles, plastics and consumer electronics.
Since they really like to film your face while driving and love stealumg data for… Reasons, that’s a no for me
Im not defending privacy overton pushing shenanigans, they are all bullshit.
But that face camera thing is about to become an EU mandate.
All the companies are gearing up for data suction (EU or otherwise), if they don’t already have a robust system in place.
China is bad for it, yes, but so is everyone else.
It’s all bullshit from all sides
The face camera is actually a really good idea. And for a few hundred dollars, that driver is not alert let’s pull off the road safely could be handled in car, on local models and never have to send any fucking telemetry off to anywhere.
But of course, that info will be sold.
In principle that application of a face camera holds up, subjectively.
In practice that won’t be it’s primary use case.
It absolutely will bes sold, even if they are banned from saving face profiles directly (which ostensibly they are, for now) it’ll just be “anonymous’” data collection. Until they get caught, then they’ll pay a cost of doing business tax (fine) and continue on their way.
It’s just another vector for creeping changes that invade privacy for the benefit of corporations out the continued tightening population control of governments.
In this case, think ring doorbells + GPS as an opening gambit.
Like how courts orders for “all of the phones in a particular area at a particular time” are a thing, but with a mandatory face cam.
edit : because these are the type of activities that go on at these companies, unchecked mostly.
SAME, FAM!! \o/
fuck ford, good goddamn riddance.
Why isnt there free cookies in the breakroom?
Why are they nickle and diming employees for snacks that give them the energy to do their job well and full?
$1.95 is more than a nickel and a dime… that’s a profit center for several people in the supply chain.
Inflation about to hit our lexicon.
At my last job they have a policy of people who retire are allowed to cash out Extended Illness Bank (EIB) hours at full hourly wages if you are over a certain age and have a certain number of years with the organization. The bank is maxed max out at 400 hours.
One day I was in HR working for a reporting meeting. An employee who was less than a month from hitting the age/tenure threshold was being fired for a miniscule reason.
sounds like the one in the article, and an another story i heard years back. a a stewardess was 60-70+yo in her airline job, and the airline accused her of stealing and fired her, she was earning 200k+/year plus other benefits, and she was on the verge or retiring. they knew what they were doing. they are probably figure people wouldnt notice and she would accept it, or they mightve calculated the potential lawsuit costs of firing her.(using this as a template to fire people before they even have a chance to sue).
Yep. I remember having to temporarily sit at the desk of some department head to address a network problem, whose desk was covered in paperwork involving some poor custodian who was asking for a medically necessary limited period of light duty as a result of a work-related injury, and this director’s handwritten notes all over it, with shit like “if she can’t do the job she shouldn’t be here, let’s draw a line under this,” etc. It was clear exactly what they were getting at; they ALL knew the law, hence the handwritten notes and vague language. The casual nature of it was revolting.
At a previous job the general manager was trying to coach me on how to talk to people who had been hurt on the job, in an attempt to talk them out of going to the ER or urgnt care for treatment. I never had to do it, but my intent was to do the opposite of that if I was ever put in that situation. I can lie too, assholes.
That company went out of business in 2024.
Corpos aren’t human in any way that matters.
The corporate mentality. All the behaviours of a psychopath. None of the medical explanation.
Because high level corporate people are psychopaths.
Statistically speaking, psychopathic traits/tendencies are very beneficial and actively selected for, for climbing the corporate ladder.
Now, obviously, they don’t go “Hey, you’re a psychomath, lets promote you 3 rungs up”, its that psychopaths have the charisma, manipulation, can backstab without feeling guilt, etc necessary to lift themselves up while pushing others down.
Or that ages of “wives tales” are actually true and wealth really does something to our psyche. It’s true to say that immoral people get into these positions and make the rules, but I think it’s overly simplistic to believe that is the entire reason.
The more terrifying analysis is that people do change and not always for the better. The system is stupidly good at corrupting people and power/wealth do something to our monkey brains that is insanely antisocial. People unfortunately absolutely do become worse in the system, and it is designed that way.
it is designed that way
They say the fish rots from the head down, and the same applies to organisations. Rot sets in when leadership becomes obsessed with short term gains, prioritises optics over substance, and treats excellence as a performance rather than a standard to live up to.
When you follow the money to the top, especially in publicly listed companies, it gets pretty grim. You see the same small circle of people rotating across boards, often lacking deep, tangible understanding of what they’re overseeing, appointed more for status and connections than competence.
Meanwhile, the people who actually built and sustain the company, the ones whose livelihoods depend on it, barely factor into the equation. They’re seen as nothing more than furniture that gets passed along with a company acquisition. Culture flows from that reality. When leadership rewards self serving behaviour, people adapt accordingly.
That’s how you end up with environments that feel psychopathic, not necessarily because individuals start that way, but because the system consistently selects for and reinforces it.
My 2c anyway.
My dude.
theres literally been studies about this.
Its because they start that way. Corporate environments are a fertile ground for psychopathic tendencies to produce results.
If I were 20 again, I think id do pretty well there.
And I hope they sued the fuck out of that company. Age discrimination is illegal as fuck.
Not when it’s a right to work state.
right to work doesnt mean theycant fire you, they just need a reason to, but they can alleged any number of reasons to fire you wether that is through performance, or time stealing or another. at will is they can layoff, fire without most reasons.
Right to work has nothing to do with ferdal law
They didn’t fire him for stealing the cookie. They fired him because he’s old and probably earning twice what a new hire who could do his job would earn. The cookie was just an excuse.
Every employer, big and small, has a collection of petty rules on the books that are only there to be enforced against people they want to get rid of “justifiably” and not have to pay unemployment.
I think unemployment is paid to the State while they are working, no?
Companies get penalized if a lot of their former employees start getting unemployment.
This tactic goes by the lawful name of at will employment.
At will employment isn’t a magic trick, and this case demonstratesit clearly. It means employees can be terminated without cause. But if employees are terminated without cause they get to claim unemployment. That’s why they manufacturered a reason here - to keep him from being able to claim unemployment.
It also allows them to term employees for illegal reasons. An older employee making more money and approaching pension can’t be fired and denied pension for being old. But if they steal a cookie? Absolutely.
You don’t just fire a $200k worker over a $2 cookie without looking for a reason to fire them.
200k+year is the reason, they just try to obfuscate by saying it something else, and stealing is the easiest to accuse and harder to prove. they probably expect the person to accept it and not lawyer up, because lawyers are expensive.
Who puts cookies in the break room and expects you to pay for it.
It’s cookies.
They’re cheap.
Treat your workers.
Treat your colleagues.
Edit: very curious to hear the mindset of the few down voters of this.
My current company contracts someone to keep a few fridges and shelves in the break room stocked with higher grade convenience-store style food. The prices are pretty cheap, so I suspect they actually lose money on the deal. If I grabbed some food and just walked away with it, that would technically be stealing. I doubt they would confront me about something that small, though. Ford is obviously wrong to fire someone over a cookie.
It always seemed like a no-brainer to me to provide subsidized food for expensive salary workers who may be willing to work unpaid overtime if they don’t have to leave to get dinner, at least from a logic self-serving point of view.
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.
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.
Loss of experience isn’t a trackable metric, you can’t put it in a spreadsheet, so it doesn’t exist to the company.
Exactly.
If large company needs to count bullshit like that, they are not in a healthy position.
Craziest shit is that has to cost way more than just buying an extra box of fucking pens
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.
My current company pantry has a lot of snacks, because they are bought by employees using company money. Angry employees buy a lot.
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.
Kinda curious about the quotes around “ice cream” tbh
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.
Definitely.
Same people that expect YOU to work hard enough to generate millions in revenue while THEY take 99% of it.
Scum.
Gotta milk every last cent out of us. Honestly the absurdity and cruelty only make the revolution come that much faster and if they are cruel enough we won’t even have any moral hangups about it (for those that would).
If it ain’t in a vending machine, it should be free.
I have definitely seen vending machines at various office over the years.
The snack shop at my place of employment charges $4.69 for a Tyson chicken patty sandwich. Ya know, the patties that cost $0.85 per patty if you buy a pack at the store. Tuna on wheat? $4.00.
It does have a slice of American cheese on it though.
Ah yes. That tasty “cheese product”.
60-year-old
That’s why. I guess Ford won’t have to pay him some retirement package.
they did it to soon, most of them try to get rid of the employee months before they become 65
There are 35-year-olds that have worked for Ford longer.
Why are employees expected to pay for cookies in the break room?
Oh right, capitalism. Human decency be damned.
Under socialism, employers must supply free cookies in breakrooms.
My employer offers free fruits in breakrooms. Life safers when you have low bloodsugar.
That coupled with other benefits like free gym, company paying half of any bicycle i buy and discounts with local massagers have made me healthier and i have turned down an job offer from better paying job because they had worse benefits.
Where do you work?
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Historically every job provided all workers a meal, often two if it was a long day. This didn’t stop being the norm until clocks and factories became common.
It’s also a win-win for the company. Happy, well-fed workers work better, and hang around longer.
And you can ensure that they’re at least eating one healthy meal which can increase their focus and stamina
Technically yes. The employees own the company, and part of the company expenses, it’s make sure the break room have free cookies.
They just steal your paycheck instead lol
Cause capitalists arent interested in taking your tax money to enrich themselves either.
