Waitress Fired Over a Stolen Piece of Lasagne

While the title sounds incredibly bizarre, it’s absolutely true. A waitress at an exclusive London club has been fired after attempting to take home a piece of lasagne that would have been her free lunch but that she hadn’t eaten as there was no time to take her lunch.

In what’s possibly one of the most unusual employment legal matters at such a small scale, Silvia Mecati, employee at the Oxford and Cambridge Club in Pall Mall, had her handbag searched and found to contain a slice of veggie lasagne in tin foil wrap belonging to the club.

Earlier in the day, the club had in fact provided the lasagne for free as part of Silvia’s lunch break, but as she did not have time to eat it, she pocketed it for home time, as any sensible person would do. However, the club accused the 43-year-old of stealing and fire her for gross misconduct.

The waitress has been on a zero-hour contract for three years ta the club, and was very close to receiving a £1,200 bonus according to the Daily Mail. Silvia claims this is the real reason behind the quick and brute dismissal.

Silvia, who is native Italian and has been in the UK for four years, said: “At lunch I had taken a piece of lasagne but I didn’t have time to eat it so I left it on a plate. Near the end of my second shift I wrapped it in tin foil and put it in the fridge as I didn’t want to throw it away.”

But as I was leaving the night manager asked to check my bag. They had never checked my bag in three years.

“I told him, ‘I have my lunch with me because I didn’t have time to eat it and wanted to take it home’. He replied, ‘Did you have written or verbal permission from the chef or a manger to take your lunch home?’ I answered no.”

The next day Silvia was dismissed and told to clear her locker and hand in her employee belongings. She was later sent a letter from the club management reading: ‘Your actions can be considered to be theft in circumstances where you do not have permission to take Club food from the premises, and therefore a breach of your contract of employment…The gravity of your misconduct is such that the club believes the trust and confidence placed in you as its employee has been completely undermined…’

The letter proceeded to state that Silvia had broken rule 2.8 of the employee handbook: ‘The removal of any item of Club property from the Club house without permission being granted from a Departmental Manager or the Duty Manager will be considered to be theft and therefore Gross Misconduct.’

Do you think this dismissal was unfair? Should Silvia take legal action? How would she fare?