Meta Fires Employee Making $400k per Year over a $25 Meal Voucher | Hacker News Reader

Meta Fires Employee Making $400k per Year over a $25 Meal Voucher

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48 pointsadzicg54 comments

For liability reasons, HR needs a reason to fire someone to avoid potential wrongful termination lawsuit. The meal vouchers just sound like it was an excuse they needed to let some people go. But it makes a good story for the interwebs.

Yea I've known plenty of people with performance issues that were let go as soon as HR found some technicality to pin them on. One left a guest unattended at the office during lunch for 15 minutes and they fired him for it the following week

I doubt that simply because they gave everyone they didn't fire who did it an official talking to. It's atypical for a BigCo to do that if they're simply manufacturing a pretext.

the article seemed pretty clear:

The staff who were let go routinely misused their vouchers, while others who misapplied them less frequently, were reprimanded but not fired.

Do they though? You're an at-will employee. Unless there is a contract, you can be fired for any reason including cutting costs. Just like you can quit whenever. Wrongful termination lawsuit happen when employ fires employee for illegal reasons(gender, sexual orientation, race, religion, or disability status).

It's hard to prove intent, but convincing a jury there's a pattern of discrimination is a lower bar. So perceptions matter.

Doing things by the book provides evidence that the process is fair, objective, and was reviewed by multiple people.

In California, yes. It's trickier to fire someone due to the labor laws. It's not as strict as EU, but typically requires performance reviews and advance notification.

To fire someone in CA who does not have bad performance reviews, it much easier to find some other infraction as justification.

Here's a random guide found on google: https://www.jibble.io/labor-laws/us-state-labor-laws/califor...

The critical word in this headline is missing (maybe a length issue)...

> Meta Fires Employee Making $400,000 Per Year Over a $25 Meal Voucher Issue

This wasn't one $25 meal voucher, this was employees buying homegoods and pooling credit for other purposes:

> some Meta staff opted to buy items like toothpaste and wine glasses with the credit, per The Financial Times. Or they would get dinner delivered at home or pool their credit money together

> The staff who were let go routinely misused their vouchers

The funny thing is that pooling the credit is probably the best possible ROI for meta because if they're pooling the benefit they're probably using it together which builds morale, cohesion and friendship and even if they aren't and it's a rotation as to who gets the benefit the interdependence of trading favors has the same effect just less so.

I agree that the other stuff is arguably abuse and defeats the point of getting the employees to come to the office and eat in the office.

I wonder how explicit and clear they were about the intended purpose of these vouchers. I can see myself saying fck it and using it however I feel without thinking much since it seems insignificant, unless they make a deal of it.

That's a click bait title. What actually happend was a little less crazy:

"The staff who were let go routinely misused their vouchers, while others who misapplied them less frequently, were reprimanded but not fired."

It’s kinda crazy that they even keep track of what their employees are ordering with food delivery app vouchers

I suspect this is a result of acquisitions. They buy some startup, bring them all under Meta's HR umbrella with all the rules and perks that comes with. Since these recently acquired guys are running out of random offices in random places they just give them a stipend rather than force them to all relocate to a campus with dining. Some people are happy, some are unhappy, some don't like their new overlords and don't feel bad abusing the system. That's just how it goes with these sorts of things.

The $400k employee was probably a higher up (or key SME Meta felt they needed to put in golden handcuffs) at one of these acquired companies and was probably already on his or her way out or they were in a position of authority and encouraging/condoning abusing the system.

You don't fire someone like that over ~$100/day unless there's more to the story.

At Meta, $400k would be high E4 or low E5. That’s someone earlier in their career who probably feels fairly anonymous and is used to taking all the deals they can get to live cheaply, even if they don’t need to anymore.

Far out!

Salaries in the rest of the world really can't compete can they!

I’d honestly rather be paid less and have more equal pay across society, while not having to worry about age discrimination or medical debt or something wiping out my savings and throwing me out on the streets, however unlikely that may seem.

In the US, basically all of my spending outside of the basics is on things you could classify as avoiding ever being poor/homeless. No vacations or eating out or streaming subscriptions or “toys” or whatnot. Maybe these kids feel that same pressure but took it too far, into fraudulent territory.

When they say "making $400k/yr" I assume they're talking cash compensation which puts them well above E5.

I’m sure they mean total compensation, as reflected in employee W-2 forms. Modulo a few details, public company stock-based compensation is as good as cash the moment it vests (and in fact is cash if you make an automatic sell-all election, which is not subject to trading windows).

Every company I have ever worked at would fire employees for blatant and repeated theft.

Of course but depending on how this was or wasn't messaged it probably doesn't fall into that category. At the very least using the word "blatant" is in error.

I think it probably does. My company has similar programs, and the purpose and rules are clearly stated.

It seems pretty blatant to me:

Instead of using the $25 credit to buy dinner and have it delivered to the office, some Meta staff opted to buy items like toothpaste and wine glasses with the credit

If you give me 25 bucks for dinner, and I'm not hungry, am I obliged to not spend the 25 bucks?

Publication 15-B (2024), Employer's Tax Guide to Fringe Benefits - https://www.irs.gov/publications/p15b#en_US_2024_publink1000...

    You can exclude any occasional meal you provide to an employee if it has so little value (taking into account how frequently you provide meals to your employees) that accounting for it would be unreasonable or administratively impracticable. The exclusion applies, for example, to the following items.

    Coffee, doughnuts, or soft drinks.
    Occasional meals or meal money provided to enable an employee to work overtime. However, the exclusion doesn't apply to meal money figured on the basis of hours worked (for example, $2.00 per hour for each hour over 8 hours), or meals or meal money provided on a regular or routine basis.
    Occasional parties or picnics for employees and their guests.

Meta can exclude the occasional meal enabling a company to work overtime from tax reporting as benefits.

However, once the employee is not using it in a way that qualifies as specified under De Minimis Meals, then it gets into an actual taxable bonus.

The employees that were doing this over a long period of time were causing Meta to inadvertently commit tax fraud. The accounting department probably didn't like that once they found out about it.

no, This was a policy where you can get a voucher for food if you are staying late to work.

I have a business travel card for food when I travel. I'm not "obliged" or permitted to use the travel card for my personal household expenses.

I think I wasn't clear. What I meant, is that if I am working late, I am entitled to the voucher. If I get some toothpaste instead of eating ... is that theft?? I do agree that if you aren't working late, you aren't entitled to the voucher and that is clear theft. I'm talking about spending the money that you are entitled to on something different than the purpose of the money.

I suspect in those cases, to most people, it is no different than saving for a trip and using the money on different expenses for _reasons_. If it is the case that people were entitled to the money, but then spent it on non-food, asserting that it is theft is just people trying to control people. You gave them money, they spent it on something you don't agree with, so you fire them. That's bullshit, you gave them the money.

I also suspect that these are the same people that give beggars cash and complain when the beggar buys some shampoo and a beer instead of food.

Maybe there is a context problem here from people not familiar with business expenses or these types of employee perk programs.

Every program of this nature that I have had was clear that they arent giving you money, but offering to pay for a specific thing. There are clear rules for what they are willing to pay for and when.

I dont think it is plausible these purchases happened by mistake.

> Every program of this nature that I have had was clear that they arent giving you money, but offering to pay for a specific thing. There are clear rules for what they are willing to pay for and when.

The point of the program is to keep the kids at work longer than they'd normally stay. If you understand that and are working late, why would you not pocket the money?

I don't understand the question. They have a food program for people who stay late. They don't have a cash or toothpaste program for people to stay late. It seems very clear to me.

My work has a free cab home program. That doesn't mean I can skip the cab and wander the halls taking staplers, or use my business travel card for beer.

I might argue that "hey, these things are equal value" but it doesn't matter. It wasn't what was offered.

Once again, the point of having the program is to get people to stay later. For $25.

There's no scenario where paying attention to this money helps more than having people put in more hours at work, so what's the goal of this exercise?

Possibly also cultural. For example, once you tell me you are giving me money, you don't have the right to tell me how to spend it.

I would agree with that statement, I just dont think it describes this situation. It was never the employees money. It was permission to spend company money on food.

Giving an employee keys to the safe is not the same as giving them the contents.

Depends on how it was worded and/or explained to the employee. Was it: "if you stay late, the company gives you an extra 25 bucks so you can eat dinner at work" or "if you stay late, you are given a 25 bucks stipend that can only be used for food"?

The former sounds like extra money that I can do whatever I want with, while the latter is much more explicit.

> "I am entitled to the voucher."

If you buy a meal, they vouch to pay for it.

> "spending the money that you are entitled to"

Seems to be a disconnect or mental leap here.

It comes down to English. There's not really an easy way to say, "Here's a voucher that can only be used for food" other than spelling it out like I just did. Instead, it is most likely presented like this during onboarding (IIRC): "If you work late, the company gives you a voucher so you can eat dinner." Notice the entire lack of mentioning that you can _only_ use it on dinner.

> If I get some toothpaste instead of eating ... is that theft??

If you can prove that you actually ate the toothpaste, you could probably sue them for libel.

Actually you have a per diem you can use for toothpaste. Check your travel policy.

Policy says only if I am actually traveling

That's a lot of assumptions.

Sounds like the employees were let go for dishonestly abusing a perk. It's hard to tell from the linked article but I presume you get these meal vouchers if you are working early/late and are in the office during meal times. These bad apples were using the vouchers to have food delivered to their homes while not working, or buying non-food items. It's a clear abuse of the policy and hard to understand why someone making such a good salary would risk it for peanuts - but many of my high-earning friends are also some of the cheapest people I have ever met.

Discussion (53 points, 8 hours ago, 79 comments) https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41868090

This happens every once in a while in investment banking, and we were warned about it regularly in HR training.

Here's Matt Levine on one of the incidents: https://www.bloomberg.com/view/articles/2018-09-04/wells-far...

The logic is if you couldn't trust a banker to not defraud their employer by submitting dishonest meal receipts, how could you trust them with client money and confidential information. I don't disagree.

It might also be related to irs audits. even business meals are only 50% tax deductible. Personal items just aren’t. They are income and irs would want its share.

Note to myself: Do not accept any vouchers and demand a 20K raise instead.

[dupe] Earlier: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41868090

The article doesn't mention their role but if someone is fired over $25, can we really justify that they were ever worth a $400k salary?

CEOs and heads of state of entire countries have been fired or forced to resign for abusing entitlements. Are you in fact saying is anyone worth their salary?

So we’ve reached a stage where people are outraged over a company firing employees for blatant theft.

I suspect the employee will have a good case for wrongful termination. As these vouchers are subject to income tax ultimately by the IRS vs a traditional corp expense report reimbursement.

It’ll likely depend on how the voucher was implemented.

Fine - that’s 400K less per year they have to pay now.

It takes years to build trust and one second to destroy it. If you are a fully functioning adult and basically stealing the office stapler, how low are you willing to go? It’s not even about the morality of the situation at that point, it’s about being a dishonest liar.

The one type of coworker no one gets along with is the dishonest, manipulative, penny-pinching narcissist. Fire them, and there are 10 honest people willing to replace them in this IT oversupply market, probably at lower salary. Win-win for Meta.

Dura lex sed lex

I mean, $25 may not sound like a lot. but these meal vouchers (assuming every day, 5 days a week) add up to $18,200 per year for the breakfast lunch and dinner combined.

That said, what are you going to get on doordash for $25. half a sandwich?

maybe you can't but I can eat well for at 25/day

Reply on news.ycombinator.com