Employee Quits Job Over Sandwich Due to Technicality Of A "No Snack" Rule While Working

"Employees are allowed to snack at our desks, but meals are forbidden."

Maryjane

• Published in News
• July 29, 2022

Companies must have rules; that is obvious. However, these rules don't have to be clumsy attempts at establishing order.

Yes, we know businesses have to expand, making it harder for us to maintain standards. There have been numerous occasions when someone has stepped over the line, and bosses have been tempted to react by creating a new rule that would apply to everyone.

But most businesses fail to deliver on that. There are times when creating a new rule would be a non-productive and morale-damaging response to the issue.

In the vast majority of cases, the employee's boss must deal with the issue personally. It's a management issue when businesses make absurd and demeaning policies to stop a few people's ludicrous behaviors.

A worker was made fun of by their boss for consuming a portion of a sandwich at their desk. This was allegedly in violation of the boss's absurd "snacks only, no meals" rule in the office.

The incident that led to the employee's resignation was this particular snack. This thread was posted to the r/antiwork subreddit community, where it quickly gained huge popularity and garnered more than 20k upvotes in the first twelve hours.

The thread's title says, "I just quit my job of three years over a sandwich," and it can confuse anyone at first, but with a few more lines of text the details provided paint a much clearer picture, and it becomes a lot easier to empathize with the OP. Well, here’s the full story in the OP’s own words below.

I quit my job over a sandwich

I will finally complete the mammoth task I've been working on

My manager allows us to eat snacks but not meals

Commenters applauded the poster for their firm response to the manager's behavior and expressed their vehement disapproval of the manager's policies. While others offered comments on different facets of the tale, some advised further enragement of the boss.

Here are some of their most upvoted comments below.

The only reason to return to the office is so managers have more control

Good luck with your new job!

Everyone on the team is happier

Businesses do not care about anything other than money

As the old adage goes, "People don’t quit jobs, they quit awful bosses," and we really ought to get this tattooed. If you want to keep an amazing set of employees, all you really need to do is to quit making silly corporate rules and treat them like professionals!

The reddit thread got upvoted 27K times with more than a thousand comments. Hold on, there are still more comments below.

How to enrage the boss more...

It is costing them a valuable worker

The employer's reply when the OP quit

The most perfect sandwich ever

This is purely the Manager's ego and control fetish

Sometimes, it really is that easy to handle your employees. But many businesses develop rule-driven cultures that offer management and executives a sense of control while stifling innovation, zeal, and passion and expelling the finest workers.

Yes, rules are necessary. However, you don't need stupid rules. Drop your thoughts about this story in the comments section below.

Maryjane