Facebook Fired High-Paid Staffers for Using Meal Vouchers to Buy Toothpaste

Vouch For You

In techno-dystopia news, using a meal voucher for non-food items can get you fired — that is if that voucher comes from Meta.

As the Financial Times reports, the Facebook parent company terminated roughly two dozen staffers at its Los Angeles HQ amid larger layoffs last week after discovering that they'd "abused" their $25 meal credits by buying everyday goods.

Like many big tech firms, Meta provides its employees with either canteen lunches or, for those who work in offices sans canteens, meal credits to purchase food at their leisure. Doled out in $25 increments, staff are given daily allowances of $20 for breakfast, $25 for lunch, and $25 for dinner.

On the anonymous worker review site Blind, one user whose post was reviewed by the website said they used their credits to buy toothpaste and tea from the convenience store Rite Aid on days they knew dinner was being cooked at home.

"On days where I would not be eating at the office, like if my husband was cooking or if I was grabbing dinner with friends," the user wrote, "I figured I ought not to waste the dinner credit."

With a salary of roughly $400,000 and a schedule that often included nights and weekends, the Meta employee in question was shocked when they learned they'd been investigated by human resources. They admitted to the sleight and summarily had their employment terminated.

The same fate apparently befell about 23 other Meta staffers amid the company's "reorganization" efforts that have involved yet another round of job cuts — and their surviving coworkers are not pleased to see the writing on the wall.

Harsh Words

Though we were unable to locate the original posts in question, a perusal of the anonymous employee review social network saw other "Meta-mates," as CEO Mark Zuckerberg calls them, sympathizing with their fallen comrades.

"They did the right thing by posting," one acclaimed Meta employee wrote on a post sharing the FT article, "this type of shit deserves publicity and calling out."

"Whoever leaked this, Bless you!" another alleged Metamate wrote. "FUCK ZUCK!"

When FT reached out to Meta to ask about the meal voucher-related terminations, the company declined to comment. Instead, a Meta representative insisted that when people are fired, the company "work[s] hard to find other opportunities for impacted employees" — a lackluster response given the egregious reasoning behind the company's most recent firings.

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