Meta employees fired for buying toothpaste with $25 meal credits

More Meta employees have reportedly been fired, this time for abusing perks and buying toothpaste and other home goods with company money.

Like most corporate entities, Meta offers employee perks. For example, you might get access to a canteen that provides meals or has facilities you can use for free.

However, as Meta is a massive tech company with locations across the world, it’s difficult to accommodate everyone.

That’s why smaller offices in the US without a canteen are given food tokens to spend at Grubhub (the US version of Just Eat) and Uber Eats.

As first reported by the Financial Times, each employee is given $20 for breakfast, $25 for lunch, and $25 for dinner.

According to the Financial Times, which spoke to someone familiar with the matter, Meta has fired some 24 employees who supposedly abused the system over an extended period.

Certain LA employees were “pooling their money together,” saving it up to buy items like acne pads, toothpaste, wine glasses, and laundry detergent.

Other workers were found ordering takeout to their home addresses when the credits should’ve been used in the office.

The person who spoke with the Financial Times said that offenders were occasionally reprimanded but not terminated.

However, according to the BBC, certain employees were given warnings to stop but were still fired months later.

It’s unclear whether the conditions of the $70 daily food allowance were written in employee contracts. However, the Financial Times seems to suggest that some workers “violated the company’s rules.”

Meta employees took to the anonymous messaging platform Blind, an app where verified employees of companies like Meta can talk openly about their workplace, to explain what had happened.

According to the Financial Times, which saw the posts, one former employee said that they used the $25 credits on items like tea and toothpaste from the drug store Rite Aid. The anonymous person said they earned roughly $400,000 at Meta and worked “nights and weekends.”

The person confirmed that they had admitted to buying these items with company money when they were approached by human resources. Later, the person was fired.

Layoffs at Instagram and WhatsApp

This revelation comes only days before Meta axed jobs at Instagram, WhatsApp, and Reality Labs. The number of people impacted by the restructuring remains unknown.

However, a Meta spokesperson did comment on the restructuring saying that “a few teams at Meta are making changes to ensure resources are aligned with their long-term strategic goals and location strategy.”

According to the Meta spokesperson, some teams will be moved to different locations and some employees will be moved to different roles.

“In situations like this when a role is eliminated, we work hard to find other opportunities for impacted employees," concluded the comment given to Cybernews by a Meta spokesperson.