Getting a free meal is one of the few perks of staying late at the office for many financial services firms. The firm is willing to pay some set amount if the employee stays after some deadline. Most figure that the person is going to be more productive if he or she is not starving.
I initially found it strange that Wells Fargo fired a dozen employees of the Wells Fargo Securities division for violating the policy.
Wells Fargo has been in the news for all the wrong reasons. My first reaction is that it was taking the broken windows approach: target small crimes to create an sense of order and compliance as a deterrence to bigger problems. What could be a smaller crime than ordering a free dinner before the 6:30 dinner policy time? You get hungry at 6:15 and order, knowing that it will take time to get delivered and that you are planning to work for another few hours.
Did Wells Fargo really bring down the hammer for ordering dinner early?
I don’t think so.
The employees that were fired were accused of altering their receipts to show an order time in compliance with the policy. The headlines were missing the point.
Wells Fargo fired a dozen employees for forgery. It was stupid forgery. These bankers could afford the $20 for dinner. Something was wrong with the culture if employees feel that forgery is acceptable.
If you remember back to the bigger problems at Wells Fargo, employees were forging account opening documents to meet their sales quota. That is clearly a bigger problem than the $20 dinner receipt. But a financial firm cannot tolerate any level of forgery.
The fired employees must feel stupid. Losing a job over not wanting to pay for cheap sushi is a terrible way to start a career.
Sources:
- Wells Fargo Fires Bankers Amid Probe of Dinner Receipts That Were Allegedly Doctored by Peter Rudegeair, Emily Glazer and Coulter Jones in the Wall Street Journal
- Wells Fargo Had a Fake Dinner Scandal by Matt Levine in Bloomberg opinion
- This is why you should be careful with meal expenses by Monica Torres
- Wells Fargo fires or suspends several bankers for allegedly forging dinner receipts by Gwen Ihnat