Selling Girl Scout cookies got a single mom fired from her job. Fox News reported on March 20, that Tracy Lewis was fired from her job as a retail service manager for Bon Appetit at American University. Lewis was canned after her boss caught her selling the cookies off of her food cart.
"I had the cookies on a cart, and I would never ask anyone to buy them but, if they wanted to buy some, I would sell them," Lewis said, adding that she's been doing this for the past three years to help out her daughter's Girl Scout troop.
The Girl Scout cookies got Lewis fired, perhaps because it was conflict of interest (since she was selling other food off of her cart). However, plenty of people sell Girl Scout cookies to their co-workers each year. While it's not a crime by any means, Bon Appetit has strict company policies that Lewis' boss says she violated.
Lewis' reasons for termination included "gross misconduct by soliciting," and "operating a personal cash business selling Girl Scout cookies over the counter which violates company policy." To this Lewis says that she wasn't selling the cookies for a profit -- she was simply trying to help out her 12-year-old daughter, like so many parents each year.
So Lewis was fired for selling Girl Scout cookies -- fair or unfair?
© Effie Orfanides 2013
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