At the moment when Gabriela Rodriguez discovered she had been sacked for eating a tuna sandwich, she was carrying the bins out. Removing rubbish bags from the office in Finsbury Circus – an elegant, towering ring of neoclassical buildings that sits at the heart of London’s financial district – formed a key part of Rodriguez’s daily duties. So did wiping surfaces, scrubbing dishes in the kitchen, restocking basic supplies and all the other quietly essential activities that enable a busy workplace to function. “I’m proud of my job: it’s honest, and important, and I take it very seriously,” she says. Which is why, when the call from her manager flashed up unexpectedly on her mobile last November, nothing about it seemed to make any sense.
“He ordered me to come back inside and hand over my security pass immediately,” she says. Rodriguez was at a loss, until the words “theft of property” were mentioned – an act of gross misconduct, and a criminal offence under English law. “That’s when it began to dawn on me,” she says, shaking her head. “This was about a leftover piece of bread. And I was going to be dismissed for it.”
