I was recently fired for something I have been doing for 4 years but other employees do it as well.

I was recently fired for something I have been doing for 4 years but other employees do it as well.

I worked as a line cook at a well known Restaurant chain and employee's get 1 free meal whether they eat it while working or they bring the meal home. Managers are supposed to ring in any food taken home by employee's, mostly for inventory purposes. In the 4 years I was employed by this company only a handful of times has management actually rung in the food employee's take home. Our restaurant has been short staffed in the management department so we have managers come from our other restaurants to cover open shifts. One of the floating managers was hired full time at our location(we will call her "Mary") and "Mary" definitely should not have that title at all!! 95% of the employees at our location constantly have issues during the shifts she's working because 1. "Mary" does the ABSOLUTE bare minimum 2. She has the highest meal comps at our location in the three short month's she's been at our location 3. She is CONSTANTLY late(the majority as been more than an hour) 4. She lets her friends/boyfriend eat for free 5. ALWAYS sits and watches the hockey games on TV 6. Recently told a kitchen staff member NO when they asked her to help them catch up. Last Tuesday I was scheduled for my only "volume shift"(work evening shift which is usually like 5 hours, but doesn't close) because I'm ALWAYS working the closing shifts and the past 5 days we were slammed every night and the kitchen staff were ALWAYS the last ones to leave which was around 130am (almost an hour and a half after the front of house employees got to leave.) Every night at 10pm our restaurant offers 1/2 price discount on appetizers and certain alcoholic drinks and on certain nights, like the weekends or during professional sports games since our restaurant chain has TVs placed all over so customers can watch them while they eat or are drinking at the bar. That particular Tuesday night we were extremely slow(normally that is one of our slower nights anyway but that night was even slower)and I noticed that "Mary" allowed some of the servers to leave early so at 930pm I asked her if I could leave(All employees do this even if they aren't a "volume shift") since I was completely finished doing everything a "volume shift" is responsible to do before leaving. She said no because it was almost 10pm and that the other 3 cooks might need my help if they get extremely busy. I then asked her why she allowed some of the servers to leave early and that it wasn't fair for them but not the kitchen staff but she just walked out of the kitchen. We got a handful of orders after 10pm and had nothing else to do and people were just standing around on their phones, so at 1045pm I went to the front to ask "Mary" if I could leave, since even she had nothing to do and was just sitting at the bar watching the hockey game. She didn't answer me so I continued to stand there and watched a different game that was playing on the TV next her and when the hockey game went to a commercial she turned and looked at me and said "If you're going to just sit here and watch TV go home". So I got my coat and my food I was bringing home and I clocked out and as soon as I was done she asked me what food I was bringing home, which she's NEVER done to me or anyone else before, but it wasn't a problem because I have been bringing the same food home every night and NEVER had any issues with anyone prior. 2 managers don't even put employees food in the system at all, which is probably why our restaurant has so much food unaccounted for when inventory is done every week. In the kitchen if we cook something wrong, an order comes back and there's extra food left at the end of the night, it gets thrown away. There is always extra grilled chicken that was made and not used and all the closing kitchen staff take whatever is going to be thrown away. "Mary" rung in the meal I ALWAYS bring home, (a 6oz steak, mashed potatoes and string beans) and I had 2 pieces of the extra grilled chicken that was going to be thrown away and I left. The next 2 days were my days off so my next work shift was Friday 4pm to close. I walked into work on Friday and the day manager was there still as was the and so was "Mary" and as I was putting my coat away I was called into the office. I walked in and the day manager and "Mary" were in there and I was told I was fired for STEALING FOOD on Tuesday night!! So "Mary" wrote an email to corporate and said I took home more food than the meal I am aloud to take without asking. She said she just wanted me wrote up but since she didn't email our restaurants general manager, like you're supposed to do if there's an issue with an employee, so it can be taken care of in house and not involve corporate if the issue can be resolved by our general manager. One of the servers heard why I was fired and said she should be fired too since she's never charged for her kids food they get so that's basically theft too. In the employee handbook it says theft is an automatic termination so since "Mary" sent the email to corporate they terminated me right away without even contacting me to hear my side or to even tell me I was fired! Was I wrongfully dismissed since other people do it, admitted it and aren't terminated??