WASHINGTON DC (WTTG/FOX) – A woman was fired after her
employer classified selling her daughter's Girl Scout cookies as "gross
misconduct."
For the past three years Tracy Lewis has boosted her
daughter's cookie sales while working at Bon Appetit on the campus of American
University, but that changed last month.
In a termination letter from the Bon Appetit management
company, the manager accused Lewis of gross misconduct by soliciting and
operating a personal cash business while on the job. That violates company policy.
"It's crazy because I can't profit from selling Girl
Scout cookies. It's just a volunteer thing for the Girl Scouts," Lewis said. "I'm
a cookie mom, and I'm just trying to help my daughter earn her badges and her trips
and stuff like that."
Lewis, who has worked for Bon Appetit for 12 years and on
the school campus for 28 years, said she had the cookies sitting on a cart to
the side. She claimed she only sold the cookies when customers asked about
them.
Bon Appetit's vice president for strategy only said
employee relations information is confidential in an emailed statement.
A statement from the chief operating officer of the Girl
Scouts Council of the nation's capitol stressed Girl Scouts should play the
primary role in cookie sales.
"Girl Scout cookie
sales are a girl-led, entrepreneurial program," CEO Colleen Cibulla stated. "We
want the girls to be taking the lead."
Troop leader Alina McClerkin is worried what happened to
Lewis will scare away other much-needed cookie moms.
"There are a lot of demands that go along with this
volunteer position, and she does it out of the goodness of her heart,"
McClerkin said. "I don't think that someone should be terminated for selling Girl
Scout cookies and doing such a charitable thing."
Copyright 2013 WTTG
via FOX. All rights reserved.
Itali Marshall, 12, will have to sell cookies on her own for a while after her mother was fired for selling them at work. (Source: WTTG/FOX)
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