“I wanted to turn it in to Customer Service,” Belandres says, “but I couldn't take the time.” (At the Lincoln Park store, one of the largest Whole Foods in the country, a trip to the front desk from across the store can take 5 or 10 minutes). Instead, she says, she tied the sweater around her waist and continued to work, planning to turn it in when she get a break.

But the day was busy, Belandres says, and she forgot the sweater until she took a bathroom break. “I didn't want to take it into the bathroom with me,” she says, “so I placed it in my bag, which was on a hook across from the bathroom.” The employee-only bathroom was on the opposite side of the store from the customer service desk, so, in her hurry, she again postponed turning in the sweater. She didn't think it would be a problem.

had I been her supervisor, I would have believed her, and cautioned her to take the time to turn in lost items as soon as they are found.

Could explain it, but it wouldn't be the first time companies are unaccepting of good intentions.

when I read the article. I've been wrongfully terminated, and it's difficult not to take it personally...

Don't sign petitions against your boss, or they will find something completely legal and legitimate to fire you for.

You don't put merchandise in your personal bag for any reason except to steal it. You don't tie a sweater around your waist unless you want people to believe it's yours before you put it in your bag.

Same thing happened to me in high school....I had a long, stellar history working at a grocery store and one day got caught trying to steal a bunch of baseball cards. Of course, when they caught me, I said "No, I had these in my bag because I found them back in the freezer and I don't know who put them there, but I was on my way to return them and there were like 20 packs of baseball cards so I didn't want to drop them." Of course, I got fired because the managers knew that was a BS excuse (everyone who tries to steal stuff and gets caught comes up with a perfectly logical excuse), but when my friends heard the story they started a petition for me to get my job back. I ended up getting a job somewhere else pretty quickly, so they nixed the petition, but this lady's story sounds exactly like mine, lol.

And that is the crux of the story.

Whole Foods, like many, many other companies, has a history of fucking with anyone who tries to organize labor.