Ford fired an 11-year worker for 'stealing' a $1.95 cookie, then he submitted CCTV proof
The company suspected that the worker stole the cookie from an automated kiosk and left without payment
At around 3:30 am on May 9, 60-year-old electrician Kurt Kromm headed to the Gate 4 break room in Ford’s Kentucky Truck Plant in Louisville. His blood sugar was sinking low, and being a diabetic, he needed a snack. Typically, he bought a $3 Diet Coke for a shift, but this time he decided to go for a $1.95 Grandma’s Chocolate Chip Cookie. Little did he know that this little cookie would cost him his job of 11 years. In a June 26, 2026, interview with Shifting Gears, he described how a Ford Motor Co. supervisor fired him for a theft he never committed.
Error or blunder?
Chaos exploded in Kromm’s life not at the moment of buying that cookie, but seven days later, when his supervisor called him to the labor office and told him he was being terminated for nonpayment. He was blocked from taking his tools, and his personal laptop was retrieved from the desk. Even before he could give an explanation, the bargainer asked him to apologize. “I’m thinking, this is the way my career at Ford Motor is going to end? There’s no way I’m coming back,” he recalled. The false accusation left him choked with emotion. “This is extremely hard for me,” he told the interviewer, adding that he loved working at Ford.
The sentiment didn’t prevent Kromm from fighting back. Describing the company’s decision as “arbitrary, capricious and draconian,” he wrote directly to Vice President Mike Fitzsimmons, who responded by asking him to get his financial documents notarized. “I contacted you hoping you would do the right thing and just bring me back to work when I showed the charge on my statement. You choose instead to call me a liar and question the validity of my documentation. This malicious and intentional assault on (my) character, morals, and integrity will not go unchallenged,” Kromm was quoted as saying.
Evidence of character and loyalty
Employees also voted for Kromm’s loyalty. One of them, named Victoria Thomas, said she was heartbroken by the company’s decision. “I wanted him to come back here,” she said. Thomas added that glitches with Aramark machines are not uncommon. She herself has experienced it. Another employee said, “They allowed a man to be terminated. And that little store should be removed if they won’t take accountability for the fact that the machines don’t work.”
Precarious situation of job security
This Kentucky plant is Ford’s largest manufacturing facility in the United States, where popular Super Duty trucks are crafted — about 460,000 in a year. More than 8,000 workers put in effort to generate billions of dollars of revenue each year. However, if this company’s mistake can cost a loyal employee his job, it raises several questions about job security. A survey of over 1,000 business leaders by HR Dive showed that over half (55%) of the business leaders hastily laid off their workers due to technological glitches and later admitted that they made the wrong decision.
All's not well even when end's well
On June 12, Aramark confirmed to Ford that he had paid for the cookie. The footage retrieved from the episode showed one kiosk displaying a red screen, which is why Kromm moved to another kiosk to make the payment. He was asked to return to work, but it was too late. He had already started working in his new job, from earning $48 an hour at Ford to $52.51 plus a $10-per-hour bonus. Meanwhile, Ford’s officials acknowledged that “there are times when we look into things and realize it could have been handled differently.” Kromm later said, “Looking back, I just think that I would have been happy to pay for that cookie again, just pay for it twice.”
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