14 DAY TRIAL // This is a familiar situation for many of us: you want something to snack on, you find a vending machine and insert a dollar, you type the code for the candy, and then see how it gets stuck midair on a spiral hook.
This is exactly what happened to a 27-year-old man from Spirit Lake, Iowa, who decided he wanted to snack on a Twix while he was working his shift at Polaris Industries' warehouse.
“It was about halfway into my shift and I had a few extra minutes. I was going to the restroom and the vending machine was next to it. I was going to grab a candy bar and then go to the restroom,” said Robert McKevitt, who is an Afghanistan war veteran.
However, when his candy bar got snagged, McKevitt didn't give up. He inserted another dollar in his attempt to free it, but no luck. Then he banged and shook the machine. That didn't work either, informs USA Today.
So, according to state unemployment records released last month, the man resorted to a more extreme measure – he drove a forklift truck over, picked up the machine and let it drop about 2 feet onto the concrete floor. He reportedly repeated the action six times, and eventually three candy bars fell.
After this incident, McKevitt was obviously confronted by his superiors, and he explained that the only purpose of his actions was to get the snack he had paid for. Still, he was fired five days later.
“That machine was trouble. They fired me, and now I hear they have all new vending machines there,” McKevitt said.
Moreover, in a December 16 hearing whose outcome was made public last month, the judge denied McKevitt's claim for unemployment benefits, saying that the man purposefully disregarded his employer's interests.
In a recent statement to a local newspaper, the man said he used his forklift only to move the machine back in place, because he had shaken so hard it moved away from the wall.