Hello Whole Foods Team Members,
I hope you’re all well this busy Sunday, satisfying and delighting all your customers. This is my last email from Whole Foods as I was informed I was being separated this weekend. I’m sharing this as a warning call about Wrongful Termination and would like to share my story so that it doesn’t happen to anyone in the future. So we all can learn and do better. I know this is a long read, so I encourage all of you to quickly save this email or forward to your personal email to read during a less demanding time, as it could help you in keeping your employment in the future. I’m sure this will be posted on reddit.com/r/wholefoods/ for future viewing. I thoroughly understand how stressful and demanding Sundays can be from a store Team Member level.
I have been an Associate Store Team Leader (ASTL) in the Columbus, Ohio metro for over 4 years, and was looking forward to taking the next step to Store Team Leader. I was employed with Whole Foods for 12 and a half years and genuinely have loved the thousands of Team Members and customers I've worked with and met in this company over my career. I truly believed in what this company stood for and was achieving.
This saga that led to my wrongful termination, started a couple months ago. In January, I was rotated to our Easton store from our Dublin store where I spent over 3 years as an ASTL. New leaders, new customers and new experiences. Weeks after I left the Dublin store, a known suspected shoplifter, to multiple stores in Columbus (I still don’t know the full details), was incorrectly told by a self-checkout attendant she couldn’t use the self-checkout and must use a regular register. She called the police, and to my knowledge has filed or threatened a lawsuit for racial discrimination. Keep in mind, I had not worked at that Dublin location for some time. Recently, in Atlanta, there has been social media traffic about a Whole Foods TM incorrectly asking a customer for a receipt and has received bad press.
On April 11, 2025, I had a Microsoft Teams call with our Team Member Relations Investigation team with two investigators for 1 hour. They started the conversation saying they were looking into a matter at Dublin that happened recently and my name came up from talking to a couple of Team Members. I stated I’d be willing to help in any way possible, but I haven’t been there in months. They asked if I had spoke to anyone about this incident. Not knowing specifics about the incident, I stated, “Not any that comes to mind.” I really didn’t even fully know what happened at Dublin, just heard a few very vague rumors that often occur when any police-involved incident happens in our metro. They asked me if I specifically created a policy to have suspected shoplifters banned from using self-checkout. I stated absolutely not. We should be offering a great level of service to suspected shoplifters, like a quicker checkout at an opened full register; along the lines with our training of offering a basket to suspected shoplifter shopping into bags, or saying, “this self-checkout is glitchy, I see you’re having trouble scanning your items, I can scan them for you.”
On April 28th, I had a second, 30 minute Microsoft Teams follow-up call. At the end of our conversation, I was asked, “have any Dublin team members reached out to you, saying that Asset Protection was talking to them?” I mentioned that a TM from my old store did reach out after Asset Protection spoke with her and she called me stating there was an incident at self-checkout and she mentioned my name and apologized and they’d probably be reaching out to me. I replied to her to not apologize, she can always mention my name and I can fill them in if I have any information. The investigators immediately asked why I did not disclose that when they asked during our first interview? I stated, “it was two months ago, I don’t know. It was just a pretty benign conversation.” Since I was never told I was being investigated, and I was told they were just seeking information about an incident at Dublin, when I wasn’t even employed there, I didn’t feel it was pertinent, or even worth a thought. I’m not even sure I remembered having the conversation at the time.
On this past Friday, April 25th, Doug Patrick, my Executive Leader, TMS Business Partner, stated on our investigation recap call, “the way the customer was handled was probably not like, really far out of the policy, but from our legal team and our investigations team, they just felt that certainly could have put the store and the company in a position of this person feeling discriminated based on race. Just their opinion, you can take it or leave it.” Well, yesterday, I was informed by Doug Patrick that I was being separated for being “not forthcoming in the investigations and unfortunately we have to separate your employment today.”
I’m not sharing this to specifically share my separation. I’ll be fine. My wife is a highly experienced trauma nurse in our community and we have seven children together. They’re all the love of my life and my total focus. Whole Foods allowed me to follow my moral compass and five of my seven children were born while employed there. It’s all they knew. Whole Foods allowed us to buy a farm with 12 acres and support local regenerative agriculture as we have chickens, ducks, turkeys, and this year pigs.
I tell my children every day: always do what’s right, even if it’s the hardest thing to do. What was done to me wasn’t right. This email is hard. Like I said, we’ll be fine. I’m more concerned over the Associate Team Leader who’s a single mother supporting her household. Or the Cashier that needs this second job to make ends meet. They shouldn’t be subjected to legal expediency; Team Member growth and happiness was a core value. I went to work every single day for our Team Members and even on my last day, I’ll do the same. My personal email is _______. Please reach out if you have anyone who has had injustice carried out. If we want change, we have to be the change. I wish you all the most love.
With Gratitude,
Wes Wirebaugh Associate Store Team Leader”