The Vending Machine Incident

Robert McKevitt of Spirit Lake, Iowa, worked at a warehouse in Milford. One night, he put a dollar in a vending machine to get a Twix bar, but the candy would not drop. It teetered on the very end of the hook. McKevitt banged on the machine, then rocked it.

But when that didn’t work, McKevitt walked away and commandeered an 8,000-pound forklift, according to state unemployment compensation records.

He reportedly drove up to the vending machine, lifted it 2 feet off the concrete warehouse floor — then let it drop. He allegedly repeated the maneuver at least six times, by which time three candy bars had fallen into the chute for his retrieval.

When a supervisor confronted him, McKevitt allegedly explained he was simply trying to get the snack he had paid for.

He was fired five days later.

At McKevitt’s unemployment benefits hearing, he said he never dropped the machine, but used the forklift to set it back in place after rocking it. He said he’s heard that the company now has all-new vending machines. McKevitt was denied unemployment benefits.