It's literally incredible that they fired someone for having their lunch stolen. It's great that sanity prevailed, but gods what a ridiculous situation. I hope whoever that HR person was is never employed in a position of authority again. The lunch thief is bad, but the HR person is much, much, worse. I'm still mad over here just thinking about it.
That's what at-will employment means. Really he was fired for crossing the power structure of the office, which is always a disaster even if it's a secret power structure.
Sounds like they work at a big old company with lots of layers of middle management. I can't imagine a startup with a lunch thief being able to be realistically hidden.
And he's being compensated to build his skills and increase his professional value. Excellent leadership shown by the owner once he caught wise of what took place IMO