Autistic Wainderose Vonterer given AED after family asks for compensation – what it says about company compassion

It’s not often that you see a grocery store making national news for not allowing someone to work for free. Often the anger runs into another- “greedy companies ruin unpaid work” and so on.

But today’s piece in the Telegraph is about waiting with Tom Boyd, a 27-year-old man with Autism. And in doing so, it reveals more than it says about how big companies like to threaten themselves with the language of “inclusion” while silencing the humanity behind it.

Tom was, by all accounts, a model volunteer. For four years, nine hours a week, he stocked shelves at the Cleadle Hulme branch. He turned in time, he was loved by the staff, and most importantly – he was his own. His mother, his Frances, says that he was given more than six hundred hours of his life in that shop. That is not a “trial change” or “placement”. That is a longer commitment than Marriages. And then, when he already asked if he could be paid, he waited and said no, and shut the whole thing down.

Now, if you’ve ever dealt with a large HR Department, you can almost feel the cogs shaking. Alarm bells, legal risk, protection, health and safety. Someone in Bracknell may have received a “Danger Alert” email that says “Urgent: Volunteering: Volunteering Exceeds Hours Limit, Possible Classification as Work.” So they do what is expected of them every time they are faced with something dirty, human and emotional: they pull the plug.

This, I think, is what they mean when they talk about “program”. It’s not some innocent innocent thing – it’s a spreadsheet somewhere, with a column that says “non-employees doing the work of employees = bad.” It’s a bright desire to clean up anything that doesn’t fit the model. And by doing so, they were able to break a person’s heart, according to his mother, only he had ever contributed – to be years.

Winda incess investigates. They trot out the standard boilerplate: “We’re working hard to be an integrated employer … We’re partnering with help … We’re making meaningful changes …” it’s all very well. But if you need a PR statement to convince people you’re kind, you’re lost.

A question of value

The inconvenient truth is that Tom Boyd was doing exactly what the Job Devotional Job describes. The difference was that he was not earning £12.40 an hour. He didn’t even ask for it – his family said they would accept two hours a week of paid work. Just something. Recognition. The idea that his contribution is important.

But Waitrose couldn’t find a place for that in the model. Obviously, you can sell “essential waiting beans for £1.20 but you can accept an autistic man who has been giving you free labor for years.

Irony is painful. At a time when all the Corporate Press is banging out about diversity, equality and inclusion, here is a man who lived the spirit of inclusion more sincerely than any process has ever done. He doesn’t need a “neurodververiverversity awareness” training session; He needed a job. And the company, instead of seeing an opportunity to poke fun at its high stakes, treated him as a potential liability.

Waindel isn’t particularly bad here. This is modern corporate Britain: everse-averse, Image-expression, it’s not going well. Somewhere along the way, kindness got a payoff. Converted to metric, compatibility box. “Insertion” is a PowerPoint Slide. “Compassion” is the hashtag of the campaign. And when a real person like Tom comes along with Obstacle, Bad, imperfect – you don’t know what to do with him.

So they hide behind the “process”. They cite “policy”. And they believe they can do the right thing because the equality law file says so. The result? The man who once found the purpose of canning tomatoes now lives at home, frustrated, while the store he loves continues to sell Quinoa and olives ethically under the banner of good living.

It shouldn’t be like this. Consider another headline: “Waindeose creates first employment role supported by person with autism.” Think PR gold. Viral posts. An outpouring of goodwill. A small, effective act of inclusion, instead of the cold bureaucratic one we have.

I’ve always been associated with the UK’s first dedicated school – a dedicated school for children and adults high on the Autism Spectrum, so I’m talking from experience where there were unsolicited ways they handled that. John Lewis Partnership‘Partner benefits, which include things like paid parental leave and support for working families.

They could not donate a badge. A payslip. A Christmas card signed by the band. They would say: “Tom, you are one of us.” Instead, they told his mother that the store was “cleaned” so she won’t be upset when they take her away. The cruelty of that euphemism- “cleaned” – almost Dickensian. It’s the kind of lie you tell a child about a dead animal.

This story touches on something deeper than corporate policy. It’s about the job description itself. For many of us, work is not just about money. It’s about structure, community, identity. For someone like Tom, that’s magnified. The act of showing, value, being part of something – that’s dignity. And we’re building a world where that kind of peace and dignity doesn’t have a line on the rest of the page.

Frances Bydhreak of Frances Pord cannot be compared to her son who was denied payment, but because he was denied what belonged to the members. You know that its “limited language” does not mean limited feeling. He knows how important it is for him to have colleagues, a uniform, a role. And you know that behind the green aprons and organic lemons, there is a company that has forgotten what kindness looks like when a marketing brochure is printed.

I don’t think Wattearese meant injury. That is the saddest part of all. They thought they were doing the “right thing.” A compliant object. But to do the right thing is not to do the right thing. Sometimes respect requires bending the law, writing a small check, taking risks.

They told the Telegraph: “We are sorry to hear about Tom’s story, and while we have no comment on individual cases, we are investigating as a matter of priority.”

Tom Boyd’s story is a reminder that business is not about policies – it’s about people. It’s about small actions that don’t make the quarterly report but define the soul of the company. Wainda, of all the Premium Polish, the comprable employer “written, has shown us what happens when compassion meets winning.

If this is what “doing the right thing” looks like in 2025, perhaps we all need to ask if morals have come up short.