WATERLOO — Free coffee turned out to be very expensive.

The University of Waterloo has fired a longtime campus café worker and disciplined three other UW employees — including her boyfriend — in alleged wrongdoing involving free coffee and tea.

Marilyn Boutilier, who ran Browsers Café in UW's Dana Porter Library, was terminated on Monday for handing out freebies.

"Instead of reprimanding me, they brought down the axe," the Kitchener woman said on Tuesday. "It was just like, 'We don't trust you, we can't trust you, so bye-bye.' "

Her boyfriend, Stephen Norris, a maintenance electrician in UW's plant operations department for 14 years, was suspended without pay for five days for allegedly not paying for many cups of tea over several months.

He was also ordered to compensate the café. A dollar figure hasn't yet been specified, Norris said.

Two more UW employees alleged to have received freebies from Boutilier got the exact same penalty as Norris. One is an electrician. The other is a plant operations driver.

Boutilier, 43, had worked at Browsers since 2001. She admitted giving away coffee and tea on a regular basis to a handful of people. She also occasionally gave out muffins and sandwiches on their expiry date.

UW spokesperson Nick Manning said it's not a tempest in a teapot.

"It's a breach of trust matter," he said. "We would expect all of the members of our campus community to behave responsibly and where that responsibility to do the right thing crosses a line into a neglect of duty, then we have to act."

After Boutilier was fired, Norris expected the same fate.

"The one union fellow said I should get up on the table and do back flips for what could have happened," Norris said after Tuesday's ruling.

The Kitchener man maintains he paid money for the tea his girlfriend gave him, just not at the till. He said she would later put the money in the register but said UW accused the two of keeping the cash.

The activities of the three men and Boutilier were captured on video by a café camera. Manning wouldn't specify how much product was given away.

Boutilier said staff had earlier been told not to give away products but she didn't think it was a big deal.

"I guess in my head I was thinking, what's a coffee, what's a muffin? It's a bad judgment on my part."

Norris, 55, said he warned her months ago.

"I said, 'You really shouldn't be doing that, you might get in trouble.' We had no idea that they were going to fire her."

Manning said the termination was done "after an investigation revealed that the individual had failed in their responsibility to ensure payment was received for goods."

Boutilier said employees at other coffee shops on campus sometimes hand out freebies.

"It is campus-wide," Norris said. "It happens daily. If you work at a coffee place like that and let's say you get a delivery guy who comes in, well, you know they'll offer him a coffee. If you help one of the people stack boxes or do something for them, they'll say have a coffee. You know how the world is."

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Manning said: "I'm sure there are cases in many workplaces where friendships are built but we have to be very careful here that we are acting responsibly, acting with integrity, and if a line is crossed then we have a responsibility to make sure we act appropriately."

Norris was in tears over the firing of his girlfriend.

"This is a nightmare," he said. "It's just so extreme. It's just very brutal that this has to happen to such a nice person for what, for being nice?"

Norris said although it involves just coffee, tea and some muffins and sandwiches, UW treated it like a major theft when he got his five-day suspension.

"I felt like I was going to my … hanging today," he said.

Boutilier believes a warning or short suspension would have been appropriate for her.

"I think that they're overstepping it. It's not like we stole money. We're talking like nickels and dimes, muffins, coffee.

"I pleaded with my boss yesterday. I said, 'I'm a single mom with two kids.' I said, 'You just put a whirlwind into my world.' And I said, 'Over what?' And he said, 'It's a trust issue now, Marilyn.' "

Boutilier, who has worked in UW food services for 28 years, had an unblemished record, Norris said.

She said she never took anything for herself.

"It's not as if I was taking stuff home and feeding my kids."

Boutilier said her union, the Canadian Union of Public Employees, will fight the firing.

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