I thought US Law Allows this sort of thing?

Cookie payment costs worker his job

http://www.indystar.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080305/LOCAL/803050512

Oh I get it.....damn Government Bureaucracy....I guess they wanted Silver Dollars....

 

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Looks like grounds for firing to me. I might fire an employee for not collecting payment for a product or service and instead bartering for something that they eat.

 

Why not just slide $5 into the cash box and keep it even...

 

If this was the first time the guy did it then I think a warning would have been enough with a note on his personel file, however if it was known that he did similar things on a regular basis then that would be grounds for dismisal.

 

His job was to collect $5.

Seems ridicuolous but that's the bottom line. I would have tossed in the money and shared the cookies.

 

If the story had said:

would anyone find fault with the employer?

And, isn't that essentially what happened here?

 

TECHNICALLY, you are absolutely correct, but..............

 

I agree, I would've just tossed $5 in the cash register, and eat the cookies. Ridiculous, maybe. Wrong, depends how you look at it IMO. Definetly a crumby situation for those two workers.

Phoenix

 

It was too late to put the $5 in the till after they got caught. Poor planning on their part. Maybe on their next job they will take the part about collecting money for products and services a bit more seriously.

 

They are lucky they didn't get arrested. Hopefully, they learned a lesson.

 

Two Words - Cookie Monster

 

Then again, the cost of firing these two could've been alleviated (and much cheaper) by docking their pay, or fining them the $5. Poor planning on the Governments part.

 

I used to work in the reprograffics industry. Im sorry, that is way out of hand. They should have been told to replace the 5 dollars and that's it. I have seen people trade far worse for a few copys. lol

5 dollars works out to be about 20 pieces of paper and some printer toner. The printing cost in under a dollar. These 2 people cost more to fire, then to have just repromanded. lol Unemployment for starters. Government at it best. I agree its there job to take money for payment. BUT COME ON!

 

The amount that they stole doesn't matter. The fact is that they stole period, and deserve to be fired. What else have they stolen from their employer that they got away with.

 

True. But We can not assume they did this more then once. As for my point. It cost more to fire them, then they so called stole. Also we do not know if that person with the cookies could have been a regular customor or a future customor. Or the wife of a regular costomor. A lot of good future business is started from small transactions like these. I feel that the artical dosnt give enough info for use to call these people theifs. I KNOW and am speaking from personal experience.

Again I have had to deal with such type of issues when I was in charge of a copy center years ago. I had a women once who's sons cat ran away, She needed some copys to help find the cat. She wasnt aware of the cost of copys. I helped her out buy cutting the cost in half. It ended up with my company getting a contract with the company she worked for a few months latter.

 

I'm glad to see at least one principled forum member posting!

 

I agree completely with Oldman. There may be a lot more to this story than is being told. If not it's just nuts. Any organization that for one lousy insident worth practically a few cents is not really to smart. If any such situation was known in a small town invironment, the word would spread and that organization would probably loose thousands in buisness due to a slightly comical situation. If I was a customer in such a place and heard that, I would walk out and neve go there again.
However, we do not know the full extent of the situation. If this was being done repitiously, that is something else. But for one shot deal, I would think everyone would have dug in and had a feast of those cookies.
I know that if you just wanted to fire someone nowadays you really must have documentation waranting such a dismissal. Without such ducumentation, there could be an extensive law suite. Here in Illinois many people purposely go to the State Building and acquire pamphlets on employee rights for just such a situation.
And by the way, nothing was noted as to how good those cookies were.

 

The American people view their governments as mismanaged tax and spend machines and the folks employed by them as generally lazy, and corrupted by the power bestowed upon them. With our citizens already up in arms over stories of widespread corruption within our government today these two employees are going to have a hard time finding any sympathetic ears. I, for one, have little tolerance for even these most petty of crimes when I know it is coming from our entrusted public servants.

 

I personaly dont turst any of are socalled entrusted public servants. Or the public for that matter.

 

I completely agree with you that the people involved did wrong and deserve to be punished. I just don't think that the punishment fits the crime. If I forget and bring home 5 pencils/pens from work, should I get fired? If no, why not? It is, at least rougly, the same as and the same amount as taking the cookies. BTW I was once in charge of the stationary supplies for our building. I would venture a guess that the average user took/lost about 1 per month.