To whom it concerns at Loss Prevention, Human Resources and Public Relations.
I apologize for the length of this letter but I encourage you to please take the time to finish it. Thank you.
On August 18th I was written up for violation: 'Failure to protect company assets.' This write up comes over a week after the incident happened...Ten days prior a customer came to my register and told me that he had seen a man walking out of the store and down the sidewalk toward an ally. He said that the man was white, big, had facial hair and seemed to be in a hurry. He could see three cans of coffee in the cart and what looked like other things and none of them were in bags. He even suggested that I go look in the ally, that I will likely find the cart. I noted the time down on paper and a few notes. When I had the chance, I told Debbie about it and went out to the ally to find the only blue cart that we had in the store parked next to the dumpster along with two red carts parked by the back door of the building.
The next morning I called Joey and told him what the customer had told me and suggested that he look on the camera to see if we could identify the person. It was my goal to identify the problem immediately. I received a text from Joey a short time later. “I need you to come in ASAP...to see if you can identify this guy. He did steal an entire cart full of coffee.” This was after I called him to inform him about the theft and after he sent me eirlier text, 'call me'. When I called him he asked me about the case of sausage that he said he found in the trash, he said that he had not yet had a chance to look at the camera.
I had seen the box of sausage the night before, while I was putting away freight from the u-boats, he had left it lay on the rollers and I laid it on the steps along side other discarded merchandise because I was not sure if he had seen it. I cannot explain the box of sausages or how they ended up in a box of broken down boxes. According to Joey, I am the only person who was around those sausages on that Friday afternoon between the hours of 4:00 and however long it took me to put all that freezer and cooler stuff away; I'd say at least an hour, possibly longer. According to Joey, the only person who came near the sausage was a young black girl, whom I do remember talking to. Her name is Shandra and she was thinking about applying for a job there. I have not seen this video, I don't know who touched that sausage and it is unbelievable to me that on a busy Friday afternoon, while I am interrupted from putting the stuff away to work the register when needed, that not one single person walked by that pile of food sitting on the floor in one of the busiest isle’s in the store. There was a rule when I first started working there that the frozen foods had to be put away within 15 minutes. It is not physically possible for one person to put all that food away in 15 minutes. You can go back to any given Friday afternoon and see that the cooler/freezer items are indeed NOT put away within 15 minutes. It was all sitting there when I arrived that day so I don't know who touched it before I got there. It is of course possible that somehow that case of turkey sausage slipped off a box and fell into the box of boxes; this is very unlikely but possible. Only the camera can tell the truth, I was not allowed to see that footage. The camera will reference the events.
Today, on August 22 I stopped by the Family Dollar to get copies of my write-ups, or 'pip's' as Joey calls them. There are four pages stapled together, the third page is about the turkey sausage links. It is written on a plain sheet of white paper rather than a form as the others are written on and dated August 18th, the same day as the other write up even though he did not even mention the sausages that day. It reads, "She placed an entire case of sausage links $45.00 value in trash without telling anyone. She was the only one working on McLane that evening. Had I of not thought the box was kind of heavy when taking trash out I would not have caught it. Although DVR does not clearly show her throwing these away. This is a verbal to be more aware of what you are doing.' Signed Joey Burke 8/18/14 under his signature is a handmade line where I would have normally signed except I have never seen this paper before. That however, did not stop him from commenting 'failure to sign' under my empty line. My name does not even appear on the paper. So, I called him about the theft the morning after it happened and an hour later he texted me telling me to call him...he wanted to know about the sausages and had not checked on the camera about the theft yet. It was an hour after that he texted me to come in ASAP and that the cops where on their way. I texted him back and told him it would take me about 45 minutes, he said that was ok. Soon after he told me to just come in at my regular time of 4:00...I did not need to come to see the video. I arrived at work that day, august 11th and sat with Joey in his office. He turned on the DVR and played it where I could see a dark figure (shadowed) in the camera as he walked out the door as a woman held it open for him. I could not make out exactly what he had in the blue cart and I could not see his face under his ball cap. He wore a baggy green t-shirt and a black baseball cap and carried a soft drink cup. Joey fast forwarded the DVR while the man pushed the cart down the coffee isle, could not see the man, according to Joey, put the coffee into the cart. He said that the coffee itself is out of camera range. The man then pushed the cart up and parked it by the front door as he walked around the store, appearing that he was looking to see where everyone was. He then went back to the cart and as a woman on the other side of the door opened it he walked out. At that moment Joey quickly switched the camera to me at the time that the man walked out the door. I was squatted down in front of the razors, either stocking or straightening and on the camera it appears that I looked in the direction of the door. I was though in fact, looking toward my register to see if anyone was there waiting to be helped. I was working on register 1 that night. It is impossible to see the front door from the position that I was in at the moment that man slipped out the door. There are two islands full of merchandise in front of the registers; they are completely blocking the view to the front doors from the angle I was looking in that direction. Joey threatened me with ‘loss prevention’ saying that they will come and talk to me about this; he told me that the police were the ones who suggested that I was involved in the theft of the coffee. Then suddenly, he was going to spare me and stop ‘loss prevention’ from coming to talk to me but he would have to write me up. He said that he’d send the video to ‘loss prevention’. I would have welcomed a visit from ‘loss prevention’. A few weeks prior, while Joey was on vacation, the safe was almost 200.00 over after Joey, Debbie, James and I had all worked out of it. It remained over for about four days. When Joey returned from his vacation he said that he could not find an explanation for that and that he was sending it to corporate to let them figure it out. Seems to me a 200.00 overage in the store safe would indicate a 200.00 dollar shortage elsewhere. As far as I know, he never did find out why that money was so far off from what it should have been, if he did he did not inform the rest of us.
I came to work on the 18th at 4:00 and counted the drawer that was under the register that I would be working that night while James worked the other register. I counted it twice and both times it was $90.50 making it $9.50 short. I wrote the denomination amounts on a piece of reciept paper and the total and put it in my drawer. I wanted James to count it or let me swap it for the drawer in the safe but James wanted to go on break and he would not be allowed to touch that drawer anyway and there were customers waiting in line. I keyed in 100.00 as my loan and opened my register to help customers, James went on break. When James returned from his break he told me that Joey wanted to see me in his office. Joey presented this particular write up to me, eight days after the incident. He read it to me and I told him that I was not going to sign that paper because I did not like what it implied. Until today I had not actually read what he wrote. It is written on an official Family Dollar Performance Improvement Action Plan form. The box 'written counseling' is x'ed and the violation reads, Violation Description...'Customer walked right out the door with over $100 in coffee in shopping cart. It appears that you seen it happen by "DVR". However can't be confirmed after talking to you. Remember as an assistant mgr. you can control shrink by being able to multitask...Eyes and ears open at all times. Team member’s improvement action plan:..."Keep eyes and ears open at all times. Although you can't control everything but what you can you must do to the best of your ability following company guidelines. In the space marked for 'Follow up date'...he wrote, "Daily". Line 6 asked for the signature of the team member, Joey wrote "Failure to Sign does not agree with it and he signed line 7 dated August 18, 2014. Joey seemed irritated that I refused to sign that paper. The witness told me that the man had three cans of coffee; Joey says he had 12 cans. I don't know how many he had but if there were 12 cans in that cart one should be able to see that by watching the video. Also I took the position that I was in according to the DVR and I took a picture with my phone of the view that I would have had at the moment. I could not have seen the front doors. Debbie was also working that night. It was during the early hours and she was finishing up a U-boat that she was working on. I did not see enough of the video to know where she was at the time. After she finished a couple of u-boats, we switched places and she ran the register while I finished up the u-boats that had to be finished that night. We even stayed late to finish the pet supply u-boat together. The same day, at the same meeting, after I told him that I would not sign that paper he presented me with another...this time it was the 'Cash Accountability Record. He wanted me to sign on this day August 18th the form that records my overages/shortages that I have been written up for. The date was 8/2...I apparently was $5.40 over in my cash register that night, he had the dates already written in but I signed that paper on the 18th. On 7/6...again, not the day I signed that one either, I was apparently $21.72 over in my cash register. More than 20 dollars over would warrant most places to investigate to where that 20 dollars came from, clearly there was a logical explanation for an extra 20 dollars in a drawer, but I suppose it was easier for him to just write me up for it. I am not saying that I don’t make mistakes, I do not deny that, but 20 dollars? That had to have belonged somewhere. It is highly unlikely that a customer would have given me an extra 20 dollars or left the store with 20 dollars less than they had coming to them. I have handled money my entire life with a near perfect record. On 6/22, again the dates of my signature is written by Joey, I was short by $6.94 and the first time my register came out over five dollars off was on 6/21. I signed them because I do not deny that the register did not come out perfect. I however did not sign them on the day that Joey wrote the dates on the paper. They were signed weeks after the overages and shortages occurred. Joey and I sat and talked for a few minutes and I told him that the drawer that I had been working on for the past half hour was 9.50 short and I asked him why James could not verify that for me as I stood next to him. Joey told me that we are not allowed to touch another's money. James is an assistant manager, he has a key to the store, the combination to the safe and he was working the other register, this makes no sense to me. However Joey had the answer for me, asking me..."do you know how many quick change artists are out there?" So, James is not allowed to count a drawer containing supposedly 100.00 for my loan? The other assistant manager cannot count my bank drawer while I stand next to him? Does that make any sense? According to Joey, I should have keyed in 91.50 as my loan. Not letting anyone else count it, this is the drawer that Debbie or Joey had left in there after a ‘declare’ that afternoon. I wonder why I would not trust doing that, making it her word against mine. The safe is never counted between shifts, Joey opens the store, uses the safe. Debbie comes in, uses the safe. James comes in, uses the safe. I come in and I am suddenly responsible for how much money is in the safe. Yet, James is not allowed to verify that my bank drawer is correct or not. James and I counted the safe together that night after closing time, it was indeed ten dollars over along with another 2.95 over in the spare drawer making the safe 1212.95 rather than the 1200.00 that it should have been. I was 26 dollars and some change short that night. 9.50 of it was part of the ten extra dollars in the safe. This would have left me 16 dollars and some change short. I laid awake all night that night thinking about what I did wrong, I knew that it had to do with the return for the Mucinex I had not done that correctly, even though I did try to...as seen on the camera. It may have been the wrong decision but I felt like I was making a management decision by making sure the customer was not over-charged and she was happy with the outcome when I suggested that I would give her the difference in cash as re-running her card would take more time. I had planned to fix it after the line of customers went down. The next night I took out the paperwork from the file to look at the return receipts that I did when I rang up two items for a customer. She had a pair of headphones and a container of Mucinex, I rang it up and she ran her card. After she was finished she noticed that she was charged 11.00 for the mucinex and it had been marked down to 6.50. In all the frustration that I was feeling, I was unable to ring it up correctly and ended up returning the Mucinex while at the same time ringing it up again therefore making the register tell me that the customer still owed the store 11.90. That 11.90 was not collected causing me to be short during my declare. The customer and were both irritated and the line was growing so I decided to just give the customer the difference in cash of 4.87. She wrote her information on the return receipt and left the store pleased. Later, after the line went down and I had the time, I tried to adjust the 11.90 cents by doing another return, only I was unsuccessful...this is what is seen on the camera when I 'did a return without the customer present' as it says on the final write-up. I knew it wasn't right so I kept all of the receipts and stapled them together. On Tuesday when I came to work, I noticed that Joey had recorded that I was $14.14 short for the day before...he had subtracted the $10.00 that the safe was over plus the 2.00 that he highlighted that the extra drawer was over, even though the drawer was actually over almost 3 dollars. Therefore, he determined that I was 14.14 short. I got out the paperwork from the file and noticed that all the receipts (including the customers original reciept) that I had stapled together were stapled on the morning paperwork. After looking through those receipts I left a note for Joey explaining why I was short the day before. I gave the customer 4.87 that along with the extra ring up of the mucinex of 11.90 would leave my drawer short 16.77 as opposed to 14.14 as the almost three dollars in the extra drawer had nothing to do with my shortage and my starting bank was short 9.50 as opposed to an even $10.00. I should have been about 13 cents over if the money had been accounted for and if I had not had the problems with the discounted medicine. My point is that there was a logical explanation as to why my drawer was short; I had made a mistake on the register. The store was not out any money and I did not "forge" anyone's signature. The line on the return receipt asked for a name, not a signature. I simply wrote the name as I read it from the original receipt so that we would know that they went together. Joey says that the customer did not pay for the headphone's but this is not true, she did indeed pay for them as I know records will show. Her original receipt shows that she did and I only gave her the difference in the price of the medicine back. The rest was paid with a card. Her original receipt was also included in the stapled receipts that Joey stapled onto the daily paperwork.
So, on the fifth and final line (chance) dated august 18th it says that I was short by $14.14.This was the same night that I received the write-up accusing me of being a part of the coffee theft. Joey had told me not to let it bother me but being a human as opposed to a robot it bothered me. The night of the 18th was the night that I decided that I could no longer do this job under Joey...I had plans to give him my two week notice. I could think of very little else, I did not sleep that night because I could not get it off my mind. I realize what little insentive we have to be honest about things. Had I not told Joey about the coffee theft, he would not have ever known and if I had not told him about the Mucinex mix-up, he would have never known about that either. Instead of fixing the problem, Joey seems to want to make sure that someone besides him takes the blame for anything negative that happens in that store. So, the fifth and final warning regarding cash was written by Joey on August 21st for my 14.14 dollar shortage on August 18th. It has his signature on it but until I received my envelope from him today I had not seen this write up though he has written on it that I refused to sign it. Not true. There are many inconsistencies with Joey's reports and a thorough check will reveal these inconsistencies.
The final write-up in my package that I received from Joey on August 22 is also on the form titled Performance Improvement Action Plan. The violation says 'Failure to protect company assets/doing a return without customer present. Checked boxes include 'decision making step/final warning with an arrow pointing to this comment..."Failure to protect company assets/Doing a return without customer presents. Forging name on return sheet. Did not ring up headphone set." The last box on the form is also checked with an X titled discharge, its arrow points to this comment..."Cash drawer -----Five cash shortages. Follow up date says "Terminated". In the space provided for my signature he wrote "Failure to sign walked out and his signature is under that. At the bottom of the paper he wrote WITNESS: and drew a line for Debbie to sign it. She had been brought in and showed the video of me trying to fix the mistake I had made on the Mucinix return.
I was scheduled to work this day from 1-5. That morning I received a text from Joey telling me not to come in until 4 o'clock. I asked him if I was closing, he texted back 'yes...' My question is why did he change my hours and lie to me that I would be closing while he was having a meeting with his superior about me? Why was Debbie chosen to intrude on my business and trusted as a partial witness who was sworn to not speak to anyone about this? Why was I not included in the meeting with his superior as they decided to terminate me? Is this really any concern of Debbie's? Debbie was never shown the video of the man who took the coffee, James was never even told about it. Witnesses are required to be a witness to a case or deed, he chose Debbie to ‘witness’ my termination? So it seems that bringing Debbie back to witness my termination and watch the tape of me on the register was to further humiliate me. It would have made sense to have me come in at my regular scheduled time, while Joey’s superior was in the store and terminate me at that time instead of telling me that I was closing and to come in at 4:00.
On the 19th as I was coming on to my shift before Joey was leaving for the day, a man stood in front of James' register and they talked about how the weather was hard on people like them, of a bigger build. I heard them talking while preparing to open my register, never really looking at the man. The man then went outside and sat on the bench. When Joey was leaving he saw the man on the bench and recognized that he could be the same man in the video who stole the coffee. Quickly he had me go out and look at the guy; I wasn't sure because I had never gotten a good look at his face. Quickly James was told to watch the man while Joey and I went back to look at the camera. The man was even wearing the same t-shirt and hat, it was definitely him-however between helping customers and trying to watch the man, James lost track of him. Joey called the police and he drove around looking for him. I do not believe he was ever found. My point here is that if James had seen the video and been aware of the coffee theft there is an excellent chance that James would have recognized the man from the video. They talked to each other for at least 10 minutes before the man went out an sat of the bench. Why had Joey never told James about the theft or showed him what the man looked like? Joey does not have patients to train managers or make sure that associates are trained correctly; the fact that he is manager of a 'training' store seems strange to me as Joey does not take the time to properly train anyone. He is misleading, as further examination of these reports will reveal. He does this to make himself look good and to make all the negatives that happen into the fault of someone else. He is extremely mistrusting of his employees more so than the customers who are walking out of that store on a daily bases with merchandise that they did not pay for. Turnover in this store is extremely high as working for Joey is not pleasant...he is always threatening to fire people. Most nights the work load expected to be done is not possible, not if we are also required to watch the front doors. There is no way that a cashier can stock the shampoo and still watch who comes and goes in and out of the front doors. As mentioned before, it is physically impossible to keep an open view of the entire store while still stocking items at the same time. Because the work load is so large and the employees are trying to get the assigned work done, I suspect that a very large amount of merchandise goes out the door. I am almost 53 years old; I have worked with customers and cash for most of my life. Mistakes still happens but I was a great employee. I had never called in and I always came in when he called me in early which was often, many times in the past few weeks, I was a hard working and honest employee. After my termination, he now has just two employees, they are both assistant managers, and I have been suddenly called a thief. I will not stand for this label. I have never stolen anything form that store or any other and I was always a hard and reliable worker. This can all be verified by watching the cameras.
I very much enjoyed this job. I love working with the public, and I am saddened that it has come to an end. The fact that one man can make all the decisions and there is no due process in firing someone makes it really hard to keep employees. This needs to be examined because the turnover rate at this store is much higher than it should be. There are many others who have faced the same type of situation. The fear of being fired everyday makes it a very hostile place to work. It is one of the most unorganized run stores that I have ever worked for. I would love to have this job back but not if it means working under Joey. If I had proper training I could make a wonderful manager. I take pride in my work and especially my customer relations. I am well liked by customers, and Joey has never received a complaint about me from co-workers or customers. I have never been late and I have happily tolerated the constant and last minute schedule changes. I have also never received a SAER report, meaning that my register work has never been in question. I have taken all the required classes and I had gotten to the point where I knew my job well and I was good at it. Mistakes happen; we are humans with human emotions. Being presented with a write-up that practically accused me of stealing was very upsetting to me. I was always taught that the customer is our first priority but at this store, the customer is the least of Joey’s worries. He is more concerned with what the employees are doing instead of how the customers are treated. When I was hired I was put though a background check, which brought back no problems. Again, I am 53 years old; age gives us wisdom and the ability to read people. If you don’t feel that you can trust people after the background check comes clean and the drug test comes clean, why would you then proceed with putting them in charge of a store? The constant distrust of the assistant managers made for a very uncomfortable work environment.
Furthermore, there was also an incident where a customer came to my register with an older 20 dollar bill. I mark my bills with the pen nearly every time I take one over a $10. A day or two later Joey showed me a picture on his cell phone of an old 20 dollar bill; he said that it was counterfeit and that I had not checked it with the marker. Then a few days later he told me that ‘he had made that go away and that I would not be written up for that’, according to him, I could have been fired for that alone. I would be very interested on how he was able to make that disappear. I could have identified the person who gave it to me as he also would have been on camera. Was it really counterfeit? Did I actually mark it and Joey lied to me about that? I would like to know.
I would encourage the loss prevention team to carefully go through the tapes from the past few months and see how often the front doors are visible by any of the employees and also take a look at the work load that is piled on the two people who close the store every night. I have worked under Joey for just over two months and within that time frame three employees have come and quit, one took another job and two more have transferred to other stores. The turnover itself should prove that Joey’s training ways do not work. However, rumor has it that Joey is good friends with a manager that is higher up than he is and that is how he keeps his job. It doesn't seem that anyone in the upper management is looking at Joey’s record, the amount of employees that he goes through and the loss of merchandise to customers. No one is looking at the back room where extra merchandise is stored where it is so cluttered with broken and opened merchandise to the point where you cannot even get to the break room while other times you can’t even reach the back door. The steps to the loft are often littered with merchandise, we are required to climb them after closing to check for intruders. These are clearly a violation of safety codes. The camera in the back room should also varify this fact. Joey had told me that ‘he’ takes out the trash, apparently I was not trusted to do so.
The thing about all the cameras around is that people like Joey can pick and choose which parts of the video to use to his advantage. Yet on the other side, the camera will also prove that everything reported in this letter is the truth. I encourage the higher level management to take a close look and see just what the employees are responsible for doing and just how easy it is for thieves to come and go as they please in store 3690. I like to work, I work hard and I do what is expected while delivering excellent customer service. However I also see how wrong everything is being done, there has got to be a better way to run a very busy neighborhood friendly store than to use people and then discard them as if they don’t mean anything. My life has been drastically changed because I am yet again unemployed. It is unfair that one single person like Joey can have that sort of power over so many people. I think anyone would be astounded by the amount of people that Joey has had as a ‘short-time’ employee during his time as a manager of the store. It is hard to believe that he has also been given the honor and higher wages by being a ‘training’ store. The fact that he can take my job is one thing but I cannot sit still while he also defamates my character. I have been marked as not re-hirable, this will go through to all other retail stores and it will forever remain on my record unless I speak up. Jobs are hard to find for a middle aged woman, I thought that I had found one that I could thrive in but as it turns out there is corruption there as well with a dictator as the boss who is not capable of doing anything wrong, it must always be the fault of another. Joey constantly refers to ‘corporate’ rules and pretends to follow the written words while he himself in one of the biggest rule breakers there is.
I do hope that someone will take the time to read this letter and take the time to review the references that I have mentioned. I hope to hear from someone conserning this letter. And I thank you for your time.
Was injured while unloading the truck last week so i went to the doctor. the doctor put me off work for 2 days. one of the days i was supposed to open to close.
we could not get ahold of store manger so we contacted the PM. well the open to close day came and no one opened the store. the store finally got opened when the pm had to go and do it him self (5pm). i give my light duty slip to the manager he tells me to go home that day and come in the next day at 10AM. i get there and him and the pm take me to the backroom the pm says he is upset that he had to work on his only day off and that the store should have been open on time even though i had a doctors note.
then they proceed to let me go due to performance and insubordination.
we all know it was because someone was mad they had to do their job.
so now i am still injured with no chance of finding another job until the doctor clears me 100%
Family Dollar Stores, Inc Reviews
To whom it concerns at Loss Prevention, Human Resources and Public Relations.
I apologize for the length of this letter but I encourage you to please take the time to finish it. Thank you.
On August 18th I was written up for violation: 'Failure to protect company assets.' This write up comes over a week after the incident happened...Ten days prior a customer came to my register and told me that he had seen a man walking out of the store and down the sidewalk toward an ally. He said that the man was white, big, had facial hair and seemed to be in a hurry. He could see three cans of coffee in the cart and what looked like other things and none of them were in bags. He even suggested that I go look in the ally, that I will likely find the cart. I noted the time down on paper and a few notes. When I had the chance, I told Debbie about it and went out to the ally to find the only blue cart that we had in the store parked next to the dumpster along with two red carts parked by the back door of the building.
The next morning I called Joey and told him what the customer had told me and suggested that he look on the camera to see if we could identify the person. It was my goal to identify the problem immediately. I received a text from Joey a short time later. “I need you to come in ASAP...to see if you can identify this guy. He did steal an entire cart full of coffee.” This was after I called him to inform him about the theft and after he sent me eirlier text, 'call me'. When I called him he asked me about the case of sausage that he said he found in the trash, he said that he had not yet had a chance to look at the camera.
I had seen the box of sausage the night before, while I was putting away freight from the u-boats, he had left it lay on the rollers and I laid it on the steps along side other discarded merchandise because I was not sure if he had seen it. I cannot explain the box of sausages or how they ended up in a box of broken down boxes. According to Joey, I am the only person who was around those sausages on that Friday afternoon between the hours of 4:00 and however long it took me to put all that freezer and cooler stuff away; I'd say at least an hour, possibly longer. According to Joey, the only person who came near the sausage was a young black girl, whom I do remember talking to. Her name is Shandra and she was thinking about applying for a job there. I have not seen this video, I don't know who touched that sausage and it is unbelievable to me that on a busy Friday afternoon, while I am interrupted from putting the stuff away to work the register when needed, that not one single person walked by that pile of food sitting on the floor in one of the busiest isle’s in the store. There was a rule when I first started working there that the frozen foods had to be put away within 15 minutes. It is not physically possible for one person to put all that food away in 15 minutes. You can go back to any given Friday afternoon and see that the cooler/freezer items are indeed NOT put away within 15 minutes. It was all sitting there when I arrived that day so I don't know who touched it before I got there. It is of course possible that somehow that case of turkey sausage slipped off a box and fell into the box of boxes; this is very unlikely but possible. Only the camera can tell the truth, I was not allowed to see that footage. The camera will reference the events.
Today, on August 22 I stopped by the Family Dollar to get copies of my write-ups, or 'pip's' as Joey calls them. There are four pages stapled together, the third page is about the turkey sausage links. It is written on a plain sheet of white paper rather than a form as the others are written on and dated August 18th, the same day as the other write up even though he did not even mention the sausages that day. It reads, "She placed an entire case of sausage links $45.00 value in trash without telling anyone. She was the only one working on McLane that evening. Had I of not thought the box was kind of heavy when taking trash out I would not have caught it. Although DVR does not clearly show her throwing these away. This is a verbal to be more aware of what you are doing.' Signed Joey Burke 8/18/14 under his signature is a handmade line where I would have normally signed except I have never seen this paper before. That however, did not stop him from commenting 'failure to sign' under my empty line. My name does not even appear on the paper. So, I called him about the theft the morning after it happened and an hour later he texted me telling me to call him...he wanted to know about the sausages and had not checked on the camera about the theft yet. It was an hour after that he texted me to come in ASAP and that the cops where on their way. I texted him back and told him it would take me about 45 minutes, he said that was ok. Soon after he told me to just come in at my regular time of 4:00...I did not need to come to see the video. I arrived at work that day, august 11th and sat with Joey in his office. He turned on the DVR and played it where I could see a dark figure (shadowed) in the camera as he walked out the door as a woman held it open for him. I could not make out exactly what he had in the blue cart and I could not see his face under his ball cap. He wore a baggy green t-shirt and a black baseball cap and carried a soft drink cup. Joey fast forwarded the DVR while the man pushed the cart down the coffee isle, could not see the man, according to Joey, put the coffee into the cart. He said that the coffee itself is out of camera range. The man then pushed the cart up and parked it by the front door as he walked around the store, appearing that he was looking to see where everyone was. He then went back to the cart and as a woman on the other side of the door opened it he walked out. At that moment Joey quickly switched the camera to me at the time that the man walked out the door. I was squatted down in front of the razors, either stocking or straightening and on the camera it appears that I looked in the direction of the door. I was though in fact, looking toward my register to see if anyone was there waiting to be helped. I was working on register 1 that night. It is impossible to see the front door from the position that I was in at the moment that man slipped out the door. There are two islands full of merchandise in front of the registers; they are completely blocking the view to the front doors from the angle I was looking in that direction. Joey threatened me with ‘loss prevention’ saying that they will come and talk to me about this; he told me that the police were the ones who suggested that I was involved in the theft of the coffee. Then suddenly, he was going to spare me and stop ‘loss prevention’ from coming to talk to me but he would have to write me up. He said that he’d send the video to ‘loss prevention’. I would have welcomed a visit from ‘loss prevention’. A few weeks prior, while Joey was on vacation, the safe was almost 200.00 over after Joey, Debbie, James and I had all worked out of it. It remained over for about four days. When Joey returned from his vacation he said that he could not find an explanation for that and that he was sending it to corporate to let them figure it out. Seems to me a 200.00 overage in the store safe would indicate a 200.00 dollar shortage elsewhere. As far as I know, he never did find out why that money was so far off from what it should have been, if he did he did not inform the rest of us.
I came to work on the 18th at 4:00 and counted the drawer that was under the register that I would be working that night while James worked the other register. I counted it twice and both times it was $90.50 making it $9.50 short. I wrote the denomination amounts on a piece of reciept paper and the total and put it in my drawer. I wanted James to count it or let me swap it for the drawer in the safe but James wanted to go on break and he would not be allowed to touch that drawer anyway and there were customers waiting in line. I keyed in 100.00 as my loan and opened my register to help customers, James went on break. When James returned from his break he told me that Joey wanted to see me in his office. Joey presented this particular write up to me, eight days after the incident. He read it to me and I told him that I was not going to sign that paper because I did not like what it implied. Until today I had not actually read what he wrote. It is written on an official Family Dollar Performance Improvement Action Plan form. The box 'written counseling' is x'ed and the violation reads, Violation Description...'Customer walked right out the door with over $100 in coffee in shopping cart. It appears that you seen it happen by "DVR". However can't be confirmed after talking to you. Remember as an assistant mgr. you can control shrink by being able to multitask...Eyes and ears open at all times. Team member’s improvement action plan:..."Keep eyes and ears open at all times. Although you can't control everything but what you can you must do to the best of your ability following company guidelines. In the space marked for 'Follow up date'...he wrote, "Daily". Line 6 asked for the signature of the team member, Joey wrote "Failure to Sign does not agree with it and he signed line 7 dated August 18, 2014. Joey seemed irritated that I refused to sign that paper. The witness told me that the man had three cans of coffee; Joey says he had 12 cans. I don't know how many he had but if there were 12 cans in that cart one should be able to see that by watching the video. Also I took the position that I was in according to the DVR and I took a picture with my phone of the view that I would have had at the moment. I could not have seen the front doors. Debbie was also working that night. It was during the early hours and she was finishing up a U-boat that she was working on. I did not see enough of the video to know where she was at the time. After she finished a couple of u-boats, we switched places and she ran the register while I finished up the u-boats that had to be finished that night. We even stayed late to finish the pet supply u-boat together. The same day, at the same meeting, after I told him that I would not sign that paper he presented me with another...this time it was the 'Cash Accountability Record. He wanted me to sign on this day August 18th the form that records my overages/shortages that I have been written up for. The date was 8/2...I apparently was $5.40 over in my cash register that night, he had the dates already written in but I signed that paper on the 18th. On 7/6...again, not the day I signed that one either, I was apparently $21.72 over in my cash register. More than 20 dollars over would warrant most places to investigate to where that 20 dollars came from, clearly there was a logical explanation for an extra 20 dollars in a drawer, but I suppose it was easier for him to just write me up for it. I am not saying that I don’t make mistakes, I do not deny that, but 20 dollars? That had to have belonged somewhere. It is highly unlikely that a customer would have given me an extra 20 dollars or left the store with 20 dollars less than they had coming to them. I have handled money my entire life with a near perfect record. On 6/22, again the dates of my signature is written by Joey, I was short by $6.94 and the first time my register came out over five dollars off was on 6/21. I signed them because I do not deny that the register did not come out perfect. I however did not sign them on the day that Joey wrote the dates on the paper. They were signed weeks after the overages and shortages occurred. Joey and I sat and talked for a few minutes and I told him that the drawer that I had been working on for the past half hour was 9.50 short and I asked him why James could not verify that for me as I stood next to him. Joey told me that we are not allowed to touch another's money. James is an assistant manager, he has a key to the store, the combination to the safe and he was working the other register, this makes no sense to me. However Joey had the answer for me, asking me..."do you know how many quick change artists are out there?" So, James is not allowed to count a drawer containing supposedly 100.00 for my loan? The other assistant manager cannot count my bank drawer while I stand next to him? Does that make any sense? According to Joey, I should have keyed in 91.50 as my loan. Not letting anyone else count it, this is the drawer that Debbie or Joey had left in there after a ‘declare’ that afternoon. I wonder why I would not trust doing that, making it her word against mine. The safe is never counted between shifts, Joey opens the store, uses the safe. Debbie comes in, uses the safe. James comes in, uses the safe. I come in and I am suddenly responsible for how much money is in the safe. Yet, James is not allowed to verify that my bank drawer is correct or not. James and I counted the safe together that night after closing time, it was indeed ten dollars over along with another 2.95 over in the spare drawer making the safe 1212.95 rather than the 1200.00 that it should have been. I was 26 dollars and some change short that night. 9.50 of it was part of the ten extra dollars in the safe. This would have left me 16 dollars and some change short. I laid awake all night that night thinking about what I did wrong, I knew that it had to do with the return for the Mucinex I had not done that correctly, even though I did try to...as seen on the camera. It may have been the wrong decision but I felt like I was making a management decision by making sure the customer was not over-charged and she was happy with the outcome when I suggested that I would give her the difference in cash as re-running her card would take more time. I had planned to fix it after the line of customers went down. The next night I took out the paperwork from the file to look at the return receipts that I did when I rang up two items for a customer. She had a pair of headphones and a container of Mucinex, I rang it up and she ran her card. After she was finished she noticed that she was charged 11.00 for the mucinex and it had been marked down to 6.50. In all the frustration that I was feeling, I was unable to ring it up correctly and ended up returning the Mucinex while at the same time ringing it up again therefore making the register tell me that the customer still owed the store 11.90. That 11.90 was not collected causing me to be short during my declare. The customer and were both irritated and the line was growing so I decided to just give the customer the difference in cash of 4.87. She wrote her information on the return receipt and left the store pleased. Later, after the line went down and I had the time, I tried to adjust the 11.90 cents by doing another return, only I was unsuccessful...this is what is seen on the camera when I 'did a return without the customer present' as it says on the final write-up. I knew it wasn't right so I kept all of the receipts and stapled them together. On Tuesday when I came to work, I noticed that Joey had recorded that I was $14.14 short for the day before...he had subtracted the $10.00 that the safe was over plus the 2.00 that he highlighted that the extra drawer was over, even though the drawer was actually over almost 3 dollars. Therefore, he determined that I was 14.14 short. I got out the paperwork from the file and noticed that all the receipts (including the customers original reciept) that I had stapled together were stapled on the morning paperwork. After looking through those receipts I left a note for Joey explaining why I was short the day before. I gave the customer 4.87 that along with the extra ring up of the mucinex of 11.90 would leave my drawer short 16.77 as opposed to 14.14 as the almost three dollars in the extra drawer had nothing to do with my shortage and my starting bank was short 9.50 as opposed to an even $10.00. I should have been about 13 cents over if the money had been accounted for and if I had not had the problems with the discounted medicine. My point is that there was a logical explanation as to why my drawer was short; I had made a mistake on the register. The store was not out any money and I did not "forge" anyone's signature. The line on the return receipt asked for a name, not a signature. I simply wrote the name as I read it from the original receipt so that we would know that they went together. Joey says that the customer did not pay for the headphone's but this is not true, she did indeed pay for them as I know records will show. Her original receipt shows that she did and I only gave her the difference in the price of the medicine back. The rest was paid with a card. Her original receipt was also included in the stapled receipts that Joey stapled onto the daily paperwork.
So, on the fifth and final line (chance) dated august 18th it says that I was short by $14.14.This was the same night that I received the write-up accusing me of being a part of the coffee theft. Joey had told me not to let it bother me but being a human as opposed to a robot it bothered me. The night of the 18th was the night that I decided that I could no longer do this job under Joey...I had plans to give him my two week notice. I could think of very little else, I did not sleep that night because I could not get it off my mind. I realize what little insentive we have to be honest about things. Had I not told Joey about the coffee theft, he would not have ever known and if I had not told him about the Mucinex mix-up, he would have never known about that either. Instead of fixing the problem, Joey seems to want to make sure that someone besides him takes the blame for anything negative that happens in that store. So, the fifth and final warning regarding cash was written by Joey on August 21st for my 14.14 dollar shortage on August 18th. It has his signature on it but until I received my envelope from him today I had not seen this write up though he has written on it that I refused to sign it. Not true. There are many inconsistencies with Joey's reports and a thorough check will reveal these inconsistencies.
The final write-up in my package that I received from Joey on August 22 is also on the form titled Performance Improvement Action Plan. The violation says 'Failure to protect company assets/doing a return without customer present. Checked boxes include 'decision making step/final warning with an arrow pointing to this comment..."Failure to protect company assets/Doing a return without customer presents. Forging name on return sheet. Did not ring up headphone set." The last box on the form is also checked with an X titled discharge, its arrow points to this comment..."Cash drawer -----Five cash shortages. Follow up date says "Terminated". In the space provided for my signature he wrote "Failure to sign walked out and his signature is under that. At the bottom of the paper he wrote WITNESS: and drew a line for Debbie to sign it. She had been brought in and showed the video of me trying to fix the mistake I had made on the Mucinix return.
I was scheduled to work this day from 1-5. That morning I received a text from Joey telling me not to come in until 4 o'clock. I asked him if I was closing, he texted back 'yes...' My question is why did he change my hours and lie to me that I would be closing while he was having a meeting with his superior about me? Why was Debbie chosen to intrude on my business and trusted as a partial witness who was sworn to not speak to anyone about this? Why was I not included in the meeting with his superior as they decided to terminate me? Is this really any concern of Debbie's? Debbie was never shown the video of the man who took the coffee, James was never even told about it. Witnesses are required to be a witness to a case or deed, he chose Debbie to ‘witness’ my termination? So it seems that bringing Debbie back to witness my termination and watch the tape of me on the register was to further humiliate me. It would have made sense to have me come in at my regular scheduled time, while Joey’s superior was in the store and terminate me at that time instead of telling me that I was closing and to come in at 4:00.
On the 19th as I was coming on to my shift before Joey was leaving for the day, a man stood in front of James' register and they talked about how the weather was hard on people like them, of a bigger build. I heard them talking while preparing to open my register, never really looking at the man. The man then went outside and sat on the bench. When Joey was leaving he saw the man on the bench and recognized that he could be the same man in the video who stole the coffee. Quickly he had me go out and look at the guy; I wasn't sure because I had never gotten a good look at his face. Quickly James was told to watch the man while Joey and I went back to look at the camera. The man was even wearing the same t-shirt and hat, it was definitely him-however between helping customers and trying to watch the man, James lost track of him. Joey called the police and he drove around looking for him. I do not believe he was ever found. My point here is that if James had seen the video and been aware of the coffee theft there is an excellent chance that James would have recognized the man from the video. They talked to each other for at least 10 minutes before the man went out an sat of the bench. Why had Joey never told James about the theft or showed him what the man looked like? Joey does not have patients to train managers or make sure that associates are trained correctly; the fact that he is manager of a 'training' store seems strange to me as Joey does not take the time to properly train anyone. He is misleading, as further examination of these reports will reveal. He does this to make himself look good and to make all the negatives that happen into the fault of someone else. He is extremely mistrusting of his employees more so than the customers who are walking out of that store on a daily bases with merchandise that they did not pay for. Turnover in this store is extremely high as working for Joey is not pleasant...he is always threatening to fire people. Most nights the work load expected to be done is not possible, not if we are also required to watch the front doors. There is no way that a cashier can stock the shampoo and still watch who comes and goes in and out of the front doors. As mentioned before, it is physically impossible to keep an open view of the entire store while still stocking items at the same time. Because the work load is so large and the employees are trying to get the assigned work done, I suspect that a very large amount of merchandise goes out the door. I am almost 53 years old; I have worked with customers and cash for most of my life. Mistakes still happens but I was a great employee. I had never called in and I always came in when he called me in early which was often, many times in the past few weeks, I was a hard working and honest employee. After my termination, he now has just two employees, they are both assistant managers, and I have been suddenly called a thief. I will not stand for this label. I have never stolen anything form that store or any other and I was always a hard and reliable worker. This can all be verified by watching the cameras.
I very much enjoyed this job. I love working with the public, and I am saddened that it has come to an end. The fact that one man can make all the decisions and there is no due process in firing someone makes it really hard to keep employees. This needs to be examined because the turnover rate at this store is much higher than it should be. There are many others who have faced the same type of situation. The fear of being fired everyday makes it a very hostile place to work. It is one of the most unorganized run stores that I have ever worked for. I would love to have this job back but not if it means working under Joey. If I had proper training I could make a wonderful manager. I take pride in my work and especially my customer relations. I am well liked by customers, and Joey has never received a complaint about me from co-workers or customers. I have never been late and I have happily tolerated the constant and last minute schedule changes. I have also never received a SAER report, meaning that my register work has never been in question. I have taken all the required classes and I had gotten to the point where I knew my job well and I was good at it. Mistakes happen; we are humans with human emotions. Being presented with a write-up that practically accused me of stealing was very upsetting to me. I was always taught that the customer is our first priority but at this store, the customer is the least of Joey’s worries. He is more concerned with what the employees are doing instead of how the customers are treated. When I was hired I was put though a background check, which brought back no problems. Again, I am 53 years old; age gives us wisdom and the ability to read people. If you don’t feel that you can trust people after the background check comes clean and the drug test comes clean, why would you then proceed with putting them in charge of a store? The constant distrust of the assistant managers made for a very uncomfortable work environment.
Furthermore, there was also an incident where a customer came to my register with an older 20 dollar bill. I mark my bills with the pen nearly every time I take one over a $10. A day or two later Joey showed me a picture on his cell phone of an old 20 dollar bill; he said that it was counterfeit and that I had not checked it with the marker. Then a few days later he told me that ‘he had made that go away and that I would not be written up for that’, according to him, I could have been fired for that alone. I would be very interested on how he was able to make that disappear. I could have identified the person who gave it to me as he also would have been on camera. Was it really counterfeit? Did I actually mark it and Joey lied to me about that? I would like to know.
I would encourage the loss prevention team to carefully go through the tapes from the past few months and see how often the front doors are visible by any of the employees and also take a look at the work load that is piled on the two people who close the store every night. I have worked under Joey for just over two months and within that time frame three employees have come and quit, one took another job and two more have transferred to other stores. The turnover itself should prove that Joey’s training ways do not work. However, rumor has it that Joey is good friends with a manager that is higher up than he is and that is how he keeps his job. It doesn't seem that anyone in the upper management is looking at Joey’s record, the amount of employees that he goes through and the loss of merchandise to customers. No one is looking at the back room where extra merchandise is stored where it is so cluttered with broken and opened merchandise to the point where you cannot even get to the break room while other times you can’t even reach the back door. The steps to the loft are often littered with merchandise, we are required to climb them after closing to check for intruders. These are clearly a violation of safety codes. The camera in the back room should also varify this fact. Joey had told me that ‘he’ takes out the trash, apparently I was not trusted to do so.
The thing about all the cameras around is that people like Joey can pick and choose which parts of the video to use to his advantage. Yet on the other side, the camera will also prove that everything reported in this letter is the truth. I encourage the higher level management to take a close look and see just what the employees are responsible for doing and just how easy it is for thieves to come and go as they please in store 3690. I like to work, I work hard and I do what is expected while delivering excellent customer service. However I also see how wrong everything is being done, there has got to be a better way to run a very busy neighborhood friendly store than to use people and then discard them as if they don’t mean anything. My life has been drastically changed because I am yet again unemployed. It is unfair that one single person like Joey can have that sort of power over so many people. I think anyone would be astounded by the amount of people that Joey has had as a ‘short-time’ employee during his time as a manager of the store. It is hard to believe that he has also been given the honor and higher wages by being a ‘training’ store. The fact that he can take my job is one thing but I cannot sit still while he also defamates my character. I have been marked as not re-hirable, this will go through to all other retail stores and it will forever remain on my record unless I speak up. Jobs are hard to find for a middle aged woman, I thought that I had found one that I could thrive in but as it turns out there is corruption there as well with a dictator as the boss who is not capable of doing anything wrong, it must always be the fault of another. Joey constantly refers to ‘corporate’ rules and pretends to follow the written words while he himself in one of the biggest rule breakers there is.
I do hope that someone will take the time to read this letter and take the time to review the references that I have mentioned. I hope to hear from someone conserning this letter. And I thank you for your time.
Was injured while unloading the truck last week so i went to the doctor. the doctor put me off work for 2 days. one of the days i was supposed to open to close.
we could not get ahold of store manger so we contacted the PM. well the open to close day came and no one opened the store. the store finally got opened when the pm had to go and do it him self (5pm). i give my light duty slip to the manager he tells me to go home that day and come in the next day at 10AM. i get there and him and the pm take me to the backroom the pm says he is upset that he had to work on his only day off and that the store should have been open on time even though i had a doctors note.
then they proceed to let me go due to performance and insubordination.
we all know it was because someone was mad they had to do their job.
so now i am still injured with no chance of finding another job until the doctor clears me 100%