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Pilfering is a problem in restaurants because the profit margin is razor-thin, but I think they should have cut this guy some slack. He was just trying to help a needy person with a couple packets of condiments and a corn muffin. It's not like he took a twenty out of the register.
It is the same principal, giving a corn muffin away, or stealing a Twenty Dollar Bill. Both are theft.
If someone is stealing no matter how big or small, they should be fired or call the police and have them arrested, depending on the amount of the theft.
It was not just one corn muffin, it ws a man that was repeatedly written up for the same thing. The big question is; How much had he given away where he was not caught doing it?
It is not about the monetary cost of the muffin. It is well known in the business world, an employee that steals small, often moves up to stealing big. If other employees see one of them is stealing, no matter how big or little and not suffering punishment or being fired, they start doing it. It becomes norm in the business. And several people stealing small each day, can put a restaurant or other small business out of business.
As pointed out earlier, if a mistake is made, it is thrown in the trash can. Reason: If they let employees eat the mistake, they would make mistakes just before their break for the free food. They don't make mistakes on purpose, because they know it would just be destroyed, not given to them and too many mistakes will get them fired.
These rules may sound heartless. But they are necessary for a small business to stay viable and profitable.
What most people do not realize, is that for every small business that opens up, about 80% of them will fail and go broke. The rules about not giving food away, throwing mistakes into the garbage, etc., are made to try to make the business one of the 20% that succeed and stay in business.
No where does it say this vet paid for the muffin.
Easy to be generous when it isn't coming out of his pocket.
The employee actually stole the muffin if he gave it away w/o paying for it and thieves should be fired !
I used the same point debating this on FB. Too many of these "Robinhoods" and their enablers have the attitude that big corporate can afford it so it shouldn't matter.
I see media bias. The fact that he is 73 and a Viet Nam veteran is irrelevant to the act. The "Viet Nam vet" and "73" is designed to make you side with him and against the implied heartless villain Cracker Barrel. If he was 17 and on his first job, you wouldn't even hear about it.
This is not an opinoin column or a blog which would make it okay. It's being presented as news.
Look for this in everything you read from any source.
Cracker Barrel is within it's right to fire.
The more vexing question is why, with the industrial prison swill they serve, how they prosper?
In a less insane world Cracker Barrel would be prosecuted for poisoning it's rube customers.
It would be great if employees were allowed to give food away to the hungry, especially all the food that's thrown away because it passed its expiration time (even though it's perfectly fine).
However, we live in such litigious society that it just isn't worth the risk.
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