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Like many people, I've put in plenty of time working in retail and I don't have a huge amount of sympathy for her for not doing drops when she was supposed to. There are multiple people working at Popeyes and she could have taken the time she needed. Even if you are alone, you still say "Excuse me, I will be right with you in a moment" and do your drop. It's the same as if you run out of register tape. Even if you have a line of people, you have to change the tape. I've been on the other side of that plenty of times as a customer too.
Now, obviously the manager screwed up and shouldn't have demanded she repay the money. But who thinks she'd still be going to the media and complaining and saying "pregnant woman fired for being robbed" and trying to get sympathy and a gofundme page and all that when she was legitimately fired for breaking one of the biggest rules they teach you when you are a cashier?
It looks like she was fired because she didn't want to pay the money back. Agree with not dropping money is a fireable offense, if it was repeatedly done. I wonder how many times she did it? One time imo, isn't a good enough reason to fire her. Not saying you're saying it is.
"I do need a way to support my kids," she says. "I don't want to go back to a business where I'm treated the same and I just get pushed back out if something else happened."
It looks like she was fired because she didn't want to pay the money back. Agree with not dropping money is a fireable offense, if it was repeatedly done. I wonder how many times she did it? One time imo, isn't a good enough reason to fire her. Not saying you're saying it is.
According to reports it was not her first offense nor even her second.
I don't think they should have asked for her to repay it, that in and of itself is what got them in trouble with the social media poor me crowd.
Had they just terminated her it would've been a non story as it should be.
If the employee failed to follow company policy in regards to handling money, they certainly have good cause to can her.
The company doesn't have good cause to sue her for return of the cash however.
I live in the Houston area, and I watched a story on our local news about this very case. According to Popeye's, the reason they fired her was because she failed to follow company policy RE excess monies in the register several times. This wasn't the first. She repeatedly left too much money in the cash register before depositing it in the safe. They said that the robber wouldn't have taken off with that much cash had she done a safe drop in a timely manner, as she was supposed to. It still sounds like a a case of pure greed (after all, what's a $400 loss to a megacorporation like Popeyes?), however, it's a reasonable explanation for why they fired her. Besides, she had to have been scared out of her mind at the robbery. Channelview is a very dangerous area of Houston. Even though she really needed the job (she's pregnant with her 4th child), the safety of herself and her family should come first. Wouldn't she take this as an omen to get a different job?
Yeah ok but it's still not right. Unless she was masterminding the robbery why should she be stuck paying for some jerk loser robbing the joint. I can see if she was absentminded and lost the money.
It's part of doing business. If a bank gets robbed they aren't gonna take it out of the tellers check.
It would be like somene car jacking my work truck and my company expecting me to pay for it. You got insurance. And I bet Popeyes is insured for robbery.
It is part of doing business. Which is why there are policies in place to minimize damages. Such as making drops at certain times to make sure there isn't a lot of money in the drawer.
She didn't follow policy. Wonder how many other times she didn't follow policy, the crooks noticed, and that's why they robbed the store?
I live in the Houston area, and I watched a story on our local news about this very case. According to Popeye's, the reason they fired her was because she failed to follow company policy RE excess monies in the register several times. This wasn't the first. She repeatedly left too much money in the cash register before depositing it in the safe. They said that the robber wouldn't have taken off with that much cash had she done a safe drop in a timely manner, as she was supposed to. It still sounds like a a case of pure greed (after all, what's a $400 loss to a megacorporation like Popeyes?), however, it's a reasonable explanation for why they fired her. Besides, she had to have been scared out of her mind at the robbery. Channelview is a very dangerous area of Houston. Even though she really needed the job (she's pregnant with her 4th child), the safety of herself and her family should come first. Wouldn't she take this as an omen to get a different job?
It's not a mega corporation, it's an individual franchise owner. Not saying they should have asked for the money in either case, but it's not really David vs. Goliath or anything.
Plus yes, if there was less money in the cash drawer the way there is supposed to be, then the losses would have been less.
And it's also a safety issue - if a thief knows they will get a max of $40 or whatever their cash limit is supposed to be, there's a lot less incentive to commit a robbery and risk getting caught over $40. Now a whole bunch of would-be robbers are out there thinking, yeah, maybe it's worth hitting up Popeyes, they might have several hundred dollars in cash in the drawer.
Texas like so many other states is an at hired at will state which means a company doesn't need a reason to fire an employee, as a result there are no bits for a lawyer to chomp at.
Why do people even feel the need to clarify that a specific state is at-will?
Every single state in the US is at-will, except for Montana, which probably has more bears than people anyway...
So people may as well admit that the US in general, has at-will employment.
They offered to reinstate her job plus back pay, so she really has nothing left to sue about except emotional distress. Of course if she does sue for emotional distress, the defense will obviously say it's anxiety about the armed robbery, which wasn't the franchise's fault.
It sounds like a really crummy place to work, but she ought to just take the job and put this behind her. If I were her, though, I'd keep my eyes peeled for something better.
As for the $400 in the register thing, I think the franchise owner has a legitimate concern even though he handled it terribly. That's a lot of cash in what looks like a high crime area.
By the way did they catch those two pieces of manure?
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