Under suspicion for missing coffee

[Josie2]

Hi I started working for a local well known convienant store one month ago. I spent my first two nights in orientation. The third day I started working in the shop that I was hired for. For three days I worked putting away orders on the floor and in the food prep area. That Saturday I worked with another clerk learning the register. My second week I did the same thing putting away orders and food prep during the week and on Saturday I worked with another clerk on register. This place is like no other place I have worked before. You do not have your own cash register drawer, instead you have an id number that you put in the register each and everytime you wait on a customer. There could be between two to five different people per shift in that register.The other day a new hire was being trained on the register and he logged in multiple times under my number. Anyway this week was when I was suposed to be evaluated but when I went in for my meeting I was not evaluated instead I was taken off of the schedule because the coffee shortage has been found to be during the day shift. The manager did not come right out and accuss me of this shortage, she is trying to aliminate me. I feel that the way they are handling this is not right because if the person that is doing this figures out why I have been taken off the schedule that they are going to stop stealing until the audit comes out ok and I get fired then they start back stealing again. I have been told that they never had a coffee problem before I was hired a month ago, they have been doing short audits and cofffee counts around my shifts and the only thing that they have found is that I am the common denominator in these audits. These audits show that we are making more coffee then we are selling and/or writing off so they are assuming that someone (me) is not ringing out coffee and that I am pocketing the money. Keep in mind there are multiple cameras throughout the store. I am not stealing this money and/or coffee what should I do and where should I go for assistants? Please help me.

 

[cbg]

This falls under the "unfair but not illegal" scenario. They are free to suspend you on suspicion of being involved with the shortages, even if they are mistaken.

 

[Josie2]

My manager told me yesturday that she was not accussing me of this lose but the only way that she could prove that it was not me was to take me off of the schedule until the next audit which is Monday. If the audit came back with coffee still missing then I could start back Tuesday. If there was no coffee lose then she was going to have to let me go. We are scheduled to have an employee meeting this Sunday to discuss this problem should I go? Last nite when I finally received the phone call from the district manager I let her know that I understand that they need to follow corporate rules and by taking me off of the schedule was one of those rules, but my biggest concern is that if the person that is doing this figures out or hears about why I have been removed from the schedule that they will stop stealing until the audits come out ok, I get fired and possibly prosicuted and then they go right back to stealing. She told me that I do not have a leg to stand on because they have been doing short audits and coffee counts around me and the shifts that I have been working and all of their paperwork and numbers point to me as the problem. I am not a theif my husband has two good paying jobs one in the summer and another for the winter as well as owning and operating his own business. I not only work for this company but I also work for the local school district so I don't have to work I work because I like too. Another thing that bothers me is that Tuesdays thru Fridays I work side by side with the manager and on Saturdays and Mondays I work side by side with the senior clerk. If there was a problem a month ago when I started working there then one of them should have come to me and said look we are having a problem with a coffee shortage lets see how you are ringing them in the cash register and how you are writing off the post of coffee you are dumping to see if there is a problem, but no they waited until now when they are saying that they are missing $2400.00 in coffee and now a month has gone by. What do I do know? Where do I go from here?

 

[cbg]

Right now you go to the meeting if your boss wants you to go; you wait out the suspension and you stop worrying about what *might* happen. It sounds as if the employer is more interested in clearing you than in prosecuting you. There'll be plenty of time to worry about prosecution if it actually happens.

What they *might* or *should* have done is irrelevant unless they violate the law, and so far from what you have said, they have not.

 

[Josie2]

I just wanted to say that I appreciate your advice. I have decided that no matter what my manager finds out about this situation I am not going back to work there.I can not work someplace where I was accused of something that I did not do, nor could I feel comfortable or confident enough to work there. I know that this situation would always be on my mind and I would constantly be second guessing myself there. Not only that even if I was cleared for this situation what would be next? Thanks again for your advice.