Archived Have you heard of people getting fired for this?

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Flabbergasted

Flabbergasted

Ex-GSA
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So, long story short. I found out the other day that one of my old cashiers from my days at Spot was recently terminated for an honest mistake he made involving a Target GiftCard. Now, we've all heard the unfortunate stories of people getting themselves fired for stealing GiftCards, switching them deliberately (such as giving out blank ones to guests and keeping the one with value), etc. In those cases, a firing is justly deserved in my opinion. You can't be stealing from your employer, or anyone else for that matter. That isn't what this guy did, however.

This particular incident involved a promotional GiftCard for $25. This cashier accidentally mixed up the $25 GiftCard he scanned for a blank one, giving the guest the blank one and putting the one with value back in the pile of GiftCards. I guess he set the one with the value with the other blank GiftCards, foolishly, and he knocked them all down so it all got mixed up in one big comedy of errors. So the guest walked out with a blank one, and he was fired a few days later. I'm completely baffled that they let him go for this. This guy was one of their top cashiers, had worked there for 2 years and was amazing at getting REDcards and good survey scores when I was there as GSA. Leadership loved him and there were rumors of him potentially being the new GSA after I quit. That didn't happen but he remained an excellent cashier going off what everyone I've talked to has said. Even my old GSTL was baffled they fired him.

Maybe I'm missing something here but to me, personally, this is just more evidence that my old store sucks big shit and to an extent so does Target as a company. Should this cashier have made this kind of mistake? No, of course not. He created a loss for the company (though $25 is not a big loss for a multi-billion dollar company like Target), and he should be given some sort of punishment. A CCA for 6 months would have been good for me. I don't think it would be deserving of a Final, let alone instant termination, especially when it was an honest mistake that he had never made before. Again, he didn't steal the $25 GiftCard. It was eventually found in the pile of blanks and returned to the guest. The guest herself was reportedly not that upset about it, and was understanding of the fact that it was a mistake. Why couldn't Target be? What the hell is wrong with this company, when cashiers are expected to be perfect REDcard getting robots 100% of the time with no human flaws whatsoever?
 
They would've had to cover their a$$es pretty good thru video, watching to see what happened & how he handled it.
Spot does a lot of crappy things but they wouldn't open themselves up for a lawsuit unless they had evidence dead to rights.
 
Flabbergasted said:
So, long story short. I found out the other day that one of my old cashiers from my days at Spot was recently terminated for an honest mistake he made involving a Target GiftCard. Now, we've all heard the unfortunate stories of people getting themselves fired for stealing GiftCards, switching them deliberately (such as giving out blank ones to guests and keeping the one with value), etc. In those cases, a firing is justly deserved in my opinion. You can't be stealing from your employer, or anyone else for that matter. That isn't what this guy did, however.

This particular incident involved a promotional GiftCard for $25. This cashier accidentally mixed up the $25 GiftCard he scanned for a blank one, giving the guest the blank one and putting the one with value back in the pile of GiftCards. I guess he set the one with the value with the other blank GiftCards, foolishly, and he knocked them all down so it all got mixed up in one big comedy of errors. So the guest walked out with a blank one, and he was fired a few days later. I'm completely baffled that they let him go for this. This guy was one of their top cashiers, had worked there for 2 years and was amazing at getting REDcards and good survey scores when I was there as GSA. Leadership loved him and there were rumors of him potentially being the new GSA after I quit. That didn't happen but he remained an excellent cashier going off what everyone I've talked to has said. Even my old GSTL was baffled they fired him.

Maybe I'm missing something here but to me, personally, this is just more evidence that my old store sucks big shit and to an extent so does Target as a company. Should this cashier have made this kind of mistake? No, of course not. He created a loss for the company (though $25 is not a big loss for a multi-billion dollar company like Target), and he should be given some sort of punishment. A CCA for 6 months would have been good for me. I don't think it would be deserving of a Final, let alone instant termination, especially when it was an honest mistake that he had never made before. Again, he didn't steal the $25 GiftCard. It was eventually found in the pile of blanks and returned to the guest. The guest herself was reportedly not that upset about it, and was understanding of the fact that it was a mistake. Why couldn't Target be? What the hell is wrong with this company, when cashiers are expected to be perfect REDcard getting robots 100% of the time with no human flaws whatsoever?
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Definitely more to the story than what was told to you. An instant termination meant that he caused a loss to Target that was proven through reporting and video in conjunction. This was then submitted to the APBP for approval and they said to take it. Either that or he was already on a Final for Gift Card theft and this was the nail in the coffin.

If I had to guess, the $25 used to create the Gift Card was not promotional (so used 5 manual coupons for $5 to create it) and then it was kept and used in conjunction with his discount or some combination of it. Also, the "$25 not being a big deal" comment is concerning to me. That is the textbook justification for theft, and is often a slippery slope.
 
Yeah I mean target has done some crazy stuff but I can't see this being the whole story. They have video of everything and recording of everything on the registers so there had to be more going on there somewhere. Like they said target wouldn't risk a lawsuit over 25 dollars if they didn't have something backing up reasons he was fired.
 
I agree with y'all that there must be more to this story but every single person I've spoken to, including a GSTL who worked with him regularly, says this was exactly how and why he was fired. The GiftCard was not stolen. I know the $25 comment can be used as a slippery slope for theft justification, but the point was that 1) this was not a theft, until someone involved tells me otherwise (I mean I know this guy & he is such a great guy) and 2) Target risking a lawsuit over such a measly amount is pretty ridiculous, and it makes me wonder if this particular store and HRBP went rogue here.
 
He dropped a stack of gift cards, creating confusion. That's understandable, but he willingly handed a guest what he wasn't sure of being $25.00? That's shitty. He's not just creating a loss for Target, but he's taking $25.00 from the customer. It may have been returned, but his actions were garbage and definitely indicative of his ethics.
 
DoWork said:
He dropped a stack of gift cards, creating confusion. That's understandable, but he willingly handed a guest what he wasn't sure of being $25.00? That's shitty. He's not just creating a loss for Target, but he's taking $25.00 from the customer. It may have been returned, but his actions were garbage and definitely indicative of his ethics.
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I understand that, but is that really deserving of instant termination? I thought write-ups existed for a reason. Give the guy a CCA, hell you can give him a Final if you're trying to be "tough on crime" so to speak, but an instant firing? It's just not the appropriate punishment given the circumstances. This guy had a clean record prior to this. No write-ups, few if any coachings, stellar REDcard getter and cashier for 2 years.
 
DoWork said:
Theft, which is what this is, shouldn't be tolerated at any point. The amount stolen is irrelevant.
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Oh come on. How exactly is that theft? Theft is a criminal act that is committed with intent. Real theft is absolutely intolerable and inexcusable. But that is not what happened here. He made a stupid mistake in giving the guest the wrong GiftCard and he shouldn't have acted the way he did in that situation, but at no point did he attempt to steal the GiftCard (as I said, it was found and returned to the guest later), nor was he intending to steal. He felt horrible about the whole thing and the expectation the whole time was that he'd get a write-up. Until he didn't and was fired instead. I hope he sues for unemployment and wins because this clearly was NOT a theft and the response by leadership to the situation was poor and over the line.

With the respect to the amount, I've already clarified my comment about the $25 being not a big loss. The fact of the matter is, the cost absolutely is relevant here since this was not a theft, but a mistake. If he had made this mistake with a lot of money involved, say hundreds of dollars, I can see termination. At that point it's grossly reckless. But $25? That's not worth a firing. Now if he had stolen that $25, that would be worth a firing, because that is a criminal act. But he didn't, and it was not a theft.
 
DoWork said:
Theft is theft. He lost his job. This stuff happens.

You're arguing over the amount, when that isn't the point.
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Way to ignore all my counterpoints about how this was, in fact, not a theft. How is a confusing situation the same as stealing, when that GiftCard was never taken by the cashier, never spent anywhere, it just remained in the pile with the others? How is that theft?? Just because the guest didn't get her GiftCard at the point of sale, mistakenly, that makes it theft is what you're telling me? Under that definition, there are a lot of things that one could call theft. If I forget to give someone one of their bags and they leave without it, does that count as me stealing that bag from them? Boy, I would've been fired a couple times over if that's how broadly we're using the word theft.
 
There haven't been any counterpoints worth acknowledging. You're arguing for a friend who took a gift card from a customer. He made a series of bad choices that cost him his job. He could have checked the card or called for support after the gift cards were mixed up, but he chose not to. Your bias makes this pointless to go any further.

I may have questionable ethics about a lot of things, but this is just too obvious.
 
DoWork said:
There haven't been any counterpoints worth acknowledging. You're arguing for a friend who took a gift card from a customer. He made a series of bad choices that cost him his job. He could have checked the card or called for support after the gift cards were mixed up, but he chose not to. Your bias makes this pointless to go any further.

I may have questionable ethics about a lot of things, but this is just too obvious.
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You wrongly paint this situation as a theft. It's not. I have already conceded, multiple times, that there were obviously things that could have been done better here. I am not defending him from that. I've made that point. All I'm saying is that this situation was not deserving of termination, and it baffles me that you think it is and go so far as to call it theft. No rational human being thinks this kind of mistake is theft. Theft is a criminal offense defined by statute and with a specific definition. This situation does not fit that definition.

Great cop out though. "None of your points are worth acknowledging."
 
He lost the store money, that's why he was fired

Pretty stupid since it wasn't since that much money, but that's what you get when you work at "at-will employment" and a right to work country where employees barely have any protection or workers laws.
 
If your friend is as great as you say he is, he'll learn from this, find a better job and wonder why he wasted two years at Target.
 
His story sounds fishy. If he already added the amount to the card, why didn't he immediately give it to the guest or at least put it by the card reader for the guest to pick up. In our store the gift cards are kept in the drawer or on the check reader, and I know ASANTS, but if this were the case, in order for his story to be true he would have had to have picked up the gift card, loaded it, and put it back with other unloaded gift cards. Why would he do that? And if he did do that, why would he not price inquiry the card to make sure it was the right one. It sounds like there's more to this story and AP might have already had him on the radar for another offense.
 
Adding to my post, I'm not seeing how 25 dollars in this case would be a loss to the store. If the customer was supposed to get a gift card for a promotion and never got it, spot would've retained the 25 dollars. The way I see it, it would've only been a loss if your friend gave the guest two gift cards by mistake. To me, its neither theft nor a mistake resulting in loss... Which brings me back to my original point that there's more to the story than what he/she told you.
 
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Hardlinesmaster said:
The cashier could of check the balance on the gift card before the guest left the register. Especially, he supposedly dropped it with a bunch of other cards. I wonder how many gift cards with $$ on them were found under his register. Spot was watching him.
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This!!
One time I did a similar thing, I scanned a gift card for the $5 gift card promo and dropped it in the pile of gift cards. I took a couple of minutes and scanned the cards until I found the card with the $5 on it and gave it to the guest. We had a couple cashiers fired for stealing gift cards, sometimes it's the person you least expected. When I am working at the guest service desk and a guests asks me to combine a stack of gift cards, I always double check the card that is supposed to have all the money on it just to be on the safe side.
 
No one outside of AP ETL, HR-ETL and the STL know why that person was really fired for. If they got fired, it was for more than just a "non loss" as op has claimed. I do like the fiction stories passed off as nothing but truths and blame everything else on others, it makes the internet fun.
 
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