Archived The Breakroom's Wall of Stupid TMs

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At my store, our AP executive was terminated for stealing lost and found items like cell phones.
 
We've had several dopey TMs who'd grab a Starbux venti coffee cup "just for water", then fill it up with soda. Thing is, our soda fountain pumps are just inside the supply area door & we could hear the pumps going off whenever someone draws a drink. One of the guys from FA would hear that, go out to the fountains, snatch the cups from the TMs & dump them out under their noses. He's a big guy & the TMs were seldom stupid enough to try it again.
 
I gotta admit, I've been tempted to do that on occasion myself, redeye, but a) it's stealing b) I tell all of my cashiers that while the official policy is no drinks on the floor, I will look the other way for water so I have to do the same thing and c) I don't need that much soda, anyway.

So I've never done it, and I never would, but that's been my only minor temptation to anything untoward.
 
One of my peers played drinking games at work all the time. Things like, during your break...
"take a shot when ****'s ass hangs out"
"take a shot when a guest cusses out a TM"
"take a shot when somebody complains about the data breach" (she actually blacked out on this one...)

Thankfully she gave up on that. quit spot and found another job.
 
We had a cashier once that would have her friends come in and "purchase" items at her register. She would ring them up as paying cash and then just close the drawer. It didn't take long for our APTL to figure out where all drawer shortage was coming from.
 
Man, I can't tell you how many cashiers I've seen get fired over pocketing a $5 gift card. So many that while doing orientations I'd tell the newbies about it and tell them to just not try it because you WILL get caught.
Hardly worth losing a job over $5. What were they thinking??? lol
 
I had a team member who:
1) During his CA shifts, would take Starbuck drinks and Pepsi out of the cooler, consume them, then pay for them at the end of his shift. When I caught him doing it, he denied he was doing anything wrong because our TPS 'saw' him do it and never said anything to him. When I reminded him that it is still considered 'stealing' under policy and that if we had a visit from our floating APS and they saw him take a beverage, drink it, and not pay for it they would fire him. He didn't get it. When I brought the problem to my ETL-HR, she thought there was nothing wrong with it and just 'coach' him for it.

2) When asked to cover FA breaks/lunches, he would make up his own food and use the FA's speed ID to ring up the item. Again, I caught him doing it and took it to my ETL-HR... Again, she thought it just deserved a coaching.

3) Once he was trained on service desk, he was caught using the GSA's speed ID to ring up his own items and would discount him under "price match" override codes.... He was going to be put on CA for that stunt... but...

4) While cashiering during a rush, he had a guest purchase a large order with several gift cards. One of the gift cards had a remaining balance of $73. He gave the guest one of the empty ones and threw the one with the balance in the trash. Later, he went back to the lane and dug the GC out of the trash. He clocked out for lunch and took the GC back to electronics and put the money towards a new XBox One.

Couple hours later, the same guest went to another Target to pick up something we didn't have. When she went to buy the item, and discovered the card was empty, the gift card hotline was called... And eventually AP... And before he left our investigator came in and FINALLY termed him.

After he was termed, it was discovered that he was fired from Big Lots for a similar situation....


On #1, I don't think its a huge deal really. I mean yes he SHOULD pay for it first, but if hes being honest and still paying, I would say there is bigger fish to fry... Coaching is probably adequate for that kinda case.


As for my store, only seen/heard of one.. One of the Cart Attendants I trained at my old store would go on break and steal food, eventually it added up and law enforcement was called and he was walked out. I remember they scheduled both of us to close that night (so they planned it out for that night I'm sure), and when I asked why 2 of us were closing they were like "we had extra hours" lol. Hour later he was in handcuffs.
 
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We had a girl who managed to rack up over 35 thousand dollars in a very short time with fake returns to friends.
I'm not sure exactly how the scam worked exactly but it was slick enough that they didn't figure it out for a while.
The other one was really sad since it was a GSA who had been with the company for a long time and whose husband was very sick.
She worked in the cash room and started funneling money out.
I think she was pretty careful at first and had some sort of system but as time went by she got sloppy and got caught.
 
One time I was having low blood sugar and we used to keep the sodas in the backroom cooler. I treated myself to a cherry coke and of course it was flat! When I left for the evening, I brought the empty bottle up front and paid for it.
 
I think I'm gonna love this thread!

I posted about this in another thread, but here it is again, in all of its glory:

http://thescoopblog.dallasnews.com/...-for-lighter-shoots-himself-in-the-hand.html/

Basically, some genius with a concealed carry permit dropped their gun, the target TM picked it up, and thinking it was a lighter, instead of burning his hand, he shot himself.
could you imagine the guy whos gone that was? I mean theres not to many things that could be going through that guys head 1 of which is this guy is crazy as hell he just shot himself just because! Or option to would just be dying of laughter trying to get out an oh my god are you ok in between gasps lol
 
I had a team member who:
1) During his CA shifts, would take Starbuck drinks and Pepsi out of the cooler, consume them, then pay for them at the end of his shift. When I caught him doing it, he denied he was doing anything wrong because our TPS 'saw' him do it and never said anything to him. When I reminded him that it is still considered 'stealing' under policy and that if we had a visit from our floating APS and they saw him take a beverage, drink it, and not pay for it they would fire him. He didn't get it. When I brought the problem to my ETL-HR, she thought there was nothing wrong with it and just 'coach' him for it.

2) When asked to cover FA breaks/lunches, he would make up his own food and use the FA's speed ID to ring up the item. Again, I caught him doing it and took it to my ETL-HR... Again, she thought it just deserved a coaching.

3) Once he was trained on service desk, he was caught using the GSA's speed ID to ring up his own items and would discount him under "price match" override codes.... He was going to be put on CA for that stunt... but...

4) While cashiering during a rush, he had a guest purchase a large order with several gift cards. One of the gift cards had a remaining balance of $73. He gave the guest one of the empty ones and threw the one with the balance in the trash. Later, he went back to the lane and dug the GC out of the trash. He clocked out for lunch and took the GC back to electronics and put the money towards a new XBox One.

Couple hours later, the same guest went to another Target to pick up something we didn't have. When she went to buy the item, and discovered the card was empty, the gift card hotline was called... And eventually AP... And before he left our investigator came in and FINALLY termed him.

After he was termed, it was discovered that he was fired from Big Lots for a similar situation....


On #1, I don't think its a huge deal really. I mean yes he SHOULD pay for it first, but if hes being honest and still paying, I would say there is bigger fish to fry... Coaching is probably adequate for that kinda case.


As for my store, only seen/heard of one.. One of the Cart Attendants I trained at my old store would go on break and steal food, eventually it added up and law enforcement was called and he was walked out. I remember they scheduled both of us to close that night (so they planned it out for that night I'm sure), and when I asked why 2 of us were closing they were like "we had extra hours" lol. Hour later he was in handcuffs.

My big thing about it was that he didn't process that it was wrong. I coached him before I went to my ETL and the reason I went to her was because that he saw nothing wrong with it. I'm not gonna fire or CCA a guy for one $1.69 soda... But the fact that when I corrected him and told him not to do it again and he just came back with excuse, after excuse, after excuse is what redflagged me.

It's also worth mentioning that when I saw him hand the bottle to a cashier asking her to "remind him to pay for it" that he never went back to pay for it. I kept the bottle behind the service desk and waited for him to mention it... Wasn't until I reminded him before he clocked out that he suddenly 'remember it.'
 
We had a few cashiers who would take the free 5 dollar gift cards from guests when they were not looking and give them a blank one if they asked about a free gift card.
 
I just don't get it. Why oh why would you do something so stupid?! You have to know most places do background checks. Plus all the cameras all over. My ap sits there just waiting for someone to do something like that. We call him oz cause he sees all.
 
We had quite a few cashiers get fired for that. One was really good at his job - great at getting red cards and service plans. Was wanting training to work in other areas. He could've gone far with the company. But got walked out by police and ap. One of the other cashiers and I wanted to go to his house and shake him and say, "What were you thinking?" but we didn't know where he lived.
 
We had a TM who stole a phone out of another TM's locker. It was the second TM's first day, I felt bad for her. The guy was walked out in handcuffs.
 
A number of years ago we had a huge amount of theft from the backroom. If you were doing a pull, you would find empty packages and all sorts of stuff. And if you happened to walk back there, someone would make a bird whistle.

So the rest of us knew what was going on. We complained over and over, and were told "AP has bigger fish to fry".

That was just a cover. AP was indeed on it, gathering info.

So one night I walk into my store, see my LOD with a bunch of guys standing at one of the registers, and realized that it was a group of AP's. (I recognized one who had transferred).

Well, let's just say that things happened that night. As a matter of fact, for the next number of weeks we had to have support help from other stores to work the backroom...

Oh, and as far as the soda thing and not paying. When we were overnight, the execs would open up a lane for you to pay for food or drinks. But when we went to 4am, that stopped. So when I go to break at 6:30, I will grab a soda, and pay for it when the store is open and I go to lunch. And the only reason I do that is because I have been ripped off so many times by the damn vending machines in the breakroom. That has never been a problem, at least at my store
 
I notice a lot of team members do not lock their lockers and just leave purses or phones, or something... it is their own fault if it gets stolen... if the locker lets you pick a PIN just pick "1111" gosh.
 
The majority of our lockers either have dead batteries &, as a result, ripped up doors & latches. Our SFT got new doors to replace the jimmied ones but they didn't have locks on them. For every locker he replaced the batteries on, 4 more would die.
 
The majority of our lockers either have dead batteries &, as a result, ripped up doors & latches. Our SFT got new doors to replace the jimmied ones but they didn't have locks on them. For every locker he replaced the batteries on, 4 more would die.

We had an entire section of lockers get replaced a few years ago because they were so bad.
 
Going back some 7 years or so...

When I started and my store had overnight, I remember we had a truck unload, and all of logistics was scheduled, and the ETLs said there'd be food. Sure enough, Pizza, Drinks, Wings. But you could only eat on breaks.

My group was second to go on break, backroom team (Overnight) was first. I go in there on break and saw the food was not touched, as I was eating my ETL came in and asked me if I knew backroom.
Told him "nope." He told me that it was time to learn.

Yeah they arrested the entire overnight backroom team in a night. Like 8-12 people. Good catch by AP.


Recently our backroom TL was caught buying crap with coupons and returning it at another store (doing this would bug the system and the amount off on the coupon would be returned as cash). She did this for years and made some 6k over it.
 
Going back some 7 years or so...

When I started and my store had overnight, I remember we had a truck unload, and all of logistics was scheduled, and the ETLs said there'd be food. Sure enough, Pizza, Drinks, Wings. But you could only eat on breaks.

My group was second to go on break, backroom team (Overnight) was first. I go in there on break and saw the food was not touched, as I was eating my ETL came in and asked me if I knew backroom.
Told him "nope." He told me that it was time to learn.

Yeah they arrested the entire overnight backroom team in a night. Like 8-12 people. Good catch by AP.


Recently our backroom TL was caught buying crap with coupons and returning it at another store (doing this would bug the system and the amount off on the coupon would be returned as cash). She did this for years and made some 6k over it.
Good lord I would have loved to have been involved in that one. Nothing better than a good internal investigation.
 
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