I was hired as a seasonal employee 2 months ago and was suspended from work today. Reason: coupons.
I was told to repost this here for some advice. I gotta add some other context that 1. I'm not someone who does well under pressure from social anxiety (it used to be debilitating, but now I'm fine in most situations except these), and 2. I do make some spectualtions near the end, but I do have reasons for my conclusions from evidence and/or situations I probably have left out to avoid being recognized by old coworkers.
Back when I started, I was clear this was going to be a short-term job for me between semesters at college. This is where it all started, I think. The manager switched my status to part-time and gave me maximum hours every day of the week. I literally worked 8 hour shifts every single day. I have another job, and I expected them to be a bit more fluid with me for my scheduling as they said they could be when I was initially hired since I already had another job. What I never understood was them calling me into work on my only off day of the week while hiring new people almost every day I was there.
I met this girl my age (21), and I assumed she was a regular associate like myself, and nobody told me otherwise the entire 2 months I worked there that she was cashier lead who had been working there for 3 years. We spoke briefly a few times, and I thought things were going okay since the other salespeople and I would joke and laugh with each other. One day, I noticed everyone's attitude towards me flipped, and they were talking about me around corners and giving me the cold shoulder. Nobody would listen to me if I would say things like “this register needs the IT guy so GM put a “Do not use” sticker on it and she would make me use it anyways and get yelled at by a customer for not being able to give a receipt. She also tried to discourage me from the university I just got accepted into saying I was probably going to fail and struggle, etc. She had it out for me for some reason. I'm rather reserved personality wise, so I didn't share much about myself often, so I wondered if people there got the wrong impression of me occasionally.
I worked black Friday, and a lady who obviously stole an entire apartment building's worth of coupon books came in and made my life hell with them. (First customer of the day, too). She ended up not using all of them and said, “You all can use what you need” to the rest of the people in line. I didn't say anything because that cashier lead was finishing up the transaction for me since I had stepped away to cool my head for a few minutes. The ladies next in line used a few and said I should hold onto the rest, essentially putting them in my hands and giving me them. I held onto them in my apron because the lime was busy, and I forgot about them. (I had only worked there for 2 weeks at that point, and I never spoke to anyone or had seen anything in training videos about being given coupons from customers at this point for context) I noticed a little girl trying to buy something with her own money, and she didn't have enough, so I gave her a freebie. Then another lady didn't have enough, so I gave her one too. I kept about 5 good freebies in my pocket and asked a manager at the end of my shift about them giving me a few free full-size product coupons, and she says, “Wow! Yeah, I get some sometimes, too. That's super nice of them to give them to give them to ya!”. So I never asked again about the coupons, thinking if they were forgotten or unwanted, you could just use them. (I also didn't see anything about them in my associate handbook either to clarify.)
Well, apparently, that aforementioned cashier lead reported me as “stealing and abusing coupons” to the anonymous tip line to HR that day that I mentioned them to the manager. I talked about coupons here or there with a few other associates and some admitted to pocketing forgotten ones too saying “just keep it” in response to a few laying on the floor after a few hours of abandonment.
So today, after I clocked in, I was called to the back room to talk to an investigator for manually inputting too many coupons. They accused me of stealing thousands of dollars worth of effing coupons. I said I used about 5, maybe in the totality of me being there and that I didn't know as it wasn't made clear that you weren't allowed to do that. I said I've worked retail before, and some places don't have as strict of rules regarding things like that. Other associates will agree that some customers come in with torn coupons that are unscannable and need to be put in manually to use (very common occurrence) and including black friday in which coupons were meant to be combinable that day only, there were unfortunately a lot of manual inputs on my part, especiallywhen the computers shut down multiple times and coupons were lost if you were stuck on the payment window. Anyways, after an extremely long and pointless monolog from the investigator (who said I wasn't allowed to ask him questions btw), said that I could either pay back the amount of given away and used coupons or resign. If you're ever given this choice, btw, choose to pay it back. If you choose to resign, they can escalate the claims to court, and it'll get expensive (thank you legal TV from my middle school days). I knew I made an honest mistake a handful of times and genuinely was unaware (I mean a manager encouraged me taking them when I asked about it?), so I asked what the amount of damages was so I could just pay it and dust my hands. He calculated the amount I said I used (5 coupons total) at around $80 or so. I said I could pay it today and just never make that mistake again. He says that I'll have to sign this and that to verify that I agreed to make the payments and that someone will eventually contact me about the investigation.
I did ask in case any other associates run into this problem: give all forgotten and unwanted coupons to the manager on duty. That's what investigator P said you should do. I wish they would've just said that, then I wouldn't have to be out $80 for something so menial. Also, as an FYI, the company says they can see the name, email, phone number, and address of every single coupon passing through the door and scanners. So, even if your mom gave you a few free coupons, it'll still be considered theft as an associate. Noted. The entire experience with the workplace bullying, cliques, and accusations made the work experience a 3/10 experience. Wouldn't recommend, tbh. It's good for something temporary, but even the AS discount isn't worth all of this.
Has anyone else ever experienced something like this before when working at a retail store? Or maybe they were given a fair warning about coupons when being trained on cashier?