TLDR: Long story about how a general manager tried to set me up for theft.
So the last time I worked fast food was a shit-show from start to finish. The place had an average 2 week turn over, they were constantly under staffed, and there was no security for the place after dark. We were open to 11p every night – even weekends – in an area known for high drugs, high robberies, and a huge homeless population.
The store owners owned many stores and had one general manager who worked all of them. As much as the store owners liked to claim to be hands on, they let the general manager do everything – except for 2x a week when the owners went from safe to safe and balanced the money out.
The first thing I noticed about the shit-show was half the employees were high-school drop outs. And they were using the store as a place to make connections for drugs. (Mostly pot.) First week there and two of them got into a territory fist fight. Both got fired – but only because customers reported the fist fight to corporate.
The very next day the general manager is talking to me about what I saw while she's counting down the store safe. I noticed she was storing money from the safe in her purse and asked about it. “Oh, that's my own money in the bottom. I put the store's money on top. I can always tell the difference because I use two rubber bands on the store's money and only one on my own.” At the end of the conversation with her, she had a conversation with another employee about going up to gamble that night.
A week later, when talking to the same employee, she laughed about how she'd accidentally forgotten to put the store's money in the bank and went gambling. She didn't realize until she reached into her purse and there was more money in it than she thought she should have. Funnily enough, that store manager was fired three weeks later for stealing money from the store safe and not depositing it into the bank.
When I heard that, I went right to the owners and told them they had a problem. That they fired the wrong person. And I told them the issue I had with the general manager's purse. They told me it wasn't a problem, they told her to do that because it was safer.
I told the owners I had problems with this. And I was promptly told it wasn't an issue. I know they told her because I heard about it from her husband. (He told me because he wanted to me to know that they talk and to 'keep your head on your shoulders, they all can get nasty.') He also told me how it pissed the general manager off. More, I started getting tons of crap from managers (of which I was not one.)
The general manager made the owners feel so guilty for questioning her, they bought her a car. It was supposed to be for company use, but she used it all the time. They even bought her a new high-end cell phone.
A week after all this I came in to a raise. That's right, a raise. It was made retroactive by the general manager by two months. And it came with increased duties. Okay, no problem. I accepted the raise, signed the paperwork for it. I handled the increased duties.
She started talking about making me a manager. I told her I did not want that stress. When she said she needed to switch me to another store, I said okay. I didn't argue with her a lot, kept my head down, and let things continue as they were. I had my own issues (diabetes started hitting me hard) and was struggling just to make it into work.
Over the next year I'd get a small pay raise every few months and a bigger amount of responsibility. I'd have to sign off on these. For the most part I was okay with it.
On a temporary switch to a store which had just experienced a mass walk-out, she told me about her corporate credit card. About how, if she went gambling and accidentally used a store's money, she'd pull money off the card, and put the missing money back in the store safe. Or in another store safe and just claim she was exhausted. She told me this in front of the hour's old brand new store manager of the walk-out store and her husband. I asked what the owners said when they checked the statements. “Oh, they don't get the statements. I had them locked out of the card and it automatically tops up every month back to fifty-five thousand dollars. Some months I've run it all the way down buying food and furniture.” She and her husband then spent an hour enumerating what they've bought on the corporate credit card. And, of course, she went gambling with it, too.
That brand new store manager? Was fired two days later for stealing from the store safe.
A few months later I noticed food missing. A lot of food missing. I told the general manager, she blamed it on someone she just fired. I got switched to another store. More food missing. The same food missing. This time I told the owners. Again, I got told it was not an issue. And the general manager, again, blamed it on someone else who just got fired.
I outright asked her if she was blaming people who got fired. She answered honestly, “I do because I can. They don't care anyways. They don't want to lose me. I'm doing the work of six people. And they know it.” She said this in front of an employee who just got made into a manager.
When she was gone I told the employee, “That woman will set you up. Watch your back.” The new manager told the general manager this. (Again, I know because the general manager's husband told me, and was laughing about how much trouble I was in.)
The next week I came in and there was a paper for me to sign – to confirm my next pay raise. I crossed out the paper and wrote, “Do not want, am not ready for more responsibility.” I got given more responsibility. I got given the pay raise. I got given the option of vacation days or cash instead of vacation days. I took the cash.
That new store manager? Fired for theft of food and twenty dollars from the till. I heard on the grapevine this manager was arrested and put in jail.
On what would have been my first day of vacation (if I'd gone on vacation) I got a called into work and then was grilled by the general manager asking me why I didn't call the police on a gang fight that happened out in the parking lot and damaged cars and other businesses. Also, why didn't I notify her and the store owners. I got told police detectives were looking for me. I asked her why I would call the police when the store I was at was mere blocks from the training academy and we had police in for most if not all of the weekend. I asked her for the detective's name and number. There wasn't one.
No surprise there.
Other employees got spooked and were quietly telling me she was pissed and trying to get me fired. I told them, “No, she's trying to set me up. Watch, you'll see.”
When the owners asked me for details on the gang fight, I gave them the names of the police who were in the shop at the time. Said if there had been a gang fight, we'd have had a lot more police in at the time getting food, as we're the only fast food joint open in that area on the weekends. Also told them, “No detective name nor contact number was left for a follow up. I sincerely doubt anyone actually came regarding the issue. You have a bigger problem on hand.” Again, the owners told me there were no issues. AND they warned me that I was gearing toward a write-up and a loss of my recent raise and position. I let it drop. I had bigger issues than fast food drama.
Over the next two weeks I was moved stores (again). And I was told I would be given the store key to the safe. I was handed a paper to sign off for the key and was told it came with yet another raise. I crossed out this paper as well and wrote “NO! I do NOT want! Will NOT touch the safe.” The general manager did not take the paper. I'm not even sure she looked at it. The store manager read it, shrugged, and filed it away. The next day the store manager came in and handed a key out to me. 'General Manger said it's yours.' I said, 'Drop it in the safe. I don't want it, I won't touch it. I told them this, and I refused to sign the paper.' I watched as she did so (though it honestly didn't matter if she did/didn't as the manager had to count out the safe an hour later anyways).
Going to pause here to note, each register drawer was counted at the beginning of the employee's shift and at the end of the employees shift – by the employee. It was also randomly per each shift counted by the assistant manager, and again when the manager came on duty, and whenever the general manager dropped in to get money to put her in bag or to go to the 'bank', and if the owners came in. They also liked to try and 'catch out' employees by calling on the phone and having another employee count out the drawer. I once had a four hour shift in which my drawer was counted nine – 9! – times. I'd never worked any place where they handled money this way, but I had a lot of friends in various fast food restaurants. I heard stories and any time someone started saying, “management is messing up the money,” everyone would get quiet. I noted these stories always ended in nasty business and it was usually the employees who got blamed.
So, I come into the store on the day I would have been returning from vacation (if I'd taken the vacation.) Both owners are there and someone I'd not ever seen before. They've got these fixed smiles in place. They're talking nicely to me, asking me how my day was going and on – which was already a heads up as they didn't tend to talk to the employees except to tell them to do something. I notice the guy has his hands on his hip. But he's standing behind a pony wall leading to the back and I can't actually see his hip. Movement outside and I see two police cars pulling up. Their lights are not flashing, but they've parked the cars oddly and nobody's come out of the vehicles.
The female owner tells me, “We need to talk to you about money missing from the safe. It's a lot of money and the store -“
“Why would I be in the safe? I don't have a key. I've never had the key to the safe here, or to any of the safes.”
“Erm . . . what? You signed the papers -“
“I did not sign the paper. I crossed it out.”
“You were given a raise.”
“Which has what to do with the key and signing the paper? The raises, by the way, I said I did not want.”
The guy with them said, “So let's be clear, you worked this weekend?”
“Yes.”
“But you did not open the safe?”
“Safe was not opened when I was here. But I'm sure you already reviewed the tapes for that.”
The other owner said, “Machine was down. It didn't record.”
“There's another place I don't have the key to.”
The guy tells them, “Can I talk to you outside?” When they pass by me I see he's got his hand on a gun. Not a tazer, not a baton. A gun. And on his other pocket he has a badge. The three of them talk to the police from the cars that are parked outside the store. Everybody's looking confused. The owner comes back in and asks again if I signed a paper for the key. He's confused at my answer. “But you took the key when it was given to you.”
“I never touched the key. You can call the manager that was here (manager name) and asked her what I told her to do with the key.” Which he did. He left to talk again to the police. Then he came back in and went through their paperwork. He pulled out the last forms I'd been given and took them to show the other owner and the police. Confusion.
I got a huge bonus on my next check. I got told I was given another raise. I was given the paperwork post-raise, which I crossed out and wrote, “Do NOT want!” The general manager was an utter bitch for the next month. As were the other managers and the other employees. I was getting calls and visits from employees from other fast food places in the same franchise telling me they were getting calls about me and what I was doing to the store. Ex employees were calling me telling me they were getting calls from people telling them about me. Not just ex employees – people who'd not worked there in a decade or so. Every time I'd asked them if they thought the stories were true, why I'd not been written up or fired.
I hit my limit with health (diabetes made it so I couldn't feel anything beneath the knees), and that translated to hitting my limit with the place. I came in one day to be told I'd left the store an absolute mess the night before and was yelled at for doing so by the general manager, the manager on duty, the owners, and two other employees. I'd actually stayed hours past shift to super clean the store to make sure it was clean. So not only was I super exhausted, but in pain and just at a point of not giving a crap. I hit my limit and I quit.
One of the employees who'd been on my case had opened that morning. I was supposed to close. There was nobody else available to work. And he was too scared to tell them he couldn't. He went from mocking me and telling me how I'd fucked the store up to begging me to stay. I told him no.
Just to piss them off, I sent the general manager and the owners individual 'thank you' cards. There's nothing like trying to set someone up for the money you've stolen and that person sending you what seems to be a heartfelt thank you.
I know it irked her as I ran into her husband some months later and he had a bunch to say about it. Mostly he laughed at how pissed his wife got. He thought it was great comedy.