This one's old, but I just thought of it and cringed internally at the stupidity.
I was working at a sandwich franchise owned by this mid-50s couple. The woman was the only one I met because by this point their marriage only survived because neither wanted to split up the businesses in a divorce.
I had worked at a different location before, but under a different owner.
When I started, this location was sharing a store manager with another location and owner made her full time at the other location and expected me to just run things, without asking me. I was the only one over 18 and I had a food safety license and store manager experience, so she just decided I'd take over (at minimum wage!).
One day right after I started, owner comes in and says “[other location] needs change” and takes $60 in rolled coins out of our safe. Okay cool. I write up a slip that says “safe short $60, owed by [other location]” and go to put it in our change box. Owner says “no what are you doing?” And I tell her I don't want the closers to get confused when the safe count is short. She then starts talking really slowly and like I'm stupid and explains that the safe will even itself out from the money we make throughout the day.
At this point, in my head, I'm like: am I being punk'd? Am I actually dumb? What is this woman saying to me right now?
I ask her, if you can just randomly take money out of the safe and it will even itself out from sales (somehow without making sales calculations go off), why wouldn't people just constantly steal from the safe?
She said she didn't have time for this conversation, grabbed the coins, and left for the day. Whatever lady, your bookkeeping problem.
A few days later she comes back. She does a safe audit because “I just have a feeling, something feels off”. Safe is short $60. I made a drop the previous day for $35 so I must've pocketed that money instead of putting it in the safe. Where did the other $25 go? She has no idea but I was the one talking about people stealing from the safe so I obviously did it.
I laughed in her face, took my write up, and then worked there probably 6 more months because I hardly saw her after that. But when I left I took down all my licensing (which is required to be displayed in order to stay open) and called the health department on my way out the door.
Get wrecked, Kathy.