It's been nearly a year since I was fired from my previous job. I had been there two years if that mattered. I was called into loss prevention because I admitted to a coworker I had eaten a smore from a box of merchandise the park was planning on selling to guests. The guy whose job it was to unload these boxes heard me and reported me. So at the end of my shift the next day a supervisor walks me over to loss prevention and I know I'm in deep shit for it. I'm nervous because I had no clue what they were going to do to me.
They immediately recognize I look nervous and start to take advantage of that. First, they explain to me what loss prevention is and what they do and ask me “if I'd like someone to sit in on this meeting” but neglected to tell me that that person was my union representative. I was embarrassed by my actions and didn't want anyone to know, so I said no. They then butter me up by sighting a study that the company did a few years ago asking if employees had ever stolen anything from work, in which 80% of employees admitted they had. They told me they didn't fire a single employee who answered like that, instead they “coached them” to have better work behavior. They tell me if I cooperate that the outcome “will likely be good for me”. I tell them the truth, that I had eaten the smore from the box of literally hundreds that they were planning on selling. They said that I had “stolen money from the company” by doing this.
I then am asked to provide a written statement and read it into an audio recording so they can use it as “evidence” to decide my outcome. I fess up to what I did and even suck the company's dick because despite making only a dollar above minimum wage I really loved what I did. I told them that operating rides has really grown my appreciation for the theme park industry and I had really become a coaster nerd because of working at their park. They tell me to call my mother and tell her the situation since I was still a minor. The lady from loss prevention has the audacity to make me complete a performance exam for her to submit to her boss to make sure she's being “professional.” Then she forces me to pay the 10 dollars out of pocket for eating the more just so I'm allowed to leave. I comply with all her demands just hoping to keep my job. She says I will hear back in “no more then a week”.
When I get home I'm in a ton of trouble for stealing. I'm grounded. And 2 weeks go by and they call me and tell me I'm fired. I must return my uniform immediately and I can't come back to the park as a guest for 60 days. that's it. After 2 years of working there through the school year, putting in countless 40+ hour weeks over 2 summers, was the only teenage team member who knew how to do the ride start-up process and all of the safety checks on the rollercoaster in our section (it was the supervisor's job to do that every morning but I ended up doing it 2-3 times a week), and I would even stay an hour later than my scheduled shift end time when they asked me to despite not even being able to drive myself home. I was the only teenage team member in my ride section who put in that much work. They didn't care that I was a good employee and really loved what I did there. They fired me with an 11-second phone call. I didn't think I was going to get fired because I had done basically nothing and one of my coworkers was Sexually harrassed by another coworker who still kept his job. I can't believe they fired me over 10 dollars but harbored a guy who should be in jail.
The worst part is she knew what she was doing the entire time. We have a colored nametag system at this company and mine was orange, meaning I was between the ages of 16-17. She clearly knew she was dealing with a young kid who she could trick into admitting guilt and denying his own union representation. They had no intention of letting me keep my job that entire time. I admit what I did was definitely wrong and I deserved to get fired, but I don't like the way they tricked me into cooperating with them. My mom and I tried to call HR after this to rip into them for how the whole process worked but they denied wrongdoing and told my mom the name and number of their supervisor who would deal with us. That supervisor never picked up the phone or returned our calls.
I hate how I still patronize this theme park because I love the rides there, but as a fuck you to the company I kept the uniform. I now have a new job (that also has some shitty business practices) but at least the boss there is nice to me and compliments my work ethic, which is all I can really ask for.