Yesterday at work, one of my coworkers accidentialiy (it was on camera) gave away one pack of cigarettes more than the client paid for.
This mistake was mainly due to stress and high-paced tempo of work – manager checks on us periodically in order to ensure queue is not too long and if everything is clean etc. If something is below his standards, whole crew has to stay one or two hours after work in order to listen to his ,,motivational speech”, when he says he feeds us, and we have to work even harder if we want him to remember that next tim he pays us our salaries. You don't stay, you've got no job.
So for genuine mistake he had to pay out of his own pocket. When I told about it some of the people I know, they seem to agree with it, so I started to think maybe I'm in the wrong here? They said that if it wouldn't be enforced, then cashiers wouldn't be careful enough, perhaps would start giving away more things for free due to their carelesness (if that's a word).
All I can think about is how big of a company it is, how absurd amount of money owner earns, he has mansions, a lot of land, and still, out of the pennies that are being paid to his workers, every single penny is deducted from their pay if they make a mistake, and mistakes are bound to happen if you are expected to do three different things at once, and also do it all in a quickest way possibile.
A lot of people bring up the argument that it would enable workers to steal, however the way it currently works means that no one steals, because they would be punished financially by it, which means what remains are only genuine mistakes. So you are punishing those who don't steal, innocent. I believe it's better to let offender go than punish innocent.
Imagine that you own the company. You expect every worker to bring you 200$ in cash at the end of their shift. The agreement is that you pay them half of that, and the rest is yours. Now, one time the worker brings you 180$, you check what is the reason, and it turns out not to be the theft, but mistake – which, I repeat are bound to happen, human beings are not machines. Remember, that 100$ a day is all that worker has for a living, and you have a lot of workers to earn money from. What do you do, do you say ,,Okay man, 80$ is good enough, keep your 100$” or rather ,,I need my 100$, I guess it's not your lucky day, you earn only 80$”?
Pretty much everyone whom I told it all says I'm wrong, so I'm really not sure, maybe I really am. To me it just feels soulles.