Buckle up Ladies and gents because this is a long one with lots of context. On a throwaway because obviously.
I work(ed) at a store called 2nd & Charles. It's essentially a book store but it sells games, movies, posters, manga, vinyl, CDs, etc.
They also take in product (kinda like a thrift store) in which they scan the ISBN or SKU number of your old books and such and can give you some money for it. It's a nice hybrid of a pawn shop and a thrift store. They “buy” in customers old stuff for pennies and resell it for sometimes triple what the customer will get back.
Now, say someone wants to see what they can get for their iPad. We would take it in, go on ebay, see what sold versions of that model of iPad are going for, and price it according to that. This then creates a new SKU for the product. It's honestly a whole hassle to go through and the worst option to go if you wanted to make super cheap prices for yourself. Real smoothe brained mentality if you wanna go that route.
Anyways. The whole system is flooded with SKUs. Say I scan an ISBN for The Very Hungry Caterpillar into the system. The system will then search itself for that ISBN. It will then print you a sticker with the price the system has that item in as. The system isn't meant to keep up with price trends or specific markets.
With this in mind, let's move forward. I was hired as a buyback Associate. I would receive and evaluate product mostly. Recieving means that I literally just print out the stickers and put them on the product, Evaluating means that I scan the barcodes into the system to get a price for the customer. I was mainly a reciever.
Once an item reaches receiving, it has been priced and everything and just needs a sticker. That's important since I was heavily accused of “fixing” prices for myself, when I did not. The system is the one who gave me the prices that were already in it. I for one like to do things legally so this doesn't happen lol. I loved my job and I was good at it.
Anyways, there I am, going through a tote of ps1 games someone had dropped off. I notice our system priced a game at $64, which is fairly large amount for a ps1 game in our store. I purchase it. I look on ebay and realize it's going for waaaay more than $65.
Here's another example: I lurk in numerous film groups on Facebook and just gradually learn what's worth what through that via osmosis. A Scream Factory copy of Texas Chainsaw Massacre part 2 without the slipcover came in. I didn't evaluate this offer, I just found the product on the floor. The system priced it at $6. I knew it was worth more but if this is what the store is asking for it, hell yeah! So I bought it.
Now realizing that my roommate and I have to move soon and apartments are actually criminally expensive nowadays, I sold it. I realized that this is a good way to make some extra cash since I have the knowledge and work wouldn't give me the extra hours I was asking for and was in fact cutting my hours.
So I just start taking gambles on buying weirdly expensive things in our store to be able to pay some bills and build cushion so moving wouldn't be stressful. A month passes and life is looking up. I'm financially stable, have a job that I'm good at and where I am valued and appreciated.
I mention casually to a coworker (previously thought friend) and mention I sell stuff with my mom on her ebay store to help pay rent. The manager over hears and goes “our stuff?” to which I stupidly respond “some”. This was my smoothe brain moment for trusting coworkers and a “friendly” boss.
A week later I'm evaluating an order and get called into the office because corporate wanted to talk to me. They had found my moms ebay store and said that since I used my 30% discount on purchasing the items that I was stealing from the company. They kept trying to get me to admit to fixing the prices for myself when in fact, they're just out of date with what certain things are going for.
So I got suspended and forced to pay a fine. I get told that HR now has to do their investigation and that I will be able to talk to them about it on Monday. I then ask for a copy of the policy book to be shown where I was messing up (at the time of writing this they still haven't sent me the policy) because honestly, this at most is just a misunderstanding since I didnt know using my 30% discount was wrong. Sacrificing my job to use a discount isn't worth it and I can easily accept that. I would even keep receipts just to prove that I had purchased these items and NOT stolen them. I thought I was doing everything legal as fuck.
I keep bringing up the 30% discount because that's what they kept telling me was the issue. Because if I had bought them at full price I would just be a normal customer and they couldn't say I was doing anything wrong. What're they gonna do? Fine every customer that they find out was reselling some items they found at the store? They kept asking me to “think about the company” and “can you see the company's side”. Like, yeah, I can and it's greedy as fuck if this is what it's making a big deal out if. The fine I paid was totalled using the difference between the product's full price and what I paid for it. The corporate lady said that “once it's paid the company will be whole again.”
So Monday rolls around and I get a phone call that there won't be any meeting and that I'm just terminated. I asked for an HR number. Wouldn't give me one. Asked for a corporate number. Wouldn't give me one. I try to explain everything and they hang up on me.
This store is the most egregiously fake “we value our workers” I've ever seen. They suspended me on Easter weekend when we're already short staffed. That's not fair to those workers who did work. One even asked me to cover her shift! I was about to start completely overhauling our DVD section as well. Guess the fact that I sold one totally discredits all of my hard work ethic. There were night where it was me and a manager closing when it's a 5 person job in reality. One coworker hits on the minor coworkers and wanders around the floor his whole shift. Another one only prices video games and is your typical neckbeard gamer. He and his brother tell customers not to give us business. Everyone is on eggshells. I want to work because I'm valued there and they tell me as much.
But because I didn't disclose my dumb knowledge of scream factory variants to a manager, I get canned.
Corporate greed has ever been this transparent before. I knew people in power are schmucks but this is next level.
Guess if you virtue signal hard enough you can get away with anything. You can be in charge and work the easier shifts with your favorite people and make policies that are in fact just made for you.
Tl;dr I wanted to be able to afford living where I do so I could continue to work at my cool job. Sold a game a bought from there, to do so, and got fired because I used my 30% discount. Called it “Discount Fraud.” Fuck all the people in charge of things who don't have to worry about their job and get to determine if other people have one or not.