This was brought to mind by that post about stolen pizzas. I was going to put it in a comment, but it ended up longer than anticipated. Go figure.
Back in the mid-'00s i worked at this… difficult to describe store. Think “larger dollar store trying to be a pissant walmart that doesn't sell food” and you're on the right track. We essentially sold knickknacks, books, movies, pop culture clothing, random bullshit, you get the idea. That year the company had good profits, so as Christmas gifts they were giving us $100 gift cards and a “mystery gift.” Yeah, $100 gift cards aren't shit on the millions they made, but that would've been grocery money to my broke college student ass. The mystery gift? Never found out what the hell it was. See, when we came in for the day the boxes were all stacked on a table in the break room with envelopes tucked under the ribbons and a note that said we'd open them after closing. It being a Sunday we only had the one shift from 8-6. So we went about the day and after closing up we go to the break room aaaand they're gone. Our store manager acts all surprised that they're missing and had no idea how someone could've walked off with them!
We're understandably pissed, so the next day she “looks at the cameras,” but wouldn't you know it, they must've gone out the fire door where the cameras just so happened to not be working that day. The fire door that should've set off the fire alarm unless it was deactivated with a key that only she and the assistant manager (who wasn't there that day) had, and that let out of the break room that connected directly to her office where she spent most of the day and so should've seen someone walking out with a tower of boxes. Pretty sure the green skin, janky santa outfit, and little dog with reindeer antlers would've been a dead giveaway. Granted, I'm sure the mystery gift was some shitty $2 watch or something equally asinine, but for fuck's sake. They were there when we rotated through our lunches, after that who knows? I probably couldn't prove it in court, but it doesn't take Phoenix Wright to put this case together. On top of that, just before Black Friday she had been bragging about getting a $2500 bonus for the year. So y'know, have some salt in that wound.
I wish I could say we all quit on the spot, but no. We all kinda saw it as part and parcel of working with that unmitigated pain in the ass. None of this was surprising. Disappointing? Yes. Infuriating? Oh most definitely. Yet not a surprise to be seen except at the brazenness. We did, however, trickle out over the course of a few months, during which metrics took a nosedive. I'm pretty sure there was a stretch of like two weeks where not a single person sold a single discount card when we were expected to sell several a day. Eventually I got another job lined up and put in my two weeks. That two weeks turned out to be ten days because she started firing people for “underperformance” or somesuch when they put in notice. By the time I saw the last of that hellhole in March there were three people left who had worked there at Christmas. Out of eighteen.
Carmella, if by some miracle you're reading this, as sincerely as I have ever said these words and from the absolute bottom of my heart: fuck you. The years haven't faded my utter and complete disdain for you, you half-assed excuse for a human.