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AIBU?

AIBU to not cover up for my job share colleague over missing money - again !!

70 replies

allmycats · 29/01/2014 09:46

Once again my job share colleague has 'lost' the till float. She was working Friday/Saturday/Monday and says that the float money was intact Saturday morning and she 'put it away' on Saturday closing but when she went into work on the Monday morning it was 'gone'. She has come up with all sort of 'reasons' why it is 'missing'. She 'may have' got it mixed up with her own money when she went to buy something - yet there was nothing paid out during the 3 days she was working so there was no reason to take any money off the premises. She has checked her 'own money' and is now confident that she has 'not got it'. There was a person making an appointment on Saturday just before closing
and they 'may have' picked it up by accident - from out of the till ???.
She 'may have' accidentally put it in with the rubbish - we have tipped out the rubbish bags and it is not there. This is the 2nd time in 3 months that a sum of money has 'gone missing' on her shift and prior to that in September she had a 'theft of 3 pairs of designer sunglasses
by a couple that came into the shop, these sunglasses were kept in a locked cabinet and she says that 'she must have left it unlocked after some one tried a pair on,' she also went home from her work that day without telling anyone and then rang in when it was my shift to tell me this, she never reported it to the police or rang the boss. She has worked here for 19 years and is a personal friend of the boss (boss is very afraid of confrontation). She (work colleague) has said to me that as I am a former accountant, I should be able to 'fudge the figures' to cover this missing money and, I do not want to do this. I want no part in this situation

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DidoTheDodo · 29/01/2014 09:48

Absolutely right not to fudge anything. It is completely unfair and irresponsible of your colleague to even suggest such a thing and it does sound dodgy.

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nancy75 · 29/01/2014 09:49

email your boss and tell her - make sure she knows it's not you.

Your colleague is either the worlds stupidest person or a thief - either way I wouldn't want her working for me

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Charlesroi · 29/01/2014 09:53

YANBU to cover for your accident prone coleague (just tel her it can't be done). Obviousy you shoud cover your back as much as posible, so that none of these accidents appear to have happened on your shift.

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MissMilbanke · 29/01/2014 09:53

You need to protect yourself.

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ephemeralfairy · 29/01/2014 09:55

Absolutely you should not 'fudge' anything; I have worked in places where people have been sacked for less.
Yes, I would let your boss know ASAP so you are not implicated in any way (quite frankly, if your boss is afraid of confrontation then she/he should not be in a management position).
It sounds like a complete mess, but you need to protect your own interests.

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Poledra · 29/01/2014 09:55

DO not get involved in fudging the figures! Tell the boss, let them sort it out, it's their job.

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maras2 · 29/01/2014 09:55

Nancy.More than likely she's a stupid thief.Tell your manager OP and cover yourself.

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whiteblossom · 29/01/2014 09:55

I think you need to stay well out of this, make sure your own back is covered, anything she leaves until your shift you report to your boss in the normal. Makes notes with dates. Sounds as if this girl could set you up for it being the bosses friend, you get fired and the theft stops, until a new girl comes along....

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tiggytape · 29/01/2014 09:58

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

senua · 29/01/2014 10:05

Seriously?Shock
Get drawn into this and she can blackmail you forever with threats of outing your part in this deceit. Perhaps she already has this hold over the manager.

Stay squeaky clean. Keep a note of everything.

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Chippednailvarnish · 29/01/2014 10:23

She's trying to make you complicit in her fraud, email your manager and stay away from her. Email all opening and closing till balances each day as well...

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allmycats · 29/01/2014 10:23

My own back is covered at the moment, every night when I cash up I leave a note in the till of the figures (although this often 'goes missing'
and , as from today I am writing it in ink in the daily diary, and the last day that I worked - the Thursday it was the boss herself who cashed up so she is fully aware that everything was fine when I left. I am not going to 'fudge' anything - when I think back there has been money 'going missing' and 'appearing again' for quite some time. At the back of my mind I think the boss knows what is happening and is ignoring it.

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MomsStiffler · 29/01/2014 10:25

Nobody gets sacked for making a mistake, but they do get sacked for trying to hide them.

Tell her you can't do it & tell your boss - otherwise you may find that you'll get stitched up....

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pinkyredrose · 29/01/2014 10:36

Op do you have a camera phone? Take a pic every night of the note so you have proof on you at all times as well as writing it in the diary.

Do the premises have cameras?

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ShadowFall · 29/01/2014 10:38

No no no.

If you get caught fudging the books (or if "careless" colleague lets slip that you've done so), then it would make you look like a thief. You could get into serious trouble if you went along with this.

I'd also make sure your boss knows about these incidents so you can't be blamed for them later.

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SparklyTwinkleGlitter · 29/01/2014 10:39

Agree with Whiteblossom on this.

She may have form for this sort of thing with previous colleagues. Is you Boss the manager or owner of the business? Either way, they're doing a poor job.

If it was me, I'd tell your colleague that the next time money goes missing, I will be informing the police as well as the boss. It's not on and asking you to 'cover it up' shouts 'guilty as sin' to me.

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WilsonFrickett · 29/01/2014 10:41

You need to protect yourself both against this colleague and the ineffectual boss, so that means putting what you've told us in writing, and from your own email account or similar, so you have a record of what has been said.

At some point there is going to blow up all over the place and your boss is going to take at least some of the flack from their boss - you need to make sure none of it falls on you.

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ICanSeeTheSeaFromHere · 29/01/2014 10:44

Do you work for an independent optician or a chain? If independent email the owner/boss for your own peace of mind.

If a chain email your own boss and CC in your area manager and head office.

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Electryone · 29/01/2014 10:48

Its looking like she is using the float as her own personal loan money and sometimes replacing it, sometimes not. IM surprised your Boss is letting this go on. But yes of course don't get involved as it would be logical for her to blame you!

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Chippednailvarnish · 29/01/2014 11:04

Please start emailing the balance...

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LIZS · 29/01/2014 11:12

There should be controls in place such that float cannot get mixed up with personal money. When I worked in retail it was a disciplinary offence to have personal money with you on the shop floor. Perhaps you can have a system introduced to record the float at the beginning and end of each day although I guess that may not stop her making a "mistake" on the evening before your shift.

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allmycats · 29/01/2014 11:16

the boss is also the owner, she now knows that this amount is missing and she knows when it went missing - she (boss) is just saying that 'she feels sure it will turn up somewhere'
i am doing all I can to cover my own back, and from today, i am also writing the closing/opening balances into our stock book, which is a duplicate book as well as in the daily diary

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Topaz25 · 29/01/2014 11:16

She said she may have got the float mixed up with her own money and she asked you to fudge the figures?! That sounds very suspicious, put it in writing to your boss to get it on record. You don't owe your colleague anything, don't get involved in any way in covering up her 'mistake' don't even discuss it with her any further. At best she is innocent but incompetent, at worst she's a thief, don't let her drag you down with her.

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thebestnameshavegone · 29/01/2014 11:19

absolutely DO NOT cover for her in any way. we had a thieving member of staff at the shop I used to work in.

the situation was a bit complicated but basically me and him were the 2 people (out of about 30) who regularly used a portable card payment machine. it turned out that for years someone had been using the card machine to process illegal refunds i.e. they were just putting money on their own card. because of shitty accounts procedures this wasn't noticed (which is a whole different fuck up). I think by the time it was discovered, about £60,000 had gone and the other guy had left the company and left the country.

obviously because I had the card machine a lot of the time, I had to go through a full investigation, although thankfully my bosses didn't really suspect me and were pretty sure that it was the other person.

and I felt like a total mug because I had been giving him the card machine and had seen all the refunds on the z-reads. but he had given me a totally plausible explanation which I had believed (he worked in a different area of the business and I wasn't familiar with his procedures).

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allmycats · 29/01/2014 11:20

LIZS - I ALWAYS reconcile the float at the start and end of each of my working days, bag the money up and leave the reconciliation slip in the bag. From now on I am also writing it in the duplicate stock book and the hard back bound diary, so if any pages are torn out we will know.
She regularly starts a 'new cash slip' and destroys the old one, although we are supposed to staple the old one to the new one and she often 'messes up' the till roll.

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