to not expect my boss to be stealing

[mrsgoose]

Hi, got a bit of a moral dilemna and you all seem a pretty useful bunch, so I thought I would ask you what I should do.
I've worked in a small pharmacy for the last 4 years and have always had a good working relationship with the pharmacist/manager. However for the last few months I've been noticing him stealing. We have a very basic cash till and he does this thing where he pretends to ring something in, then pushes the cancel button. Mid-afternoon he takes all the notes out of the till for 'security reasons' but I've seen him put some money in another envelope in the bottom of his draw. The till always balances at the end of the day but by my calculations he's skimming about £300 a week, more than I earn. The owner is a really lovely olg guy, but totally trusting and I don't know if he would believe me even if I did say something. We have a security camera pointing straight at the till but no-one ever checks it. Neither of the other two girls I work with seem to have noticed anything.
I keep trying to make hints about how observant I am in a bid to stop him but its going over his head. I'd feel a bit sorry for him if he was skint but he's always boasting of some expensive thing he's just bought. What should I do??

It's very easy to do it - in terms of stock "going missing" - I wouldn't be able to tell if i've got stock missing from one week to the next - and i've got EPOS... sometimes I'll scan something when the system isn' up and running, or I'll get an internet order and not scan it out.
So easy for bits and bobs not to be accounted for (until stock take).

And taking a customer's money but not ringing it through the till is sooo very easy to do - most tills have a cancel transaction function.

Tell the owner, mrsgoose it's not worth the risk of being implicated yourself.

readywiththewellies are you seriously suggesting OP doesn't tell the owner because the manager has been good in other ways and his replacement might be worse?

Another vote for telling the owner. Can you get hold of his telephone number to contact him independently. He could then monitor the security camera - particularly if you can tip him off of the time/date of the instances. I would also suggest keeping a record of instances going forward from now.

And stop hinting to the owner that you're on to him.

He might have turned the shop around but that doesn't justify him stealing.

yes, Mardy's right - if you keep hinting you know, he might stop for a while, and then you would be left with no evidence.

nickel - I usually am!

Oh dear, yes do tell the owner - as you've said, he's lovely and doesn't deserve this. Phone him (not email) outside of work, say you have something difficult you need to discuss with him in private and not at the shop, go see him.

Tell him it's very difficult for you to say this and you wouldn't unless you were 100% sure. Tell him that you've waited to say something until you could be sure, as you've always got on well with the manager and didn't want to make a mistake.

But do tell him asap! If he is a nice guy, he'll understand and he'll know you're not being nasty. Also, he can check the CCTV himself and see that you're telling the truth.

Good luck!

I understand your worry about shoot the messenger but I think the owner needs to know. The good things this pharmacist/manager has done does not excuse stealing. He is breaking the law and the GPhC code of ethics.

Good luck and let us know how you get on.

Thanks everyone, gonna pluck up the courage and do it x

The till tallies because he is cancelling transactions, i.e someone comes in and buys something it goes through the till, then he goes to the till and cancels it and takes the money for that sale.

A stock take would show up what has not been paid for it cost around £700 for a stock audit and takes a whole day. This would highlight stock that has gone missing and not paid for.

The till rolls should show the cancelled transactions which would then show where the missing stock has gone i.e sold but money removed/cancelled.

Good luck. Let us know how you get on.

A pharmacist is a position of responsibility ( I know as I work in the profession). The pharmacist has to abide by a code of ethics for his registration and to be doing this not only infringes criminal and moral obligations it is also his professional responsibility to be honest. It is imperative that this is reported as if he is dishonest in this way. you have no way of telling what else he is upto! i.e. he supplies medical treatments to patients he could be doing all sorts.

If you believe this is happening you MUST report it!

Yep you definately need to tell the old man. The manager is disgusting!

are you in a union? (if not, why on earth not?!) They would help you with this. perhaps you could join quickly before the issue blows up.

Can't you go directly to the police?

Then when they investigate it its not known to the o employees who made tcomplaint but the police will obviously know its you?

Boo - yeah I am. It is called self preservation. It is not the OPs job to keep the shop secure from theft. The owner should be doing this and if the manager is stealing, the shop is sustaining the theft as it has not gone bankrupt and is doing better than before the manager arrived. Seems fishy to me. It is quite possible that the manager and the owner have a deal to avoid tax or something and he is fully aware of the situation. OP have you considered this?

The worse thing that could happen is that OP could uncover a scam they have going and get sacked.

The best thing that can happen is that the manager gets sacked and the owner is grateful. Wow! Gratitute will get you nowhere. Meanwhile, OPs job gets harder while a new manager is trained (not a chain, so no other staff available) and the new manager may be far worse.

All I am saying is that yes, morally you should tell the owner. But what is in it for you versus what you stand to lose? For me, you can lose a lot more than you can gain.

or the worst thing that could happen is the business can't sustain the loss and teh owner asks the manager to sack someone. the manager, realising that OP is onto him, chooses her and she is now unemployed.

how is that self preservation?

You need to take the owner off site, say you have a sensitive issue you need to discuss with him. Could you arrange to meet the owner elsewhere at lunchtime prior to him visiting the store?

due to the nature of the stock control system being so basic and him not ringing the sales in, short of a lightning stock check, where ANYONE could end up with the finger being pointed at them, this guy has only a few options. covert CCTV surveillance being one of them.

If OP gets sacked, then she can sue for wrongful dismissal and if tax evasion is involved call the authorities and they will be fined, possibly even prosecuted/jailed.

Doing nothing is not an option, she could end up losing her job by implication or allowing it to knowingly continue.

readywithwellies has a valid point, as exactly the situation she outlines happened to my mum.

She discovered a fiddle by the depot manager, collected evidence, gave it to the area manager, she was then sacked by the area manager, though the depot manager was later sacked as they knew she was right.

This was a few years ago, though not much has changed IMO.

Personally, I would just look for another job as this is not going to end well.

Also, stock discrepancies could be put down to shoplifting.

This kind of fraud is very difficult to prove conclusively unless the culprit is caught red handed.

Is it possible that the manager and owner are collaborating on a fraud to reduce tax liability?

Unfortunately my brother became aware of an almost identical scam in the restaurant where he worked. The manager was cancelling the food part of the order once the customer had paid (cash customers only) so he was pocketing the difference. Brother reported his findings, which were backed up by the discrepency in the computerised orders going to the kitchen but not matching the amount of people actually eating in the resuarant as opposed to the 'large' number of customers who appeared to have sat for three hours in a Michelin starred restaurant and only had wine, spirits and coffees but had eaten nothing! Over a nine month period my brother reckons the manager pocketed £25,000 and he even stole the waiters tips from the tip tin which was was supposed to be distributed to the min. wage workers at the end of each month.

My brother reported his findings in a well written letter to the owners and the manager was sacked. However within two months my brother found himself frozen out and eventually was told he wasn't up to scratch (although he had previously been told he was doing a fantastic job and had got two pay rises in a year) and was quickly got rid of. Three of the other waiters who worked with him walked out of the restaurant when they heard that my DB had been sacked as they adored him and had also seen what the manager had been up to. The fine diners had a couple of weeks of really crap service after that as there was nobody working there to serve them!

I find it unbelievable that the messenger gets shot in most cases. It really does depress me although my lovely brother says he would do the same again because if everyone had their hand in the till then where does it all end?

Sorry, in light of the above, I cannot say what you should do but have genuine sympathy for the situation you find yourself in.

ILoveit - the shop is sustaining it, the OP said the shop is doing better since the manager came.

I smell scam and I would rather get made redundant than be sacked.