To think that Birds the bakers were right to sack their employee?

[Sootikinstew]

Employee of something like 25years accepting cash from pensioners and paying for shopping on her own card.

Now I know it likely came from a good place and she was trying to be kind and helpful. But AIBU to think Birds were right to sack her. This scenario opens up her and Birds to all sorts of accusations and would surely come under fraud or money laundering rules?

@mathanxiety yes and these attitudes stayed around a long time. My mother went to teacher training college in the early 1970s and received a reduced grant as she was married six had a husband to support her.

@heartsonacake

Some things are more important than petty fogging rules.

Laundrywoman It’s not a “petty” rule, it’s cash mishandling which is serious gross misconduct.

It may be deemed so in the corporate world but to your average Common sensed Shopper just wanting to buy some bakery goods it's ridiculous.

100 years from now whos going to be on the right side of history.......Birds or their ex employee.

100 years from now, hard folding cash will long forgotten, credit / debit cards will have gone the way of the C90 cassette.

People will have a micro chip containing everything, accounts, passport, driving licence (if it's still a thing). Nobody will be able to do anything without their chip.
So less fraud, less opportunity to steal, 80 and 90 year olds will have no choice but move with the times.

The woman will be long forgotten but Birds will still be right as employers need to be able to trust their staff, and like any relationship once trust is gone it's gone.

As lovely and kind as she was being, she was also putting the company in the firing line. I might do this as a one off, or for a friend, but not for every customer.

All it would have taken was one person to accuse her of theft from a customer or of taking advantage and taken too much money from their gran and she would have been in even more trouble.

I work in a supermarket, I am allowed to carry my debit card to purchase food/drinks on my breaks but I am not allowed to carry cash on the shop floor. This is because, as a checkout operator, if I have £5 in my pocket and am accused of short changing someone £5 then I cannot prove that the £5 in my pocket is my money and I put myself in the frame for theft. If, however, I carry no cash as standard, then if someone is missing £5 then I can easily prove I have not stolen it as I will have no cash on me.

Additionally, unless the customers were all paying with exact change then the woman was profiting from this arrangement which is another big no no in retail. Unless the purse was empty at the start of her shift, was counted and balanced against receipts of transactions she had "covered" then she could not prove that she didnt profit from all the change she didnt/couldn't give out due to not touching the money once it is in the purse.

All it would take is 10 people to give her £2 for a £1.90 cake and she has profited £1 - whether intentional or otherwise. Times that by all of the transactions where people rounded up 99p to £1
£1.39 to £1.50; £3.78 to £3.80 or even £4 etc and it can rack up to a significant sum, especially when you're on low wages like most retail staff are. Where I work that would be a breach of our rules on bribery and ethics which is classed as gross misconduct and could easily see you fired, and rightfully so.

melj1213 I never thought about it as she could be profiting by essentially 'keeping the change'. I assumed she was talking bull by saying she never touched the money.

Either way isn't right, many people would not be comfortable taking change out her purse either. You know the rules / etiquette / manners you don't go into someone else's purse or bag for that matter.

@Rosiesma

I really hope people now realise where an employee using their common sense actually gets them. And no one agreeing with the decision ever complains that a shop assistant hasn't used their common sense but stuck to the rules and it's meant they can't get something they wanted.

What other parts of a companies Health and Safety rules would you be happy with the manager of a bakery to ignore?

@melj1213 I completely agree with you. All those old people supposedly unable to use anything but cash... yeah, they all dropped the right money into her purse, and she didn’t carry a float to give out change

My cousin lives in this village (well, small town really). She told me there’s a Co-op on the other side of the road, not 100m away. Who take cash. So all the over blown nonsense about feeding the elderly is just emotive crap. No-one was going to starve.

I’m sure the other staff there would love the inevitable, “but why won’t you take my cash? Susie did yesterday?” stuff they’d get. Which will either annoy customers, or if they genuinely were so likely to be confused and upset about no-cash, just upset them even more.

I never thought about it as she could be profiting by essentially 'keeping the change'. I assumed she was talking bull by saying she never touched the money.

Yep, most companies also have a policy for anyone who says "keep the change" - they might not say to customers "we arent allowed to keep it" but everywhere I have ever worked have set policies with what to do with the money and do not allow the individual servers to personally keep the money.

Where I work any "keep the change" money goes into a charity bucket right next to the till. Other places use it as a "take a penny/leave a penny" fund, others will have a tip jar to be shared by all colleagues, others will have a specific spot to put it in the till and then it is used for the company's community fund etc, but if it is accepted then it needs to be accounted for.

I work on the customer service desk and cigarette kiosk, occasionally if someone says keep the change and it's a few coppers I will leave it on the top of my till (in view of the cameras) for a little while for the times you get someone who is 2p short or wants to pay their £2.01 transaction with £20 and I'm short on change, or they just needs a penny because they havent scratched off the claim code for their scratchcards (we arent supposed to do it for them) then I will give them one of the 1/2ps on the top of the till, but at the end of the night if the coins are still there then they go into the charity box.

I’m sure the other staff there would love the inevitable, “but why won’t you take my cash? Susie did yesterday?” stuff they’d get. Which will either annoy customers, or if they genuinely were so likely to be confused and upset about no-cash, just upset them even more.

Yep this also happens a lot. I work on customer services and there are set policies for returns/exchanges/refunds etc. We are allowed to use our discretion to fudge the rules if necessary or it is an exceptional situation but we are expected to follow the policies for 99% of transactions.

"I'm sorry, I cannot do X, the policy is ABC,"
"Well they did it for me last time! This is appalling!"
"Well they should not have. The previous person broke policy and I am not going to do that. If you would like to speak to a manager, they can make that decision but I cannot."

I have this conversation daily. Some customers are obnoxious and will just try it on to get their own way if they have been told no about something (as soon as you ask for the "previous person's" name etc so they can be reported for breaking policy they usually start backtracking) but others are angry that they arent being allowed to do something because they have never been told it is against policy. The fact that X colleague has been making an exception for them just means they think that the exception is the policy and are confused and angry when they are told it isn't.

Ridiculous decision by the management. I hope the employee takes them to a tribunal for wrongful dismissal.

I’ve not come across a single food shop that’s refused to handle cash, so they’re not doing this from any legitimate health point of view.

She was giving them a receipt.

She didn't miss lying for anything.

She actually made the company money.

The cynical side of me says this is more about her being 60 and not showing signs of retiring than her actions.

Thing is I worry that their actions will cause business to drop. I wouldn't go to a panacea again after what they did.

She was giving them a receipt.

For what was put through the till, how can she prove what money the customer actually gave her and what she charged for? She could quite easily have taken the cash for 2 loaves, given the customer 2 loaves and only charged herself for one, pocketing the difference - even if this never happened, all it would take is one accusation and she would have no way to prove she wasnt a thief.

She didn't miss lying for anything.

She lied to customers and the company. She knew the company policy was no cash. She wilfully set up a system to circumvent that and clearly did not tell her managers as she knew it was against the policy, therefore it was wilful deception of the company.

She actually made the company money

She also opened them up to liability for circumventing the rules. She also potentially made herself money which in most companies would go against the code of business ethics. She also opened herself up to accusations of theft and committed gross misconduct.

Ridiculous decision by the management. I hope the employee takes them to a tribunal for wrongful dismissal.

RandyLionandDirtyDog You are funny 😂 She committed misuse of cash handling, which is gross misconduct - a very serious breach. That’s nowhere near unfair dismissal.

You do this in any company you’d be fired for it. Monetary policies are very clear; she knew if she was caught she’d be fired.