Cashiers aren't allowed to count their tills anymore because.... WHAT?

The BBQ Pit
1

So, the new manager at the Wal-Mart where I work has handed down an edict from on high banning cashiers from counting the money in our tills before turning it in to the cash ofrice. The official reason, as given to me by a low-level management type, is that the cashiers take too much time doing the counting. The real reason, as reported to me by someone who overheard the conversation, is that if we’re over, we could pocket the excess money. Seems that management is aware that many of Wally World’s wage slaves are in dire financial straits and might be tempted to steal…

WTF?

Right, we’re really going to try to pull a stunt like that with cameras watching us from every angle.

First off, the reason that most of the cashiers started counting their money before turning it in is that we were constantly getting those screaming neon pink sheets of paper informing us that our tills were short money and demanding to know why, when we had good reason to believe that the information on those S.N.P.P.o.P’s was incorrect. A few cashiers who were already in the habit of countng before the practice became widespread told me that they had been “pinked” when they knew their count was correct. We wanted to be able to document how much money was in the bag that we turned in to the orfice, so that if we got “pinked” incorrectly, we could find the page in our little notebooks, and show that we had dropped the correct amount of money, plus or minus a few cents, and were not ten or twenty dollars short on a given day. Now we have no way of protecting ourselves if we think we may have been wrongfully “pinked”. Incidentally, I used to get those pinks at least twice a month, once I got two in one week, and I knew they were wrong. They were for being short for coupons, once for seven dollars off on a teeth-whitener package, the other for over ten dollars, which would have been my entire little stack of coupons. In both cases, I knew that I had turned the coupons in. That’s when I started counting. As if by magic, the pinks stopped. Could it have possbly been because the cash orfice people would see me counting my money and writing the amounts down in my little notebook, so they knew they had better count right? Nah. It was just a coincidence.

Second, this is not the first policy change that the store has made based on the assumption that employees are basically dishonest. We used to be able to suspend a transaction if, say, a customer’s debit card wouldn’t work and they needed to get cash. We could go on to other customers, and when the first person returned, we would just scan the slip and the computer would recall the puchase, no muss, no fuss. Now we have to keep a whole line of customers waiting if we need to suspend a transaction while we wait for a customer service manager to respond to our blinkenlightzen. I asked an assistant manager the reason for the change, and she said, “Because it created too many opportunities for ‘integrity issues’.”

It has been my experiece that employers who assume that their employees are going to be dishonest are themselves dishonest. Wal-Mart is no exception. It is the rule rather than the exception that if an employee requests a certain day off, and that request is approved, the employee will be scheduled to work that day. Informing the manager of the error is no guaruntee that you will not be put down as a no-call, no-show for that day. You had best make sure you see the manager put pen to paper and correct the “mistake”.

Also, some (not all, but some) of the price rollacks are actally increases in price. When the price of fresh corn was “rolled back” from twenty-two to twenty five cents an ear, a sign was placed over the bin saying “was 33 cents”. Some small items have had their prices “rolled back” from three dollars and some change to four dollars and some change, with a sign placed saying it was five dollars and some change.

Then there’s the “clearance” items, or items that are on special that ring up at full price. If it was just an occasional occurrance, I could chalk it up to a mistake in the UPC office or attempted customer fraud. But I get these things dozens of times a day. When we were clearancing out some ornamental glass globes, a lady decided to buy us out so she could give them as gifts. She had a dozen of them, all with clearance price tags, and every single one of them rang up at full price. I could cite many similar incidents, but I think you get the idea.

So, a dishonest company, because it assumes its employees are also dishonest, deprives us of the means to protect ourselves in the event of errors made by people in the cash orfice who are notorious for doing sloppy work.

2

Sounds like the manager was a fan of Orwell.

3

My first job was in a large supermarket; seems that denigrating the employees is the modus operandi of such business; I´ve never had to work under a boss whim again and I don´t plan to do it anytime soon.

4

You aren’t allowed in the countdown room while your till is being counted? When I worked for a supermarket, the manager or office manager would stand by while the employee counted down their till. Then the manager or office manager would recount the till, and both would sign off if it was in agreement. If it wasn’t, they would both recount it. It didn’t take as long as it sounds, since the cashier tried to dump all the change before their shift ended (hide the quarters, “Sorry, sir, all I have is dimes” sort of thing.) Anything over was kept in a “slush fund” to cover the shortages of other cashiers, or the end of night deposit. We were allowed to use $5 of the slush to cover our own shortages, the rest was out of pocket. Any money left in the slush at the end of the week went into the coffee fund. Any money left in the coffee fund at the end of the year went toward the staff Christmas party. In 5 years, no one seemed to abuse the system, or have a problem with how the extra money was handled.

5

Walmart fucking sucks ass. It represents the very worst of soulless, predatory capitalism, aggressively hateful and dehumanizing labor practices, brutally ugly decor, opportunistic exploitation of foreign slave labor and subtle oppression of free expression through censorship of CDs, magazines and movies. Walmart is more evil than China, the Soviet Union, Iraq and the Death Star put together. Walmart is the Whore of fucking Babylon. Get out while you still have your soul.
BTW, What does Walmart do with overcounted tills? They don’t give it back to the consumer, do they? No, they fucking STEAL it.

Fuck Walmart. Boycott Walmart Walmart is the Taliban!

6

During my very short stint as a cashier at a commissary on base, the rules of the counting game were spelled out quite clearly. They included “no slush funds” and “you will not count the money without a supervisor present.” Also, a cashier reaching a certain number of under- or over-counts got some kind of disciplinary action for that cashier.

God, I hated that job.

7

Considering that you work for a company that can (and has) completely shut down entire stores to prevent the employees from unionizing, is it any wonder that Wal-Mart treats you like you’re stupid at best and a criminal at worst?

8

I work in the POS software industry and it is certainly the case that a lot of effort goes into finding ways of preventing the cashiers (and supervisors, and managers) from stealing from the retailer. This is understandable in that retailers lose more money to their own employees than shoplifters.

However, to address the OP and the claim that the new policy was to prevent cashiers from pocketing overs - there is a better way of doing this: blind counts. You still get to count the till, but the system does not tell you how much is supposed to be there. Hence the cashier does not know when the till is over. This would allow Thea still to write down the actual count.

9

…cutting down on the take of management in dire financial straits?
I’m an avid reader of local suburban newspaper police blotters in a major metro area, & it seems like about every other week someone in charge of counting the dough at some area WalMart is busted for sticky fingers.

10

I was aware that Walmart used illegal tactics to avoid unionization but did not know they had closed stores, although I don’t doubt it.

Walmart is not a good company, morally. They suck the blood of old people. Their stores have destroyed the local economies of many small towns. They screw employees on health insurance and fail to meet obligations regarding workmen’s comp claims.

Then they lie on their TV ads.

11

Oh yeah, they send out neon sheets about counts - bad.

12

My mom had to work at Walmart when she unexpectedly lost her job. I can attest to you that Walmart is indeed, everything Diogenes the Cynic says it is.

I refuse to shop there.

What really grates on my nerves, however, are the people that shop there, knowing what a bunch of jerks (to put it rather mildly) Walmart is. I long for the day when it comes crahing down like K-mart.

13

Mall-Wart is truly a retailer most foul. I’ve read articles regarding shredded safety reports, evidence that simply disappeared, and similar tactics when injured employeed filed suit. Corportate philosophy has caused at least one Judge to rebuke Mall-Wart lawyers for their conduct, and ask if they recalled the meaning of the word “perjury”.

Having worked in retail, counting my drawer in the presence of a supervisor is my only means of protection against claims of theft, or any other misconduct. Handing an uncounted drawer to someone else affords you no opportunity of defense against allegations.

That whole thing sucks, Thea. Good luck.

Yet another reason to avoid Mall-Wart like rotting carrion.

14

I’ve worked in some places that allowed this. I’ve worked other places that didn’t. I vastly prefer doing my own blind count.

In one of the places that didn’t allow the cashier to make his/her own count, we were told that in case of fire, our FIRST duty was to gather all the bills in the drawer and put them in the drop box…THEN we could get out of the booth (this was at a movie theater in the box office). Since we weren’t supposed to have more than about $50-70 in the drawer anyway, I figured that I’d scramble out of there, and they could just whistle for any money left in the drawer in case of fire.

15

When i used to work in a bar at a large club in Sydney, this is exactly how they used to do it.

At the end of the shift, a manager would come and close out your register, and would take the printout to the office. You would then count your money, fill out the appropriate forms, and hand it all in at the office. The person in the office would then compare your total with that of the printout.

Apparently unlike some of the employers discussed so far in this thread, the management of the club were intelligent enough to realize that a perfectly honest person is still not immune from making errors during a busy eight-hour shift, and i never saw anyone disciplined or fired for having a discrepancy on their sheets.

Nor did i ever know of anyone who stole money by working the register. Of course, the fact that the job was unionized and paid good wages might have helped. Just a thought, Wal-Mart.

16

I like the righteous indignation over a rumored, as opposed to a factual, situation at the OP’s place of work.

17

Monty, i agree that there’s not much direct evidence that the reason for the rule change is management’s distrust of the employees. But the change in policy is itself a fact, not just a rumor. And i think that such distrust can reasonably be inferred from a practice that does not allow employees to be present at the counting of their registers, when those same employees can then be held responsible if a discrepancy is found. For me, no matter what the actual motivation for Wal-Mart’s change of policy, the employee should be allowed to be present at the counting of his or her takings.

I mean, as a general matter of principle, why should the people doing the counting in the cash office be presumed to be more honest that the cashiers themselves? Over the years, i’ve seen plenty of media stories about people in such money-handling positions stealing from their employers. If the cashiers are really too slow, as the official position states, then they should at least be allowed to watch while a cash office person counts their money. Just MHO.

18

My god… retail. Just shoot me now. Much sympathy, Thea, and may you find yourself in a new job much sooner than you dreamed. Not that you asked for one, I’m just assuming.

19

Of course, the policy change could well be more for the convenience of the cash office. After all it does take is to count the money correctly if you’ve become accustomed to getting away with doing slipshod work and then having the cashier be responsibe for any disrepancy. I mean, if your count doesn’t match the printout and you know the cashier has a little notbook where he/she documents the count every day, you have to count the money all over again. And it’s just such hard work… so you go complain to the store manager that there is no need for the cashiers to count their money, there are all these checks and balances…

But since the person who told me this says she was at the podium when the SM handed down the edict, I have no reason to think it isn’t true.

It really galls me that the store does not allow cashiers any self-protection in the event of an error in the cash orfice, whatever the reason, official, real or just bizarro.

20

When I worked at Wal Mart, our tills were usually counted down by the CSMs with us present or if they were busy, they told us to do it ourselves and we never seemed to have a problem with the cash office.

Looks like I just lucked out and was hired at a good store. I actually sort of miss that job.

You read that right.