Like none of you managers ever stole anything from your jobs or broke any rules…yeah, right. :rolleyes:
Ok, the analogy was paper thin and Gary summed it up nicely.
It was a check to see if you all would fire someone for a damn poor reason - that the person didn’t like you. At least you seem to agree with me on that.
Again, I make an appeal to perspective.
You come in as a new manager. You set a meeting. You warn the group about stealing. You then catch someone doing what the PharmD did.
Would it not be ‘better’ to take the PharmD aside and warn him one-on-one? Why is it such a horrible thing to do this? Again, if he is unrepentent, fire him then. If he does it again, fire him then.
The PharmD did this in front of the new manager. He obviously wasn’t being careful and trying to hide it. What if the PharmD had been at the company 15 years and did a great job? As a new manager, do you know? By not warning him one on one, you just threw away a great human resource.
If I’m your boss and you waste people this way, you had better have a damn good reason. You are dealing with lives and quality of life here. These are things not to be thrown away carelessly.
And Gary?
Managing in this way can be effective. I’ve acknowledged it before. Hwoever, it is disruptive and ‘easy’ way to manage. Great managers can get results without going this route. Lazy and/or mediocre managers find your management attitude as their only option.
Jlzania, ARE YOU NOT LISTENING!
It is perfectly fine to hire someone and warn them to not steal.
However, if you walk into a PRE-EXISTING situation and warn a group as a whole and then fire someone without a private talk…GAAA!
I give up.
Are you so freaking inflexible that you just cannot have perspective? Is the world really that black and white to you?
Unbelievable…
This is just unbelievable. I just cannot believe I am in the minority here.
No, I’m sorry. If the manager lays down an explicit punishment for theft, and then doesn’t carry it over that’s bad management.
How would it look to the other employees if Stemba gave the PharmD another chance after he stole the Tylenol? Would they all expect another chance if they stole something? Or would it just be the PharmD? If it’s just the PharmD, wouldn’t that make it look like Stemba was playing favorites?
No, Stemba was in the right to fire that guy on the spot.
I’m not sure that this has relevance.
Yes, when I worked shit jobs, I indulged in some minor petty theft. I did a lot of dumbass things in my early 20’s.
Guess what-it was immoral , I’m ashamed of myself, and I realized that it was wrong even as I was doing it-hence my hiding my behavior.
You know, I realize that this may sound stodgy and all, but two wrongs really don’t make a right.
I choose to work at PizzaSlut-no one put a gun to my head and said “Work here or will we’ll kill you.”
When I got sick of being exploited (and I’m not arguing that fast food establishments don’t often exploit their workers), I actively sought another job.
So, basically you are defending this guy’s right to break the law. Warning or no warning, he still broke a law. If you don’t follow policy about that, which it seems was just established or enforced, then that’s piss-poor management. Pre-existing situation or not, when someone steals that’s usually grounds for immediate termination. Period. Especially if someone has just set out new ground rules. Managers are there to do that. New managers, new sets of rules- unless there’s rigid corporate policy and then the manager should enforce that. So the old manager was lax, that doens’t mean the new manager has to be. In fact the new manager is perfectly within his rights to start enforcing rules. That’s what they are there for. Especially laws. There is a reason why shoplifters are prosecuted. Employees shouldn’t be exempt from that either. When a store is losing that much money in a day, heads should roll, inlcuding the poor workers who were doing such a good job yet stealing.
I talked to my office manager about this. We work in a law firm and we both agree that the person would be fired. No matter if he/she is a top attorney or what.
It wouldn’t be better because it would undermine authority. If he had just gotten off with a warning, that sends the wrong message to the other workers. It shows that the manager isn’t going to live up to his words so they can still do whatever. People should know better than to steal. It’s not the manager’s fucking fault that he broke the rules. It’s the PharmD’s fault for not listening and not thinking.
On Preview: What Neurotik said also.
andymurph, what “pre-existing” situation are you talking about here? An employee stealing from his work? Is that really something that needs to be reinforced everytime a new manager is hired/promoted? That’s a company policy, no matter WHO fills the spot or is rehired, unless they’re a new president and changes the policy itself from the top of the corporate ladder, it makes absolutely no difference whatsoever. “Quality of life” nothing, I find it really ridiculous that you feel such a basic rule of society, much less store policy, has to be hand fed to the employees seemingly every day.
Store opens and has a policy “don’t steal”, it doesn’t matter how many managers they go threw over time, I’m pretty damn sure that policy stays the same. PharmD didn’t need any reminder, he knew it was wrong, and he got what he deserved.
I’m still waiting for a response to my little scenario I presented to you. And just out of curiosity, what’s your opinion on the OP? Should the cashier be fired or no? I mean, he was asked to clock out, showed no remorse for his behavior, and is most likely going to continue to be an asshole and break store policies. Should he stay on simply because other managers put up with his crap?
No need to shout,** andymurph64 **.
Mom was right about listening to loud rock 'n roll but if you just speak up a little, I’ll hear you loud and clear.
I don’t see that I (or the other posters) are being that inflexible.
He was warned and judging by what we’ve been told thus far by Stemba, he knew that the penalty for theft was dimissal.
What’s so different about being warned as part of an existing group or as an individual new hire?
He wasn’t stealing the product because the bastard capitalist pigs were paying him pennies a day for his back-breaking labor and his wife and children were starving and this was a last ditch effort to feed them or die.
BS carimwc.
Giving people a chance is not weakness but a strength.
I’m trying to understand this. When my views differ so sharply from many other people I try to understand the reason. Especially when the others view seems so inflexible that I cannot understand why they believe what they believe.
Maybe…
I manage college grads and more ‘techy’ ones. The people I hire take 6 months to really start to pull their own weight and after a year they start to ‘take off’. Because they take so long to reach full productivity, I am loathe to dismiss them.
In retail, people aren’t really people it seems. They are just cogs to be quickly replaced. Someone going through a divorce and just not ‘chipper’ enough…can em. Someone makes a stupid mistake which is technically illegal…why warn? Just can em because you can have a replacement in 5 min.
Different cultures. One throw away, the other needing to be careful about dismissing employees.
Possible?
Jlzania,
I shout because you might be hard of hearing 
I say walking into a pre-existing situation is a very different situation when you have been in place for some time.
Walking into a pre-existing situation, you don’t know what happened before or if a person is a ‘good man’ or not. You don’t know what previous culture of the store was. Like I said, what he did could have been perectly acceptible to a previous manager, even encouraged. Who knows? All you have to go on is your perception. Your perception could be and probably is flawed. In such situations, a touch of conservatism is called for.
One meeting where you warn a group, IMO, is not enough warning.
Disagree as you will.
No. I don’t see how having an employee that steals is a good thing, regardless of the ‘culture’. There are no ifs, ands, or buts. No matter how good of an employee this person may have been otherwise, everything is negated by the fact that they stole something. Ever read the boy who cried wolf? Same idea. You can’t trust a shoplifter in your own employ. If you do, you’ll find yourself going slowly bankrupt, both morally and financially.
Technically illegal? What the hell does that mean? And stealing after being warned about it is not a “stupid mistake.” It’s a deliberate act. Especially when there are options like a first aid kit with Tylenol, plus a method of logging merchandise that you take, etc.
No one is saying that he should fire a new employee for making mistakes while still learning the ropes. Or even fire an employee for making a mistake. We’re saying that stealing after being warned is a completely justifiable reason for firing someone. Indeed, it is a necessary consequence.
I can’t understand why you feel that way. Were I a bad employee, I’d probably walk all over you knowing you’d never do anything to punish me - aside from a very stern warning.
How the hell is a group meeting not a warning? He said that it would not be tolerated. Period. Pre-existing situation or not. He walked into a pre-existing situation that was a bad situation. The store was losing lots of money to to theft and apparently lax management. He decided to change that. How exactly is that a problem? Even if he were a ‘good man’, good men and good employees usually don’t steal. That’s why they’re good. No matter the job you do, no matter how good you are, if you break the rules- and the LAW, you should be fired. That is black and white.
XJETGIRLX has the right idea. I don’t know of a culture that relies on stealing.
I can’t believe you’re still defending someone who broke the law.
The rest of my post should read:
New employees should be fired too if they were caught stealing after they were told that it’s against the rules and it wouldn’t be tolerated. That’s a simple part of life, nevermind the ropes of a business. Stealing has consequences. I thought that was something people were taught from a young age. Guess you missed the boat andymurph64.
I’m assuming all the pargons of legal virtue on this board always follow the speed limit? You’ve never smoked weed? Never parked where you weren’t supposed to park, never littered, never jay-walked? You alwys come to a complete stop at stop signs? You never had a drink when you were a minor, never stole anything in your lives, never done a single thing that was illegal?
Go ahead and fire someone for an act of petty theft if that’s what you need to make your dick feel bigger, but calling the cops is way over the top. Let he who is without sin drop the first dime.
[QUOTE]
*Originally posted by Diogenes the Cynic *
I’m assuming all the pargons of legal virtue on this board always follow the speed limit?
[QUOTE]
Yup. Never had a ticket for anything. Call me a traffic nazi if you like, but see there are these pesky things called laws, and I like to obey them.
[QUOTE]
You’ve never smoked weed?
[QUOTE]
Nope.
[QUOTE]
Never parked where you weren’t supposed to park, never littered, never jay-walked?
[QUOTE]
Nope, nope, and nope.
[QUOTE]
You alwys come to a complete stop at stop signs?
[QUOTE]
Always.
[QUOTE]
You never had a drink when you were a minor, never stole anything in your lives, never done a single thing that was illegal?
[QUOTE]
No, never, and not to my knowledge.
I will, and I have. And FYI I don’t have a dick, but if I did I’m sure it would be bigger than yours. Calling the cops is not over the top when one has broken the law. And what the hell kind of stupid analogy is that? Dropping dimes?
And how much merchandise does he pocket between instances of getting caught? This wasn’t necessarily the first time this guy stole; it was just the first time he got caught at it.
Why the hostility Diogenes the Cynic?
If I speed and I get caught-I get a ticket.
Ditto the parking issue.
If I’m stupid enough or unlucky enough to get popped smoking a joint-I take the consequences.
You seem to think that doing a “small” wrong thing is ok but doing a “big” wrong thing is unacceptable.
Petty theft vs grand larceny.
I saw several computer firms go out of business in Austin in the 90’s and one of the critical factors was the fact that employee theft was rampant.
However, I’m sure each individual employee was only taking a few CPU’s and one or two sticks of memory.
Why the hostility, jlzania. You have to remember that Dioneges is an insecure, sad little man. So to make himself feel superior, he paints anyone who disagrees with him as an ignorant hypocrite - worthy of smearing and insults. It’s quite childish.
Just learn to ignore him like I have.
HE BROKE THE LAW … HE BROKE THE LAW…
Jeez people.
Black and white. No flexibility. I like the cynics speeding example…
Let’s end speeding. Speeding is AGAINST THE LAW, right? So, lets execute the speeders. If a police officer pulls you over for speeding, the officer should pull out his weapon and kill you.
Sound stupid? That is exactly how you all sound to me. Serious.
And Neurotik? You wouldn’t last long with me. After I talk to you and you do it again, you’re out.
People are confusing empathy and being conservative with human lives as a weakness. It is not a weakness but a strength. It doesn’t mean I’m a marshmellow.
When you manage an area where senior management expects double digit turnover in the order of 20-25% and your area has 4%…and that happens three years in a row in a tough to hire labor market and management acknowledges salaries are a ‘bit on the low side’.
When you triple the productivity of your predecessor (not that the bar was that high to begin with me being the first person with programming experience they had)
When you get seriously ill and out of commission for almost three weeks and your staff bands together works hard and flawlessly, FLAWLESSLY runs the department without you so that when you get back things are running smooth.
You then see the worth of what I am saying.
With your badass, inflexible, unforgiving, uncaring attitude would people do this for you?
I will fight for these people. If they trangress, you can bet your behind I’ll give them a chance. If they repeat the transgression though, then they must be dismissed.