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Brother got fired from his first job

S

SnowCal

Guest
Sep 13, 2012
419
9
Snowier Climes of California
www.facebook.com
#1
My brother is about to start college at a top-level public university, but two days ago he got fired from his first job.

I completely understand why he was fired. He made money in high school buying shoes and sports apparel on the cheap and reselling it. He got a job where these types of goods were being sold, used his employee discount to purchase them, and was then reselling them and that's obviously a big no-no.

But I don't know that this was ever explained to him. He was hired, taught basic sales stuff, and his manager apparently filled out a bunch of paperwork for my brother regarding training that never happened.

Regardless, they asked my brother to come to the store. He had a friend buy some items for him so that he could show he still 'had' his employee purchases. This ended up with the manager demanding that my brother give him the receipts for the items he bought (which he smartly refused to do). This then led to a game of tug-of-war as the manager tried to pull jerseys from my brother's hands. Unsurprisingly, the kid who just got offered a fat football scholarship won that game.

The manager then promised my brother that he'd report him to some national database as an employee who stole from the company and that he'd ruin my brother's life.

Clearly a case of early-30s with no future manager power tripping, but I gotta look out for my brother. He made a stupid mistake that he probably didn't know was.stupid. And he never stole from anyone. What do you do here?
 
#4
Forget about it. On one hand, the manager sounds like a do-nothing type who talks a big game, but will probably go back to feeling up the female members of staff and forget all about your bro.

On the other hand, not having it explained to your brother that buying w/his discount to resell for profit doesn't wash. If he's old enough to start college, he's old enough to know better on his own, without having to be told.

Ultimately, it's not worth bothering about. Every retail environment has a policy where they can fire anyone for anything, period. If it ever comes up, just have your brother say he left to start college. Most places will not give out anything other than confirming that so-and-so did work here. Why they left will often not be disclosed.
 
#6
The "national database" is about as real as the "permanent record" they threatened everybody with in elementary school. Nothing to fear there.

However, what your brother did was wrong, you know it, we know it, he knows it. Hopefully he'll grow out of that sort of thing before he gets a job in the real world and gets into real trouble.
 
#7
Here's what you need to do- pay the 3 big "amp" guys on here to bring down their 8x10 fridge SVT setups down to right in front of there store. Once you got 2-3 of them, power them up crank it up, and blow out the guys windows, and his bowels with some serious bass playing? (Assuming you actually play bass, don't you?)
 
#10
SnowCal said:
My brother is about to start college at a top-level public university, but two days ago he got fired from his first job.

I completely understand why he was fired. He made money in high school buying shoes and sports apparel on the cheap and reselling it. He got a job where these types of goods were being sold, used his employee discount to purchase them, and was then reselling them and that's obviously a big no-no.

But I don't know that this was ever explained to him. He was hired, taught basic sales stuff, and his manager apparently filled out a bunch of paperwork for my brother regarding training that never happened.

Regardless, they asked my brother to come to the store. He had a friend buy some items for him so that he could show he still 'had' his employee purchases. This ended up with the manager demanding that my brother give him the receipts for the items he bought (which he smartly refused to do). This then led to a game of tug-of-war as the manager tried to pull jerseys from my brother's hands. Unsurprisingly, the kid who just got offered a fat football scholarship won that game.

The manager then promised my brother that he'd report him to some national database as an employee who stole from the company and that he'd ruin my brother's life.

Clearly a case of early-30s with no future manager power tripping, but I gotta look out for my brother. He made a stupid mistake that he probably didn't know was.stupid. And he never stole from anyone. What do you do here?
Click to expand...

So, you don't think your brother knew what he was doing was wrong, yet you admit that he went to some pretty extraordinary steps to try to hide what he was doing (by having a friend try to replace the merchandise.)

I don't think this is a case of an "early-30s with no future manager power tripping." Rather, I think it's a case of a teenager knowingly and willingly violating company policy to make a little extra money in his pocket. What do you do? Nothing. I fail to see why you would involve yourself in this matter, and I fail to see what you could possibly do except encourage another physical altercation, which would be unwise.

The good news is that there is no "national registry" for dishonest employees like your brother. If this store is part of a larger corporate entity, then he may be placed on the "do not hire" list for that organization. He also, of course, wouldn't want to ever list this job as a reference when he applies for future employment, which will leave a gap in employment he can't explain.
 
#14
Most places have you read piles of stuff and sign it when you get hired, and at his age he probably skipped to the end and signed. Somewhere in there it would've said that the discount was for items for personal use only.

Technically he is lucky he only got fired.
 
#15
Our company has an employee discount, and some purchases have a "no resell" policy because of the amount of the employee discount. Reselling those products would result in termination.
So, it's my guess is that his employee discount is big enough so that he can resell for a profit such that his selling price is competitive against his employer's retail price. I wouldn't say his manager is "power tripping". To let this go on would be stupid. How he handled it, well, that his business. Any other manager would have fired him either way.
There's a possibility that your brother is not telling you everything. There are two ways sales people embezzle from a retail establishment. 1. stealing items from the sales floor or backroom storage areas. 2. Having an accomplice bring items to the register but only charge for some of the items. Larger retail establishments have video cameras to catch this. From my previous job, I arrested multiple people who did option 2.
 
#16
SnowCal said:
My brother is about to start college at a top-level public university, but two days ago he got fired from his first job.

I completely understand why he was fired. He made money in high school buying shoes and sports apparel on the cheap and reselling it. He got a job where these types of goods were being sold, used his employee discount to purchase them, and was then reselling them and that's obviously a big no-no.

But I don't know that this was ever explained to him. He was hired, taught basic sales stuff, and his manager apparently filled out a bunch of paperwork for my brother regarding training that never happened.

Regardless, they asked my brother to come to the store. He had a friend buy some items for him so that he could show he still 'had' his employee purchases. This ended up with the manager demanding that my brother give him the receipts for the items he bought (which he smartly refused to do). This then led to a game of tug-of-war as the manager tried to pull jerseys from my brother's hands. Unsurprisingly, the kid who just got offered a fat football scholarship won that game.

The manager then promised my brother that he'd report him to some national database as an employee who stole from the company and that he'd ruin my brother's life.

Clearly a case of early-30s with no future manager power tripping, but I gotta look out for my brother. He made a stupid mistake that he probably didn't know was.stupid. And he never stole from anyone. What do you do here?
Click to expand...

You want to look out for him now? Just wait until he tries pulling this same type of deal while playing college ball. The NCAA looks very highly on kids who trade or sell merchandise. Terrelle Pryor, anyone?
 
#17
SnowCal said:
My brother is about to start college at a top-level public university, but two days ago he got fired from his first job.

I completely understand why he was fired. He made money in high school buying shoes and sports apparel on the cheap and reselling it. He got a job where these types of goods were being sold, used his employee discount to purchase them, and was then reselling them and that's obviously a big no-no.

But I don't know that this was ever explained to him. He was hired, taught basic sales stuff, and his manager apparently filled out a bunch of paperwork for my brother regarding training that never happened.

Regardless, they asked my brother to come to the store. He had a friend buy some items for him so that he could show he still 'had' his employee purchases. This ended up with the manager demanding that my brother give him the receipts for the items he bought (which he smartly refused to do). This then led to a game of tug-of-war as the manager tried to pull jerseys from my brother's hands. Unsurprisingly, the kid who just got offered a fat football scholarship won that game.

The manager then promised my brother that he'd report him to some national database as an employee who stole from the company and that he'd ruin my brother's life.

Clearly a case of early-30s with no future manager power tripping, but I gotta look out for my brother. He made a stupid mistake that he probably didn't know was.stupid. And he never stole from anyone. What do you do here?
Click to expand...

If the employer was part of a chain, you can be sure they put something about employee purchases in their employee manual, even if it was a very simple one. They like to make rules and even if it was only verbal, they usually put a limit of how many purchases someone can make.

AFAIK, there's no national database and if he were to post this without a legal basis, he'd be open to a lawsuit for libel.
 
#19
The "national database" is a myth. *That's* where the manager is power-tripping.

What your brother did was, at best, flat-out stupid and shady. I bet he knew full well what he was doing and is now trying to cover his butt with his family and friends so that he doesn't look like a idiot minor criminal.

I'm curious as to why he needed a job in the first place - fat football scholarship and all. In fact, I was under the (mis?)impression that the NCAA doesn't allow athletes to have jobs when they're under scholarship. Guess I'm wrong about that.
 
#20
A fine piece of advice. Never get sucked into family member screw ups. Your far too biased, likely to make things worst, and more than likely your family member doesn't want you involved. Anyhow to an outside observer your brother sounds like he really was screwing around. To be caught on something like that means it was likely a compulsive behavior.
 

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