Suspended from work - I've seen colleagues and customers what I have done

KiKi

jumpycheese1 wrote: »

BTW to the posters who mention my eye condition and dyslexia as excuses I am offended by your comments. I didn't have these conditions on purpose. Nobody is perfect. My UR knows about my conditions. My employer can go through my medical notes. I haven't heard of my eye condition before I was diagnosed with it. As mentioned again I DID disclose these on my medical form when I first started to work for my employer and the could see that I did sign and date it.

Hi Jumpy

I don't think anyone is disputing you have these conditions, nor that they cause you problems. And I think (from what I've read) that other posters accept you have declared them. The issue that most posters are taking with your dyslexia and eye condition are that you make it clear several times throughout this thread that you were claiming the maximum number of bags on purpose. Therefore, to say that you claimed the bags in error because of your disabilities *is* an excuse.

You say that it was mentioned in training and that everyone else does it. You say that you 'were only caught' because you used your staff discount card. You say you know you've done wrong. These things clearly show that you did it on purpose.

I accept the SS tills cause you more problems, and I accept that the keypads are the other way around, and I accept that you find it hard to see them. I don't accept that you did it in error so many times; if you knew this was a problem, you should have stopped after the first few times and told your employer this was happening when you were putting your stuff through the SS till. You could have gotten another staff member to do that bit for you. You were capable of seeing the screens well enough to scan your shopping and weigh it through - but not to get the right number of bags (and, in fact, make the 'error' of typing the maximum) every single time.

Can you see how that now looks like an excuse?

Using your medical issues as a reason really isn't going to go down well. If it doesn't go down well on this forum, imagine how it's going to go down with your bosses who are disciplining you.

People are only trying to give good advice: which is don't try and claim your disabilities affected you. You DID know what you were doing and that you were doing it. Don't try and defend yourself - by all means take UR advice, but hold your hands up and admit it and plead forgiveness.

Best of luck
KiKi

SarEl

Felicity wrote: »

Before you speak to your employer again, you clearly need to decide:-

1. Did you do this on purpose, because in training you were told it would be possible and because others were / are doing it and because a chap in another store broke a telly ...

OR

2. Because you are disabled and you weren't aware you were committing fraud?

It is EITHER one or the other.

If it is answer 2, then you need to come up with a good reason as to why you were using the SS till knowing you were putting yourself / your employer at risk of committing / being a victim of fraud.

If you are going with 2, you might also want to come up with some explanations about

(a) how come you always mistakenly hit 9 and not any other figure

(b) how come, if you are so poor at reading/seeing the screen your employment record is not liittered with thousands of errors with customers etc - or whether it is only the figure 9 you have problems with

(c) How come you knew this was happening and you did not, as a responsible employee, report it

and (d) why you confessed to your manager.

You seem to be pretty offended by people questioning your word here - frankly, it is because what you are saying is utterly unbelievable. If that is the impression being formed by a group of people based solely on what you say, how credible do you think any of this is going to sound when the entire version (in other words, what the manager has to say) comes out. Despite what you think, people (or most of them) here are trying to save your job for you. And you are coming across as stupid, and arrogant beyond belief. Yes, it is very distressing to be suspended. It's very distressing to be investigated and possibly disciplined. But being upset does not account for an attitude that seems to be saying "my employers are very lucky to have me". If you stop and think about it, you have had some very good advice from a whole range of people with very great experience, and every single one of them has questioned your account of things. It makes no sense.

If you want to try to blame your offence on other factors such as your eyesight or your dyslexia, then be my guest. But please do remember that unlike most people here, I did read the whole of the first post before advising you to delete or edit it. You knew perfectly well what you were doing and you did it deliberately because you thought you would get away with it. Your employers owe you nothing, and won't have a moments problem replacing you. Your "friends" will move on without a shrug. Your previously excellent record will be in the toilet. And just how credible on your CV will all those redundancies look if you now have to add a dismissal for gross misconduct - it's hardly uncommon for employers to "make redundant" a bad employee for ease, and employers know that? You think you are defending yourself, but in fact I think you are making things much worse for yourself.

I am not saying this to upset you - I am saying it in the hope that you will realise that people here are genuinely trying to help you. With only a few exceptions, nobody has said they don't sympathise, or that they hope you will keep your job. But in the end, all of those people have given you the same advice - don't try to lie your way out of a hole because all you will do is dig yourself in deeper.

LittleMrsThrifty

So you claimed 9 extra points on 18 occasions. Am I the only one who thinks the employer is over reacting? I know it's not right but we're talking about a couple of quid here.

shegirl

LittleMrsThrifty wrote: »

So you claimed 9 extra points on 18 occasions. Am I the only one who thinks the employer is over reacting? I know it's not right but we're talking about a couple of quid here.

It's not even a couple of quid.The points are worth hardly anything.

But given the way the op goes on it may have been more than that for all we know.

IT may seem ott but it's still wrong and people who defraud the company they work for need to dealt with.It may be small but that doesn't change what it is.

SarEl

LittleMrsThrifty wrote: »

So you claimed 9 extra points on 18 occasions. Am I the only one who thinks the employer is over reacting? I know it's not right but we're talking about a couple of quid here.

The amount does not matter. It is dishonesty. An employer doesn't have to wait until the payroll is stolen before taking action against someone. I do understand the point you are making, and in the employers shoes I might, or you might, be lenient - assuming we believed the story told. But what is the "right" amount of fraud to permit? Pennies, £10, £100? In the end the amount isn't the issue - it's the offence, and that is fraud.

KiKi

LittleMrsThrifty wrote: »

So you claimed 9 extra points on 18 occasions. Am I the only one who thinks the employer is over reacting? I know it's not right but we're talking about a couple of quid here.

I certainly am surprised that the employer has gone down the suspension route rather than had a strong word. However, it's against the terms of the loyalty card (esp by staff), and when they spoke to the OP, the OP admitted that lots of staff were doing this - which is a big concern.

I imagine that to investigate the fact that apparently many staff are doing this (and it is officially fraud, despite being worth very little) they have had to put the OP on suspension to deal with the issue. Esp if they want to make an example of the situation.

Staff already get a discount on food - trying to claim more loyalty points is senseless, but if 1000 staff are doing it, if it's being 'suggested' in training (so potentially THOUSANDS of staff are doing it), it will end up costing the employer.

Also, this is someone with an exemplary record (according to the OP), so I'm sure the store were pretty shocked to know that their most loyal staff were doing something so explicitly not allowed.


KiKi

Wyndham

LittleMrsThrifty wrote: »

So you claimed 9 extra points on 18 occasions. Am I the only one who thinks the employer is over reacting? I know it's not right but we're talking about a couple of quid here.

Maybe. But then where is the line? If it's not at a couple of quid, is it at, say £20? Or £200? Or £2000? Or £20000?

I can see why it is a zero tolerance rule, because if it isn't, then where does it stop?

ecgirl07

jumpycheese1 wrote: »

OK - I have used the ss tills about 40 times in 2.5 months and put 9 bags for 18 of these times.

If you ever to look at a phone, look how the numbers are arranged. Then look at a calculator or number keypad on a keyboard and they are different. Both sets of tills have different number arrangements.

is that not a mistake you make once or twice before you remember that the keys are in different places? Your reasoning as a line of defence is not the strongest tact to take as you made this "mistake" 18 times.

DCFC79

jumpycheese1 wrote: »

There is a colleague that works at the next store down the road and larked about breaking £800 on tvs on purpose. Did he get suspended? No Did he get displinary action? No! Deliberating breaking goods is gross misconduct too. How do I know about this lad? A colleague who now works at my store saw it happen.

I know I am replaceable and not invicible, but somehow the dept cannot cope without me!

how do you know what happened re the tvs is true, the story could have been twisted along the way from 1 person to another

the department will be able to cope without you, ive seen people leave before who were good employees and the department carried on the same, whether or not teh department will cope without you isnt for you to worry about

exscuse me if its obvious but i dont have dyslexia but can haivng dyslexia affect how you see numbers on a keypad, would you not recognise teh number 9 from the number 4 by the way it looks

DCFC79

LittleMrsThrifty wrote: »

So you claimed 9 extra points on 18 occasions. Am I the only one who thinks the employer is over reacting? I know it's not right but we're talking about a couple of quid here.

whether its a couple of pence or a couple is by the by, using a loyalty card to get points in the manner the OP did is an offence in the eyes of the employer and is treated as fraud