OT Man fired stealing chocolate from employer

If the store put the trash in the trash, the trash is fair game and nobody has to tell anybody that they are taking the trash. The store didn't want the product anymore, and they set about to dispose of it. There was a person (that happened to be an employee) that thought the product had value to him, so he grabbed it before the trash truck got there. I think the employer is making a very bad mistake to fire this guy.

It would have been nice if the manager would have made the product available to the employees, he gets the same write-off either way. Personally, I'm not sure I'd go dumpster diving for stale chocolate, but I'm not on welfare and collecting food stamps with 3 kids at home.

Stealing? In a few hours, the manager would have paid somebody to haul the stuff off. Nothing was stolen if the items taken were really taken from the dumpster, as we are lead to believe by the story.

Dude, NOTHING was stolen.

That's certainly true. But, since the trash truck was coming, and nobody expects the driver to get out of the truck and ask permission to take the contents of the trash can, I can see how the employee thought that it was not necessary to ask.

We don't know, but the story did say that the employee was receiving welfare, so he couldn't be getting paid much more than minimum wage.

Again, they were out for the trash man to take away, nothing of value was taken. The store ought not be using the position that something was stolen, because "stolen" implies that items taken had value, but they did not; which is why they were in the trash.

Yes, stealing.

If you shoot someone an hour after they're dead, it's not murder. If you do it an hour before, it's at least assault.

It wasn't his dumpster.

Sure it was. Otherwise, any employee could simply throw something in the trash and say "hey, it's trash" and then take it home.

Was it? Exactly when? Was it alrady there? How do you know?

The employee should have known better. He also should have considered if his job was worth a couple of candy bars.

Ah, but you DID say you knew when the trash truck was arriving. You said it was on its way.

So that makes stealing ok. I see.

The story didn't say they were out at the curb. Candy bars have value. Small value, but value.

They had value no matter where they were.

Good thing for you.

In most jurisdictions that'd be true if it were off the property. There's no indication of that in the "story".

It wasn't disposed of, it was in a container owned by the store. He didn't have a right to it without asking. Otherwise, what's to keep him from throwing something else in the trash and then saying "I took it because it was in the trash"?

Hardly.

Yes, it would have. It would have been nice for the fired dude to have simply ASKED.

He should have thought about that before he stole.

(BTW, I still don't believe this "story" is real.)

Indeed. And in the article it states the actual reason why he was fired:

"Unfortunately this associate breached the trust of his supervisors by removing merchandise from the store, and as a result, he was let go from his position."

Makes perfect sense.

To get a credit they usually have to return the bread or at least the package. In the case of magazines, they have to return the cover page. And the previous poster did use the word insurance..... not credit. A big difference between the two.

I believe under current law in Florida they could have just shot the guy for taking the chocolate.... :}

Yeah, but the non-ignorant knew what he meant.

Nooooo. Really?

Scott would have! (since he's not here to defend himself...:)

Well of course it does! There are Plenty of Scrooges around, all year long!

The article myay read he removed it from the 'store', but from the trash? That's a stretch. "We'll throw it away, but if you take it from the dumpster we'll fire you"

Yup, makes absolute perfect sense to me.

There are also plenty of thieves.

Again, clueless one, it'd be all to easy for people to throw away MORE stuff if they knew that once in the trash they could just take it without asking.

It's the trust thing. They couldn't trust him. They fired him because they couldn't trust him.

"Jeff Strickland" wrote: snip

But they DID have value...the fact that it was a NEGATIVE value doesn't change that.

The Candy Company didn't want this substandard candy to be distributed, makes them look bad.

How come you brilliant people can't see that?!?

If the vendor allowed this trashed candy to be distributed then it's a black eye for them because the word get's back to the Candy Company that this substandard candy isn't being handled properly and knuckles get rapped...smarten up for god's sake...

Vash The Stampede wrote: cut

Of course it does Hachi...if you were a 'candy bar manufacturer' would you want your stale and/or damaged bars in the hands of the public? of course not, hard on your reputation.

Nor would you want that if you merely "sold' that brand of bar, imagine someone seeing a mangled stale bar which he knew came from Zellers..."Gee, Zellers sure sell crappy bars don't they?"

I'm amazed at you supposedly smart people...

You're splitting hairs. It was in the trash recepticle, whether a dumptser or otherwise.

Yes, that's true. But the argument here doesn't seem to be that the employee himself threw the items in the trash so he could then take them. This might well be the case, but it isn't the way the story reads as we know now. Assuming the story we have before us is accurate, the items were thrown into the trash at the direction of the manager, therefore the stuff is destined to be removed from the premises, and had already been removed from inventory. The employee simply removed the items from the premises after they had been removed from inventory. I think management is making a mistake here, again I assume the facts presented by the story posted are accurate. Management might not want it's employees to take stuff out of the trash, but I don't see an offense here that warrants being fired over.

Who cares when the truck was coming? If the trash remaind in the trash bin until the truck came, it matters not that the truck was at the end of the alley, or not scheduled to arrive for several more days. The fact remains, the items had been placed in tot he trash -- as near as we can tell by the story posted -- at the direction of management, and were not items that management had any intention of selling.

I'll concede the point that the employee ought to have asked, but I maintain that since the items were being tossed, they were fair game to anybody that felt comfortable climbing into the dumpster to dig them out. I'd also suggest that management might reasonably offered the items to the employee instead of simply tossing them. We are talking about chocolate that doesn't turn bad in such a manner that it presents a health risk. It goes "bad" to the point that it may taste poorly, and not present a paying customer with a rewarding experience, and when this happens management might want to discard it.

But if the trash truck driver doesn't have to ask before he removes the trash, should anybody else have to ask before they do the same thing?

I get the idea that the employee should have asked if he could take the stuff home to his kids, but I don't get what harm has come to the store. They are out nothing, except they may now be out the cost of prosecuting the employee, or perhaps they may be out the cost of defending themselves. Clearly, they have lost no profits, and there is a strong argument that they could lose considerable goodwill ...

I NEVER said I knew when the truck was coming. What I said was that the truck's arrival is something we know was going to happen -- why put stuff in the trash if the truck was going to come and get it?

Nothing makes stealing okay, but when management puts stuff in the trash, then I see no reason to get upset at how the trash container gets emptied, be it by the truck coming around on its schedule, or by passersby coming around.

They have no value, that's why they were in the trash can.

I don't agree. When the items became trash, they by definition had lost any and all value that the store might once have held. Obviously, one man's trash is another man's treasure, but having value for the man that finds treasure does not add value for the man that puts out the trash. Your supposition is, that since the items had value one, the other would take them back and place his value upon them.

That's actually a valid point that I agree with, but it doesn't support firing a guy that works for minimum wage and collects public support to feed his family.

I think the goal of the company could easily be achieved by stating the point to the offending employee(s).

Well, for starters, they fire the guy for throwing quality items in the trash. For all we know of this story, the items in the trash were placed there at the direction of management. If the story was, the employee was seen placing items in the trash, then later retreiving them, I'd support firing him. That might be the case here, but it isn't stated in the story.

I have no reason to think it is real or fake, but assuming the story is real, I don't think the company is making a good move by firing a very low wage employee that is getting public assistance as well as his wages.

This set of facts makes the story much different than originally posted.

If I were manufacturing ANYTHING I would want my 'junk' in the hands of the general public. But I would make an exception or two for employee's kids.

Hell, I would have handed the bars to them myself!