I am a 24 year old single mother who is attending school and was working at Walgreens. My position there was SIMS coordinator, which deals with the inventory for the store. I feel that I was unjustly fired for "stealing". I have worked at Walgreens for four years and have been very loyal, busting my butt for this company. They fired myself and my manager on the same day. I believe that I was fired because of my relationship with her.
First of all they were doing some kind of investigation on my manager saying that she was violating work labor laws by having people work off the clock and not paying them. That is totally bogus and she would never do anything like that. Through a "Rumor" someone said that she was paying me for a whole day and letting me clock out early, but still getting paid for a whole day. Why someone would say that I dont know. If I could get paid like that, it would be awesome, but it never happened. She was very flexible with my schedule because I am a full time student and working full time so my punches were a little here and there.
So anyway LP (Loss Prevention) comes in and tells her to leave the store while they talk to all the employees. They only talked to two employees and what was said, I dont know. I do believe that whatever they said caused us to lose our jobs. They let my manager go and then close to the end of the day I was called into the office. They started by grilling me asking me all kinds of questions about my manager and about me. What I didnt like was the facr that they said&Youre in school right? I replied by saying yes but what does that have to do with anything. LP also asked me if I received financial aid and I said yes. He then said, well do you know that if you are convicted of a crime then you will lose all of your aid. He then asked me did you read that when you signed the papers for your aid or did you just sign at the bottom line to get the money without reading the stipulations. I replied by saying that I am well aware of that, but was confused about the part of a crime.
I knew that I had not committed any crimes but according to them I did. I was fired for stealing. They told me that they were looking at videos and apparently saw me on there taking something. They went on to say that if you dont admit to stealing we will call the police. I knew good and well that they didnt have me on video doing such a thing. People watch out for this because they tell you that to scare you into incriminating yourself. So anyway through the grilling process they asked me if I have ever taken anything without paying for it. They have this thing at Walgreens called grazing which means that if you open something (drink, food) without paying for it right then and there its stealing. I told them that I had done that many times but who has'nt. We can only check out at one register for employee discount and many times we did not have coverage over there or they were just backed up. I will admit that I was wrong on that part for doing that and not paying for my items right then and there. The point is that I paid for my items before I left the store that day.
The other thing that I was fired for was what they call concealing items. I was the SIMS coordinator which is a position that handles all the inventory stuff. There was also another SIMS person as well and she did the markdowns for our store. Sometimes when she marked things down several of us would hold back the item until we could pay for it on payday which was on Fridays. Some people would hold it in the office and some would put it back in the stockroom until payday. I would just put mine on my cart because I knew it wouldnt get gone that way. However they considered this stealing as well. Im upset at that because people who did the SAME thing as me still have their jobs and I dont. And by those people, I mean the two employees that they had in the office for hours. They on many occasions have done the exact same thing and they are still working. I feel like they should be fired too.
I am really upset at the fact that I have to walk around with this on my shoulders. I am now labeled as a thief. I could understand if I stole some money out of the register or physicaaly stuck something in my pocket and walked out of the store with it, but that isnt the case. When I go look for another job I have to tell them that I was fired for stealing which will probably have a big effect on me getting another job. Walgreens also DENIED my unemployment (which I will be appealing) because they say I was separated because of unauthorized removal of company property. This is such crap. So now I have no job and no income. If I could go back to that day and start over I would. I also thought that honesty was the best policy, but in this case it wasnt. They asked me direct questions, which I answered without lying, making excuses, or trying to get out of it. At least they gave my manager the option to resign, or get fired&they just fired me. She will be fine but I on the other hand will have a hard time getting another job!!!
If anyone thinks that they were right in firing me, please let me know. I always like to hear other poeples point of view. I am sure that Im not the only person who has gone through this type of thing. If you work or have worked for walgreens then you should know how LP operates and how they bascially just threaten you in so many words into incriminating yourself. At best they could have written me up, and let me keep my job. For future employees or employees who work there now please watch out for this and dont let them jerk you around.
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