what if you were his boss?

[Eddi]

What do you think about this?

If you were in charge what would you have done?

Co-op worker 'Good Samaritan' who gave discounts to pensioners SACKED

Were his bosses right to fire him?

I think he should have been given a verbal warning and not actually fired

I think firing him straight away was a bit too much

However, it is a business he is working for, not a charity

Who does he think he is.......?

Jesus of Nazareth?????

 

[Stevicus]

What do you think about this?

If you were in charge what would you have done?

Co-op worker 'Good Samaritan' who gave discounts to pensioners SACKED

Were his bosses right to fire him?

I think he should have been given a verbal warning and not actually fired

I think firing him straight away was a bit too much

However, it is a business he is working for, not a charity

Who does he think he is.......?

Jesus of Nazareth?????

I can't say whether his bosses were right to fire him, as there might be more to the story than what is being told. At least from the information as presented, it appears he didn't know he was violating any policy and that if he had been informed with a warning of some sort, he would have stopped.

Some stores around here offer discounts for seniors and veterans. But it's usually implemented by the store management, not just done on the spot at the cash register. If one cashier does it, customers will expect other cashiers to do it, and then it can be a problem.

 

[McBell]

What do you think about this?

I think it is a completely one sided story seriously devoid of information.

 

[Heyo]

What do you think about this?

If you were in charge what would you have done?

Co-op worker 'Good Samaritan' who gave discounts to pensioners SACKED

Were his bosses right to fire him?

I think he should have been given a verbal warning and not actually fired

I think firing him straight away was a bit too much

However, it is a business he is working for, not a charity

Who does he think he is.......?

Jesus of Nazareth?????

Given the information in the article his employers were right (in the legal sense) to fire him. He should have known about the policies of the business he was working at or at least should have deduced that the shop is paying the discounts he gave, not him.

They were wrong in a moral sense and most probably also in a business sense. It isn't good for their reputation to fire a "good samaritan" and it would have been so easy to avoid it.

 

[Twilight Hue]

What do you think about this?

If you were in charge what would you have done?

Co-op worker 'Good Samaritan' who gave discounts to pensioners SACKED

Were his bosses right to fire him?

I think he should have been given a verbal warning and not actually fired

I think firing him straight away was a bit too much

However, it is a business he is working for, not a charity

Who does he think he is.......?

Jesus of Nazareth?????

I would have maintained that it was his personal discount card, and he could spend it as he saw fit.

People who use the charity b******* are incredibly obtuse with that idiotic train of thought.

No employee I know of views their workplaces as a charity, even if they are in the business of charitable activities like Goodwill and the like. You're not there working long hours as if the company is doing you a favor.

Personally he should sue if not already for significant damages because that's simply isn't a fireable offense. If they wanted to use strictly for the employee's personal use, then they should have just put them in the database at their own place of business with their own Goods and services and provided written stipulations of how the card should be used beforehand.

 

[SalixIncendium]

Robin Hood was still a thief.

Essentially he stole from his employer to do something he thought was good and probably was. But it was still theft, which for every company I've worked for, is a terminable offense.

 

[ChristineM]

What do you think about this?

If you were in charge what would you have done?

Co-op worker 'Good Samaritan' who gave discounts to pensioners SACKED

Were his bosses right to fire him?

I think he should have been given a verbal warning and not actually fired

I think firing him straight away was a bit too much

However, it is a business he is working for, not a charity

Who does he think he is.......?

Jesus of Nazareth?????

Going off warnings, it is not known if he had previously recieved verbal and written warnings. Three strikes and you're out is the way most UK businesses operate.

Then it depends on the severity of the infringement. Providing unothorised discounts sounds pretty heavy to me, in effect its giving stock away.



Remember, a verbal warning is not worth the paper it's written on.

 

[PureX]

What do you think about this?

If you were in charge what would you have done?

Co-op worker 'Good Samaritan' who gave discounts to pensioners SACKED

Were his bosses right to fire him?

I think he should have been given a verbal warning and not actually fired

I think firing him straight away was a bit too much

However, it is a business he is working for, not a charity

Who does he think he is.......?

Jesus of Nazareth?????

It's not just about the money. It's about control. He was sacked for taking control away from the capitalists in a capitalist system. That won't be tolerated even in the name of good public relations or moral benevolence. Nothing can be allowed to justify denying commercial control by the capital investors in a capitalist system. They fight very hard and spend a lot of money to even stop the government from doing it. So some minimum wage peon certainly isn't going to back them down!

 

[LuisDantas]

The article has been misleadingly named. The article text itself makes it clear that he was fired for abuse of his discount card, not for giving discounts. There is a difference, because a salesperson may or may not have the authority to give discounts, while the card was presumably for personal and untransferable use.

Going by the article itself, I can't fault the company. It should have told of the policy early on and claims that it did. The worker denies that he was informed or warned.

Even if it turns out that the company is lying and the man is not, at the end of the day it is still a situation of extending personal benefits at the company's dime and way beyond the intended scope. His quotes in the article imply ignorance of the rules as opposed to having requested the extension and being denied, so I have to assume that he did not ask for permission.

The end result is a company that had one of its workers deciding unilaterally, without prior clearance from his employer, that his 10 to 30 percent personal discount was extensible to customers of his choice because he wanted to do something nice. It is not entirely clear whether or to which extent he took measures to hide that decision, which would aggravate the situation.

If he is being sincere, then I fear that his discernment is probably too flawed for him to be a good fit for a food co-op. If he is not, then he is acting in bad faith and the store has a duty to protect itself from his actions.

At the end of the day, he decided to feel generous by abusing his card and having the co-op pay for that generosity.

As an aside, a food cooperative is somewhat different from a grocery store. The main differences are in ownership, decision-making, and money flow. That extension of discounts would still be abusive if the owners were distant millionaires, but odds are that they were instead people much closer, cooperative members that he may well have met in person, even on a daily basis. He may have convinced himself otherwise, but he was being generous with their money, not his own.

 

[Saint Frankenstein]

What do you think about this?

If you were in charge what would you have done?

Co-op worker 'Good Samaritan' who gave discounts to pensioners SACKED

Were his bosses right to fire him?

I think he should have been given a verbal warning and not actually fired

I think firing him straight away was a bit too much

However, it is a business he is working for, not a charity

Who does he think he is.......?

Jesus of Nazareth?????

The store was simply being cruel and petty. There's so many other ways this could've been handled without firing him. I hope they lose business over this.

 

[rocala]

Robin Hood was still a thief.

Or maybe a freedom fighter.
His victims, the ruling elite of the period, were effectively a "mafia" with regal pretensions. They earned nothing and therefore could not have anything stolen from them.

 

[SalixIncendium]

Or maybe a freedom fighter.
His victims, the ruling elite of the period, were effectively a "mafia" with regal pretensions. They earned nothing and therefore could not be stolen from.

"If crime fighters fight crime, and fire fighters fight fires, what do freedom fighters fight?" ~ George Carlin

 

[PureX]

"If crime fighters fight crime, and fire fighters fight fires, what do freedom fighters fight?" ~ George Carlin

Linear thinking.

 

[rocala]

"If crime fighters fight crime, and fire fighters fight fires, what do freedom fighters fight?" ~ George Carlin

"Who would have thought that semantics could be so irritating?" - Rocala