Quote:
Originally Posted by CptSternn
How is it stupid? The value of the cheese is relevant to the matter. It's like if you took a pen from the bank or post office and then got arrested for robbery and were given 20 years for theft.
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No, that is trying to make your case by using a really bad exaggeration. It's more like you stole a pen from the bank and then they fired you from your teller job (hey, integrity in a bank job ... you think that is important?)
In fact, as a person who used to hire and fire people in Wisconsin and Texas (completely different laws), in any retail environment (restaurant, video game store or payday loan office) the idea of having employees that can be trusted with the company's assets is important. Would I fire someone for giving away a slice of cheese? First offense, probably not. But it would bother me greatly. Especially if the company policy about ethical handling of company assets is made clear to each employee when they are hired (as I'm sure it is at McDonald's.) It becomes an issue of character.
And the cost of what was stolen isn't as significant as some of you would think. One person said that you shouldn't get fired for giving one slice of cheese away, but you should get fired for giving a bunch away. So that suggests we can have a debate about how many slices of cheese would justify a termination. Or how many occurrences.
As a former manager, I don't care if someone takes a dime, a dollar or a twenty dollar bill out of my till. The thinking runs through my head, "Today a dime was okay to take. What will be okay tomorrow?" And that slice of cheese is worth about a dime.
I suspect the manager made note of previous issues with the employee, and the cheese was just the last straw. And they probably lost in court because the manager didn't do a good job of documenting those previous issues.
But the judgement for 5 months of pay is what mystifies me. How can being fired for stealing something, anything, be considered unjust?