Ridiculous Decision of the Week
I was disgusted when I heard about this story.
A Zellers employee was fired because he took chocolate bars from the garbage. The man, Guy Masse, a single parent of three decided that he would take some chocolate bars that had passed their best before date. He thought that it would make a good Christmas stocking stuffer/gift for his children.
The man admits that he took the candy and that he didn't ask for permission, but he also admits that he is very poor. He took the candy out of the garbage, in order to help make Christmas a little brighter only to discover that it cost him his job.
I can understand the side of Zellers who doesn't want their employees to just take any product that has been deemed expired, defective, or damaged. They don't want employees walking off with LCD TVs after all.
Still, it sickens me that a man has been fired because he took food out of the garbage. Of course he should have asked his supervisor who will no doubt argue that he would have said yes, but doesn't it strike you as a bit harsh that a man who had found a job to avoid being on welfare has been fired less than a week before Christmas?
Call him into the office, yell at him a bit and tell him the importance of being a part of the team. Reprimand him if you must, dock his pay for a day, switch him to the worst shift there is, but don't fire him.
To me this sounds like a textbook case of a policy that is written in some book without the benefit of human touch or human compassion. Have a heart heartless corporation (HBC) and look at this case for what it is: a poor man who has been forced to work a minimum wage job with zero benefits forced to take expired food from the garbage can in order to bring a brief smile to his family at Christmas. For shame Zellers.
posted by Nugget @ 12:07 AM
2 Comments:
Haul him into the office, yell at him, dock his pay, give him a lousy shift? Woah, buddy. This is like the "lesser evil" view of torture.
Um, none of it is necessary.
Bring him in, ask him what it's about, tell him he should have gone to his supervisor, send out a note to everyone that they are not to take things from the garbage without asking, and then find a way to deal with your employees' concerns.
I mean, geez, if they can't even afford chocolate bars for xmas, maybe you're not paying them enough!
Zellers needs to see some Xmas ghosts - and then maybe they'll start handing out chocolate bars to their employees as bonuses!
And as for expired chocolate, why aren't they finding a more productive place to put it, rather than in the garbage.
Hey blogger and readers - maybe you should boycott Zellers, or better yet, sneak some melted chocolate into their store and drip it all over the managers!
And if their manager licks any of it off, tell them they're stealing!
First, for clarification, the candy was bound for the garbage, but was alledgedly still in the store - not the dumpster. This is not a justicfication of the management's actions, but it is a key part of their alledged reasoning, so it deserves to be mentioned.
I know it's an unpopular position to take, but what if the situation was not as clear-cut as many have made it out to be? What if the termination was justified on other grounds, the type that are not easily proven/publicized. I have worked in retail environments where store policy on employee behavior did not always have teeth. That is to say, I have witnessed unacceptable behavior in the workplace and a management team that was afraid/unwilling to terminate someone on the grounds of their behavior alone - even when that behavior (as juvenille or repetitive as it might be) was clearly disturbing others in the workplace.
I want to give Mr. Massé the benefit of the doubt, but that courtesy should also be extended to Zellers. This termination could likely have been waged for other, less punishable transgressions - allegations that Zellers was embarrassed to make public. If that is the case Zellers may not be as culpable for poor judgement. They may have been acting int he best interest of the workplace.
This story, as it is reported in most media outlets makes Zellers out to be a clear bad-guy. Should we believe everything we read? The sad fact is, people are often willing to ignore such details when they are busy throwing mud at a corporate target.
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