Lawyer time. At will, maybe. But you’ve been assaulted on the job, are now suffering from severe anxiety (right???), and got fired on top of it? They’ll eat your boss for breakfast and get a nice severance package out of it.
Dude admitted that he put himself in the way. This case will be dropped quickly.
As much as he may have a case so long as he didn’t act against store policy and actually attempted to he probably has a case, even in an at-will state.
The problem is that it will likely be difficult to get an attorney to represent him without an actual retainer because these cases usually draw out for a long, long time and are difficult to fight. Unless there’s a legitimate case for a class action, then the chances are slim that anyone can afford to fight the case, even if they ultimately could win because no attorney is going to devote years to this for a ‘maybe’.
The only route there may be a hope of winning here is for him to apply for unemployment and if he doesn’t get it, to appeal himself. He may get that as small of a win as that is.
hey’ll eat your boss for breakfast and get a nice severance package out of it.
I’d be shocked if they didn’t act outside company policy simply by moving to “deter” them. the company’s liability lawyers are never going to let whatever lawyer OP can afford to hire near OP’s boss.
deleted by creator
What about it?
OP’s own statement is that they moved to deter the theft. Had he not moved to do so, it’s probable he’d never have been attacked.
It’s certainly likely that had he elected instead to walk away- that is to follow policy*- he almost certainly would never have been attacked.
It’s very, very, unlikely that the shoplifter’s attack wasn’t precipitated by OP’s action of placing himself in such a place.
Now imagine the shoplifter was armed, carrying a pistol, and elected instead to draw and put a couple rounds into OP- and then, because the shoplifter is already fucked if they get caught, pops a couple into the security/LP staff; and then emptied the rest of the mag in the store.
The store would have to pay out for medical bills, lawsuits, over stopping the theft of something that probably costs less than $100, and is covered by insurance anyhow
(*there’s almost zero chance a retailer doesn’t have these policies. Even mom and pop shops know better,)
Shit man. 15 years ago, I worked at Home Depot as a cashier and answered to a Head Cashier who had failed to get into police academy for 5 years running.
When that asshat wasn’t in the store, life was good. We did our job, we found non-confrontational ways to send scammers packing.
When asshat was in store, it was always some big dramatic deal.
The second he got a whiff of someone trying to pass a bad check, or use a credit card balance transfer check like it was a regular check, or do a “but I have store credit!” scam, the only answer was to stall the person until the cops arrived.
2 separate times, this asshat caused a gun to be drawn on me because I was expressly forbidden from letting the person leave, “just stall them!”, while he hid behind a wall on the line with police.
How times have changed.
Sorry OP, sounds like your corporation didn’t like your 20 years of merit raises and just wanted an excuse for you to be gone.
Fuck em. You’ll make it through this.
I understand how you feel, but reading your story, I think when you were grabbing the product and telling him to “just drop it an leave” is what ended your career.
It sucks, you got attacked, but you don’t need to trade your personal safety for some store product.
Just based on this story here, where you are giving a very one sided view of the situation, you intentionally put yourself at risk and kept escalating. I hate that a criminal put you in a situation where you ended up getting fired, but there was more than one mistake here.
At will is a bullshit shield used to deflect legitimate labor issues. You need to talk to a lawyer like now.
While I agree with the sentiment, I don’t know that a lawyer is going to help.
At will states need to repeal that legislation, but until they do, they are at will states.
Or maybe I am seamlessly substituting “at will” for “right to work” and OP is not in a “right to work” state.
At-Will doesn’t apply here. He acted against company policy and escalated a simple shrink issue into a violent incident.
It wasn’t even the deterrence. That may have been a slap on the wrist, but grabbing onto the product and grappling with the thief was absolutely a termination event.
OP was fired with cause.
What else can I say.
You right.
this smells like they needed to cut staff, and are just taking every opportunity to do so. if they can fire you for cause, no unemployment
Yep, lose the guy with 20 years of raises and get someone new they can pay less. Easy decision. It’s not like retail is hard to learn.
I know this isn’t what you want to hear, but you did in fact fuck up and act recklessly
I start moving to the side of the exit to make myself visible and just convince the guy to not bother. Not here to be a hero or get someone arrested. Just trying to deter.
No. Don’t ever do that. You don’t know what a thief will try, and the cost of the product isn’t worth getting punched or worse. You’re lucky the guy wasn’t armed.
Do not attempt to deter thieves. Your job is not worth it.
The company does not have a choice but to fire you. They need to make it absolutely clear to every other employee to never, ever, under any circumstances, place yourself in harms way to deter a crime.
Your coroporate overlords do not give a shit about you. They don’t care if you have been loyal, so don’t be. They won’t reward you for going the extra mile, so stop exactly where they stop paying you.
You were injured on the job. Did you file for employer’s compensation? You should talk to a lawyer. Maybe you didn’t want to, because you felt like it was partly your fault, or you were worried about keeping your job. That’s over, it’s time to protect yourself. Call lawyers now. Make a list of local employment and injury lawyers and start calling when their offices open.
That’s what your employer is afraid of. That’s why you were fired, and why they want to be absolutely clear that employees should never act recklessly like you did. Not because they care about you or their employees, as we already know they don’t. It’s because they are afraid of being sued. And they are afraid of that because being sued will cost them more money than training your replacement.
Be the thing they are afraid of. Win or lose, you’ll know you did what you could to protect yourself this time.
Man I do security and even I don’t try to stop them. My job is to observe and report. If I get in a fist fight I will be lucky to keep my job and 100% would get workers comp denied if I needed it.
Damn, so you aren’t allowed to do your job?
Did you not read?
My job is to observe and report.
Then he should refer to himself as working in “surveillance”, because “security” involves ensuring unauthorized people cannot do unauthorized things. Theft is an unauthorized thing happening, and a system that makes no effort to control whether that happens is not a “security” system, and the people who work to enact that system aren’t “security” employees.
They’re “surveillance” employees. “Intelligence”, if you want to make it sound cooler.
Talk to any security company that has guards at unarmed posts. Our jobs are to observe and report.
So is ‘security camera’ also a misnomer? His job is to make theft less likely because he will report you to the police. That still falls in the realm of security. I will say that ‘security observer’ would be a better job title than ‘security guard’ but they never claimed a job title, just a general field of work.
The company does not have a choice but to fire you. They need to make it absolutely clear to every other employee to never, ever, under any circumstances, place yourself in harms way to deter a crime.
Man, when I worked retail in the 90s, we were TOLD to follow known shoplifters and would-be shoplifters, deter them, and even stop them before leaving.
Times have really changed! 😂
Yeah… there was a security guard at a Costco near my hometown that was shot and killed by a shoplifter.
I had a good friend who worked LP for wal-mart back in the '90’s. He loved that shit. He’d burn CD copies of the surveillance videos of his latest escapades fighting with and tackling shoplifters and bring them home for us to see. He was a master of “redirecting” someone running away from him into whatever nearby solid object he had available. I know those big red bollards that keep cars from driving thru the front doors claimed more than a couple of victims at his, um… urging. Entertaining stuff for sure.
Indeed. we would straight-up chase shoplifters right out the front door and further, if they didn’t give up what they stole. Myself and another employee ran after a guy who stole some meat and what-not. He ran across the street and into a sketchy apartment building. My coworker went to the door to open it and enter the building and it’s only then that common-sense clicked in. I called him off telling him we had no idea what was waiting for us in there…
Man, when I worked retail in the 90s, we were TOLD to follow known shoplifters and would-be shoplifters, deter them, and even stop them before leaving.
Yeah but did you work in a country that has sensible gun laws? It sounds like the person you reply to is from the US, and I sure as hell would not try to stop a thief if I have to assume they might as well have a shotgun in their trousers’ leg or an assault rifle in their car.
In the US I’d probably help them carry the product out anyways, fuck labor “laws” in the US.
It’s been a good while, but as I recall working the late 90s at a Target in the Midwest, I believe we were told to follow them as far as the parking lot and get the license plates if they went to a vehicle.
Yeah shit happened like a guy lifting liquor got tackled and got bottle glass pushed into his torso and employees got hurt and or killed in other incidents, shoppers got harassed and confined, all these people sued and now if you want to arrest some guy, get trained for it and do it properly.
It’s honestly never worth it to stop petty thieves. The company still makes profit, the police will end up dealing with unruly individuals eventually even if you don’t report them. The only reason to try is to satisfy humanity’s violent tendencies, which perpetuates a cycle of harm.
For good reasons.
Unsafe work environment lawsuit.
Delete this post & get a lawyer.
Shoplifters and the general public being potentially violent is a normal condition of working retail. Nothing of what occurred in OP’s story qualifies as an unsafe work environment.
Can you get a refund on your law degree?
Sounds like OP wasn’t working at the time of the incident
Not the issue. They’re a representative of the company on and off the clock. You can’t put your hands on someone shoplifting. The company has insurance for theft and an acceptable amount of shrink every quarter. OP made a bad mistake.
Your employer has policies for dealing with shrink/theft. They assuredly don’t include confronting the shoplifter. It sucks because you were just trying to act in the best interest of your store. It sucks to lose your job, it sucks to not be given a second chance based on your history. I’m guessing there is probably liability/reputation concerns that is keeping corporate from just giving you a warning. Its not that they don’t care about you, actually it is because they don’t care about you, the dollar value of the risk of lawsuit/bad press became higher than what it costs to replace you.
Sue them. Take all of their money.
He has no grounds to sue, except for maybe the shoplifter. But the shoplifter probably has nothing to take anyway.
His lawyer can find a way. If frivolous lawsuits can pass unabated all the time, surely so can an honest one.
They don’t.
They do but have fun keeping your head in the sand.
If they don’t get thrown out on a motion to dismiss, it goes into discovery.
After discovery, if it doesn’t get thrown out on summary judgment, it goes to trial.
If it doesn’t get thrown out on a motion to dismiss, the lawsuit states a valid legal claim.
If it doesn’t get thrown out on summary judgment, there is evidence to support the claim.
Either way, if it doesn’t get thrown out, it’s literally not a frivolous case.
Then he isn’t going to be filing a frivolous lawsuit if he chooses to sue over this. It’s as simple as that.
You gonna pay his lawyers $6000 retainer?
I believe during discovery, the very well established culture and rules of “not chasing or putting hands on a shoplifter” would get this thrown out as a summary judgment.
Lawsuit. You did right and deserve to be heard out in court.
No lawyer will take this lawsuit against the store. They would just pull out the employee manual that says “do not confront shoplifters”. As a manager, he definitely knew that, probably even taught new employees.
Just get a new job, or get an MBA. Experienced managers are always in short supply.
Absolutely. They should just apply around. An MBA would help, but they wouldn’t even need one to land a decent gig at most places.
With an MBA they could open their own store. They have all the experience. Then they can fight shoplifters to their heart’s content, or learn why no one does.
When I worked at Kmart years ago I was just a layaway employee. Since I was kind of fat and and of average height, the security guy asked me to stand-in while he dealt with this huge dude, maybe 6’3", as some kind of intimidation tactic while he asked him questions. My job was apparently to block the security office door to prevent the guy from leaving. Security guy starts asking about warrants and the guy is like “Fuck this” and rapidly approaches me at the door. Towering over me. This job paid minimum wage and I had zero training to deal with Brute Squads. I just let him go past me while the security guy desperately chased after him, asking him to stop repeatedly.
Security guy talked a lot of shit about me after that. Couldn’t give less of a fuck. Not my job to get knocked out by giant dudes who got caught trying to steal a pair of Basic Edition sweat pants.
Obviously this has nothing to do your situation or how you handled it, but it definitely speaks volumes about what the point of Security even is if the train security officers can’t even do anything.
EDIT: Looking back, that job was pretty fucked. It was on the bad side of town and Sears Holdings wound up getting rid of security entirely. Word got out extemely fast and it became a free-for-all for shoplifters. Groups of middle-aged women would come in with huge purses, fill them to the brim and casually walk out, laughing and saying “Nothin’ for us today, thank you!”. Got to the point where friendly deterrent didn’t even help. We just stopped giving a shit. I had been threatened with violence over refunding a TV that had been forced into a back seat so hard that the box still had red paint on it, had a gun flashed at me over making eye contact with a dude I recognized, and used to have to chase a kid around who would ride the bikes, steal candy and kick fragile shit off of shelves. That job is why I will never work at a department store again. Picked up some great customer service skills, though.
The victim blame here is insane. I hate these comments. You are not the problem. It is not your fault for walking or standing near someone, and they punched you.
Edit: Louder for those still delusional. IT IS NOT YOUR FAULT YOU WALKED IN THE DIRECTION OF SOMEONE. IT IS NOT YOUR FAULT THEY PUNCHED YOU. It is incredibly cruel of the company to fire you like this. For simply existing in the presence of someone with an axe to grind.
They said they moved to deter, they tried to grab the items back from the person after being hit, they said “just leave it and go” aloud. They probably said all this in the report, too, not understanding what they were doing.
They weren’t “just standing near someone”. They even mentioned security is there, but they still did this.
This isn’t victim blaming, it is educating. Nobody in these comments is saying op SHOULD HAVE been fired. They’re explaining WHY they were, so that they and anyone reading this don’t make that mistake again.
I’ll just point out that as shitty as it is that OP got fired here, the other side of this is that if there aren’t these sort of hard rules and policies in place about not trying to stop shoplifters, workplaces can start creating an expectation on the employee to put themselves in harms way. The same rules that hurt OP protect the workers that don’t feel like confronting a shoplifter.
In short, liability laws are a bastard in a country with no national healthcare rights.
If healthcare was free, would you want to work at a store that required non-security workers to stop shoplifters? Think about what you’re asking for.
It may be though.
Every retail job I ever had, and that was a lot, had the policy of don’t stop shoplifters. It’s not worth the risk when the items are insured.
Hell I’m not even sure OP is morally right here. Look how quick these companies will end your career, you don’t owe them any more loyalty than time in exchange for money.
They put their hands on the shoplifter. Game over unfortunately. I think most people here are sympathetic to OP’s plight, but it’s unfortunate that the law says otherwise.
I don’t think it’s even the law saying that, but the business reality of liability. Basically: insurance risk.
I feel like OP did the right thing by heart, and this story would have had a different ending in a country with different gun laws and history of gun violence. Also if the case really is OP was let go to show others that they should not engage in this “reckless behaviour” I feel it at least it should have been communicated as such when fired.
No guns involved in this story at all.
BlAmE gUnS 🤪
You’re missing the point. HAD guns been involved, putting your hands on somebody can get really ugly really fast. You don’t want or need to take these chances with desperate people.
Ahh. So hypothetically blah blah blah guns r bad. Yeah, that makes sense.
Yes it does make sense. Because the insurance companies operate completely on hypotheticals. And that has a very real cost to the business being insured.
“but imagine if there were guns theree”
Like, are you seriously that scared that you need to make up situations just because “guns”.
That’s the only good thing in this story. It usually gets ugly when guns are also involved.
Do you see where I’m going here, or do I have to involve it in my story for you to see?
It’s not about guns, it’s about liability. If more people had been seriously hurt because he grabbed the item instead of simply letting the guy go, the could have sued the retailer because he escalated it.
Notice in OP’s story he was punched after he and security grappled with the guy.
I blame the system that allows a theif to sue the people stopping them from stealing
Blame whoever you want. In reality they teach you not to be a hero. Security is there for that. They are the people responsible. If they ask you to do something, do it. If they don’t, then don’t try anything that may make the situation worse.
Product is replaceable and insured. Your life, or the life of anyone else there isn’t. The fact is that it most likely impacted other people working there since “manager got punched in the face, I don’t feel safe here anymore” is a reasonable reaction.
He probably shouldn’t have gotten fired for it, but still - OP isn’t entirely blameless.
injuries cost more than most stolen goods. This is one of the realities we face between insurance companies and lack of welfare.
Here’s a doozy for ya: in Canada, a person can smash your window to break into your house, and if they cut themselves on the broken glass, they have every legal right to sue you and win.
I am aware of that. Didn’t a guy try to break in via skylight window and fall on a cutting board & knife?
Totally get your point, and this is the logical way to think about it, but I’m not sure what decision I would make when I don’t have the time to think through.
Also, I don’t think we can be sure that this store policy is not about guns, at least in part. I’m not from the States, but when there’s the implication of more people seriously hurt in public, in the USA, that’s where my mind is.
Do america not have labour law to stop these? This is incredibly frustrating that company can just let go of employees without facing any trouble.
In many states no, they are called “at-will states”, where the employee can leave or the company fire you for no reason at all. It’s phrased that way to make it seem better than the evil unions making you stop working to strike to fight for your rights.
They violated company policy. probably.
The item- in fact all of the loss caused by shoplifting- is far less than it’s worth putting employees in that position. That shoplifter could have had a gun, or a carton knife or screwdriver or some other kind of weapon, and sent OP into the hospital, racking up the medical bills. there is a reason most retailers policy is “Don’t [do exactly what OP did]”
And that’s assuming the guy attacks an employee. Imagine the expense if a patron gets knifed with a rusty, AIDS-infected shank. or shot.
for most retailers, the only people that are supposed to engage (and, yes, that includes positioning yourself as a “deterence”) are Loss Prevention teams. and even then, they’re probably just going to let it go rather than risk a confrontation with shoppers near by. They’re going to call the cops and let them take the liability.
I worked (briefly) as an unarmed security guard many years ago. It was company policy to never, never, ever touch a person unless we felt our life was in danger. We were there to document only. Security is just a less reliable camera with a mouth.
I’m a manager for contract security, and yeah, the mantra for unarmed guards is “Document and Report”. But also, the rule of the day is constructive cowardice.
even the guards equiped with firearms… that firearm is mostly there because their position is deemed to be that hazardous, if that makes sense.
Ish on the deter by being there. I can’t speak for all companies but the major one I work for would have you act as just a visible deterance by just standing there. The grabbing the cable and stuff would be what would be “to far”
Deterrence happens before somebody decides to do something.
It certainly doesn’t happen as the dude is walking out with a case of whatever it was. Moving to block somebody’s path is generally considered an escalation; and that’s exactly how the shoplifter saw the action.
“maintaining a presence” to “deter criminal activity” only works if they’ve not already decided to conduct that criminal activity.
Moving to block somebody’s path That I would agree with on being an escalation.
I have seen a lot of times by just there being a few people around giving the we know and we can see you can make someone ditch all the stuff and (some times) cuss out everyone as they leave.
I will admit that I would not advise the technique when it looks like someone is going to be very bold and just walk out with items “clearly” stealing (the cable on it still) and the OP story kinda shows why
Then again anytime I am around a shoplifter doing something like that being very aware of how they are moving or doing is important. Ill do my job but fuck getting hurt for the stuff, nothing in any store is worth it.
Frankly I’ve not met someone who’s worked in retail in the last 15 years who’s said they had a different policy. Even a cart full of shit is cheaper to pay for than the potential lawsuits from an employee getting hurt from trying to intervene.
Beyond that though, please don’t put your life at risk for your employers merchandise. It is not yours. Your store carries insurance for a reason. Your life is not worth any of that shit.
Beyond that though, please don’t put your life at risk for your employers merchandise. It is not yours. Your store carries insurance for a reason. Your life is not worth any of that shit.
absolutely. Especially because, it’s not (written) company policy… they can and absolutely will try to say it’s your fault and weasel out of the expenses.
Well, without knowing, your explanation (at least to me) is not a “why this happened so it’s more understandable” but a description of the problem. Whatever the “policy” of the business, a “heat of the moment” action or one slip-up should never be allowed to lead to a cancellation in my decidedly German union member mind. Especially not after years of employment.
This could have lead to some citation or training or something, but not a cancellation.
If businesses lack those.laws, companies are never required to really train their ppl, because they can just hire and fire, expecting the knowledge they want to already be there.
At-Will = your employer can fire you at any time for any reason. It means no protections for the worker except for unemployement.
For any reason that isn’t specifically a protected class*
Although in practice that just means if they want to fire you for discriminatory reasons, they just don’t give a reason.
The protection is bogus and that is the point. They didnt fire you for being in a wheelchair, they fired you for failing to deliver required materials to required personnel on time. Nevermind that it was only accessible through stairs.
This happens far more often than someone is protected.
Short answer is maybe. Long answer is it depends on which state you live in. So called At Will states effectively have no labor laws (well, there’s things like minimum wage, wage theft protections, worker safety, etc. but nothing around employment). In an At Will state you can be fired without notice and without any reason. In theory this is balanced by being able to quit at any time and without giving notice, but people aren’t exactly clamoring for the right to quit jobs without notice.
Just for clarity, before at will, you could still quit at any time without notice. At-will only takes from workers, even though it’s phrased as giving something to them.
At-will just got rid of employers need to have cause to fire someone.At-will gave companies the ability to fire those who might start unions, specifically.
