Mi Cash-a Es Su Cash-a

(I am teaching a new coworker how to close up the register.)

Me: “Okay, why don’t you count the cash while I get the change?”

Coworker: “Okay.”

(After a few minutes…)

Coworker: “I need to run and check on something down the street. I’ll be right back!”

Me: “Um…”

(She runs off, and I can’t really stop her. In the meantime, I recount the cash as we are often short a few cents. I notice that eighty dollars is missing. My coworker comes back.)

Me: “Would you happen to know where eighty dollars went missing? Did you pay a vendor or something today?”

Coworker: “No, I just took it to pay my rent. It’s okay, though. I’ll pay it back later!”

(I finish up closing since she’s already given it to her landlord, and there isn’t much I can do. I call the bosses and tell them. Being nice people, they forgive her after she pays them back. However, I know her rent is due two weeks later, so I wait. In the meantime, she has done things like locking up the store for an hour to go get lunch or leaving her thirteen-year-old daughter in charge. Two weeks later, I show up and take her key as another coworker needs it to open later that week. She runs off again in the middle of closing and I count the money to be sure she took it again.)

Me: “Eighty dollars is missing again. Would you know anything about it?”

Coworker: “I was paying my rent again. And it’s all your fault that I can’t pay it back soon, because you took my key!”

(I call my bosses and let them know. This time they do fire her. She apparently blamed me the whole time and insisted it was my fault. The awkward part? She continued to live in her apartment for a few months, right across the street from me!)