“Personal Issues” Apparently Means “Running From The Law”

It’s the grand opening of a new store in the chain, about forty miles from my store. All the bigwigs are there, as well as most of the store managers from my district.

I got a text this morning from my manager, asking me to resend an email to the district manager because the system was down when he tried to send it last night.

The email went something like this.

Manager: “I’m taking the weekend off. Having personal issues. Please apply my personal time. If this is a big deal, consider it my two-week notice.”

Thing is, he is due at the new store tomorrow to help with the grand opening. It should be no surprise that the district manager is furious. I get a call from her later that morning saying that [Other Store Manager] will be coming and I am to help him however I can.

Then, things take a new turn.

[Other Store Manager] shows up and asks for the last two months worth of credit signature slips. Surprised, as I only thought he was going to help cover the store, I show him where to find them.

As it turns out, when the manager buys gasoline, he manually enters the credit card number and then scribbles on the slip. I asked him about it last month, and he told me it was a company card from his “other job” that he has permission to use.

Well, apparently, he didn’t have permission.

After [Other Store Manager] gathers all the slips and compares them to a valid slip where the card was scanned by the cardholder, he calls the district manager, who comes in and calls the police.

Turns out [Manager] is on probation for theft and immediately started stealing again as soon as he got this job.

The district manager changes the safe combination and the office PC password and re-keys the security tape box. 

We now have orders to call the police if [Manager] comes into the store. I kind of doubt he will, though, as I suspect that he got wind of something stirring over this and just disappeared — by the barest skin of his teeth, apparently.