Sometimes Lazy Is A Cover For Criminal

I work in a self-service restaurant, in a department which consists mainly of the coffee bar, the checkouts, the scullery, and the clearing of the tables. Several coworkers, usually young girls, are not very happy about doing the “dirty” work, i.e. the scullery or clearing the tables, which are the most physical tasks and also involve leftovers, which they consider gross.

One coworker, either in her teens or her twenties, is always working at the checkout or the coffee bar. She doesn’t like to be anywhere else at all. One day, another coworker who is a bit fed up with her antics has her deliberately on the table clearing. She asks whether I want to swap tasks while I’m doing checkout. I refuse subtly, hoping she’ll learn some discipline.

While time goes by, she doesn’t learn, although she’s not bad at the things she does. What is more striking is that she never seems to pay for stuff she eats during her breaks, always claiming she will pay later since it’s “busy”. While other people do this — although it’s illegal and reason for termination — I note that she does this all the time and I never see her come back to pay later. 

One day, the coworker in question doesn’t show up. Another coworker goes to ask whether she is late; the manager on duty answers that she won’t be coming anymore. It doesn’t take long for us to figure out that this is permanent.

It soon came out that she had been stealing money from the till for almost ten months, managing to steal about €3000.00 from the company! So much for “paying later”. No wonder she loved the checkout so much.