The Bigotry’s Coming From Inside The House

I used to work at a now-defunct big box store. We had a new store manager come in that had been promoted from a store in another state. Our store was located in a lower income area with a large minority population. [New Manager] was of the same ethnicity and often bragged about how he preferred to hire young minority employees to give them an opportunity to work.

Within a few months, we noticed a huge increase in thefts by cashiers — their drawers were coming up $100 to $200 short — and it was always [New Manager]’s special hires. [New Manager] would make a big deal about firing them, often with them leaving in tears insisting they were innocent. He would express his disappointment, hire more young minority cashiers, and the same thing would happen.

It took way too long for someone to notice that their drawers only came up short on nights that [New Manager] closed the store. A hidden camera in the cash office ended up revealing him stealing money out of their cash bags. Corporate put the loss upwards of $25,000.

[New Manager] was fired, and less than a year later, they announced that the store would be closing due in part to “financial losses.”

But to me, the worst part was all of those poor cashiers — many of who were just teenagers — who were wrongly blamed for thefts of which they were completely innocent and the fact that everyone was so quick to believe it just because they were lower income and minorities.

I gotta say, even though we all lost our jobs, I really wasn’t sad to see that place close.