They Are Discounting On It

(I work in retail, and our store’s policy on employee discounts is quite similar to most other retailers’ policies: employees are entitled to a discount on any non-sale item, and such transactions are only allowed once a week. Any large purchases, such as that exceeding $250, must be approved by a district manager. One day, my coworker walks up to my register, with a rather hefty cartload of merchandise.)

Coworker: “Hey, [My Name]. Could you page [Manager] for me? I’ve got some shopping to do today.”

Me: “Gee, I don’t know if I can. Didn’t you come in yesterday and buy a whole bunch of stuff? We’re only allowed to do this once a week.”

Coworker: “No, it’s all right. I already talked to [Manager] about this and he said it’s okay.”

Me: “Well, if he says so.”

(I page for our manager, and he comes over to manually override the register prompt, which has blocked further sales for my coworker’s ID. After I had scanned every single item.)

Me: “All right, your total comes to… $463.02?! Hold on a sec, [Manager]. Are you sure this is okay? This is her second purchase this week, and this amount normally requires a DM approval! Not only that, but some of these items are on the flyer. I thought we weren’t allowed to buy those until after the sale ends?”

Manager: “[My Name], you’ve done a great job memorizing our policies, and as your boss, I am pleased by that and I appreciate it.”

Me: “Then why are we breaking the rules anyway?”

Manager: “Did you see the f***in’ truck that came in this morning? It did a number on our stockroom, and frankly, some rules will have to be broken to free up some space for the next truck. [Coworker] is doing us a godd*** favor by emptying us out like this!”

(Later in the day, I did take a look inside the back stockroom, and my manager was right: there indeed was a ridiculous amount of merchandise. To this day, our store is still very lenient with employee discounts!)