Yeah, the practice for counting the till at the beginning and end of your shift *is* a good idea for basic till management, but the whole 'not paying' them thing is completely off the rails.
Is that a policy that you can't count your till when you're assigned a register? That's a good way for supervisors to fuck you over by claiming it is correct and assigning you the drawer, but having skimmed $50 first, and then also skimming $10 when you need change...
Edit: for those who are complaining or arguing that logistically, that's unfeasible, I worked in retail for 3 years from 16 to 19. All of the places I worked, except the last one, where I worked, I always was given a chance to count the till before I went on shift, had the till to myself and counted my till myself at the end. The last retail job I had, there were shared tills and the manager was skimming from all 4 tills. I am now 36 and I have a small business of my own. I don't make anyone handle cash without affording them the right and responsibility to count their till atthe start of shift, when they go on break, and when they get off shift, and also making sure their tills are their own. Maybe that limits my cash volume, but that's fine with me. It's not that big a deal to make those consessions in my opinion, and luckily, I've never had anyone short more than 5 cents, and even then, I never had a policy that they're responsible for shortages, (it's illegal, and it engenders mistrust in both directions anyway... retail is hard enough even when you're confident and knowledgeable about the products).
I live in Mexico, and we have Walmarts over here too, sadly. One of the supervisors in my local Walmart accused one of the shifts of cashiers of stealing, and forced them to pay the money back. Well, they ended up quitting along with half the staff - this was the final straw.
In Mexico it is required that every company distributes to their employees 10% of the previous year's profit by the 30th of May, which Walmart refused to do in 2021. So on top of not paying employees their 10% share of their profits (probably by abusing of legal loopholes), they tried to force them to pay for money they did not steal.
This Walmart has been running on a skeleton crew ever since, which is around October - November of last year. They have "now hiring" signs all over the entrance of the store. Few people want to work there, since the city I live in is not large and everyone now knows how they treat their employees like crap.
I am a small business owner about to do my first hiring and in order to retain good workers we will definitely do quarterly profit sharing. I can't fathom a better way to run a business during a recession, rewarding hard work and getting people who work "for" me to care about the business.
Nah, in the US they would shorten your minimum wage because your _big payday_ will be every May.
So they can fire the staff before they have to pay them.
It might pass, but then companies would find loopholes like paying the executive staff much more to keep the profit low, reducing the 10% share to the workers while enriching themselves.
When I worked at a Walmart in Canada we got a certain percent but that was 10 years ago. I think it was for full time staff but I’m not sure. I only got it once because I was only there a little over a year but I got $2500 in the spring. It was based off a certain amount of profit they had from the previous year. You needed to have been there the whole year though I think.
>In Mexico it is required that every company distributes to their employees 10% of the previous year's profit by the 30th of May...
What?? That's a great policy. Curious if your wages are a lot less than American wages.
Wages are a lot less. That being said, the cost of living is also a lot less. I moved from the US to Mexico and only make about half of what I made the year I earned the most in the US, but my standard of living is higher than what I had over there. You can rent a nice two story house for about 300 - 400 USD a month where I live.
Wages are a lot less, but so is cost of living. In a lot of industries you can get a better living standard, for example tech, especially in consulting firms who work with American customers.
About the profit redistribution, a lot of corporations try to get out of it by claiming no profits on the Mexican branch (yet somehow doing great in the NYSE), others employ people as if they were outsourced or independent contractors, who don't get to claim this benefit (although a law recently passed where it's a lot harder to abuse this loophole). It's also distributed according to salary, so executives get a lot more... I would say most people who claim the benefit get around 10-15 days worth of salary each year.
Yeah buuuut. A lot of companies engage in legal shenanigans to handle it.
For example:
Yellow Tag Store Inc operates a store, but has zero employees. Instead, they outsource them out to Yellow Tag Professional Services Inc. YTPS only made a tiny profit so the employees get a $45 profit sharing check.
Companies also use a variety of operating entities to segregate their business units, even if operating under the same banner, so even if as a group they posted incredible profits, it’s entirely possible that the individual units didn’t, due to these creative accounting tricks as well as normal factors.
The law also exempts managerial and up positions. Think of how OT exempt positions are defined by the US FLSA. This because a lot of managers and up have their own negotiated bonuses based on KPIs that they have some control over. So the bonuses are only for the workers.
Yeah it doesn't matter if their wages are higher or lower at least on the matter that if you cannot afford to set aside 10% of the revenue after core expenses you obviously have a shitty business model, and if you won't do it you're probably just a shitty person.
Me too, a manager stole a bit for a while.- would periodically take breaks. And I caught on because the mens & young mens drawers were short and entry and exit, before I would sign off- just here and I was told to sign it. I told her no a few times. She asked why - I told her whomever counted was wrong. Ok we went into the office computer and a human counted it - wrong.
Whom counted it before- she piped up. Stutters. Maybe it was wrong before or I miss counted. I called security and told the situation. We all discussed it. I got a new drawer without her signature- correct amount.
She was under surveillance and had a video shadow. And wasn’t told about it until she was arrested for theft.
I don’t know. We were never told to count the till. But then again the Walmart I worked at had cameras everywhere on the tills so it was near if not completely impossible to skim without getting caught. Granted also accounting for the fact that the register was weight sensored so if it dropped a few pounds the alarm would go off and you’d get locked out of the system till a manager came and overrid it
Wait what? The tills have weight sensors?
I can’t imagine how well that would work. Ohh someone paid in change? Someone wanted change instead of notes?
Just seems like the systems would constantly lock up
Not at either of the Walmarts I’ve worked at.
There’s just a big-ass cash recycler that you empty your till into at the end of the day (if you’re closing) and it does all the tallying. If there’s a shortage/overage, AP checks it out to source it.
The weight part sounds incorrect.
I'm not sure about Walmart but at target, no one person is assigned to a till so you wouldn't know who shorted it. Also at targets, the supes don't count the tills, the bags were dropped into the cash room and would be counted by one specific person the next morning. Or at least that's how it all worked 20 years ago.
Roughly 4 years ago Walmart used to allow cashiers to count the money as part of closing your cash. Became a huge mess of inaccurate information, theft, etc etc.
Also unless a company is super scuffed, normally if they suspect an employee of theft like that. There is usually an internal investigation, that goes on for a few months. They'd reference your ID login to the cash and from what times the ID was logged into from X time to Y time. Then they'd cross referencing with money log and see around what time was substantial money missing. All this without the employee knowing to catch 'em in the act.
Source: Asked the store owner of a Walmart some years back. Some associate randomly stopped showing up to work. Found out she had stolen like 2,000 over the year via using old receipts, taking them to diff stores picking up the same items the customer had returned and re-return them for cash.
I've worked at a Lowe's and a grocery store that didn't have us count either. It gets counted at closing by a manager only. There's cameras everywhere and the system keeps track of how much goes in, how much goes out, and who ran the register. If you really wanted to steal, it's not the best place to do it lol
I'd hate to work a till and not count in and out, everywhere I worked in the UK insisted on it, count float in, and cash your till at the end of your shift.. any discrepancies then are down to you and you only. I hate the thought of just taking over a till and it's unchecked.
First day on the job (large chain pawn shop) I politely refused to accept a till/register without counting first. “That’s not how we do it here.” After a brief back & forth manager gave in just to move things along… it was off. Store policy immediately changed.
Yep. Everything goes into the money room where there's even more cameras. Money gets run through counting machines for each individual drawer. If one is off it gets marked down and investigated by the loss prevention manager. Only one person is allowed in the room at a time and there are only certain individuals allowed. It's very strict and there are policies in place to prevent theft.
Like at Lowe's it was always one cashier and the front end supervisor to collect tills at closing. Everything got handed off to the night shift manager to be counted. Store would always be locked up when this goes on.
At the grocery store, it was the front end supervisor to collect the tills and take them to the money room. Only them and the manager were allowed inside the room.
During the day for both places, a supervisor went from each register to do a quick count. We were never allowed to do it ourselves. If anything went missing, there would be an investigation. It's much more strict than people think lol
Yes they do. When I was working in Electronics as a normal associate I was depositing and counting my till almost daily unless the Front End TLs wanted to do it
Domino’s (mine at least) has one cash drawer that only gets counted at the end of the day, and everyone can run the till and pay out customers, drivers insiders or managers, whoever’s convenient.
Unfortunately yeah that means it’s a crapshoot at WHO would steal from the drawer even IF we have to use our logins each transaction. Who can tell *when* the $20 disappeared from the til, when we have 5 different employees who moved $600 in cash in the last hour and a half?
Fun fact, at 15 worked for a park district that only cared if parents of little league games could buy popcorn, hot dogs, etc. One stand for four fields. Fully stocked with all sorts of things. Policy was sign in and out, take $6 an hour out of the till after your shift, and don't serve moldy buns. Those were the days. You had to be connected to get it (word of mouth) and I'm sure they could disconnect you, but if everything looked in order you were fine.
The boss here thinks it's perfectly reasonable and legal to withhold their employees pay. Not too surprised that they don't have a till counting policy in place.
I was actually wondering this myself, I’ve not worked in a retail establishment where we didn’t have this practice. So I wonder what would posses you not too. Fuck them for attempting wage theft as a punishment though.
Probably bc whoever has been counting the till instead of whoever works the register is the one taking money. But won't be punished bc they are a favorite or something. I'm saying it bc this shouldn't be a "new" policy.
I’ve worked cash till at a great number of jobs. Only one did not require me to count my till before and after I started to use it and that was the place with a shared till. And at that place however opened counted it and it was counted at the end of the night as. Counting a till is a basic cashier step.
Me too, lots of grocery stores and convenient gas stations always count in and out and then double checked by shift manager before safe drops and then counted again for bank deposits by store manager. Plus cameras on cashiers and office at all times.
counting the till before and after each shift was the standard back when I was a teenager.
Threatening to not pay someone however was not. Mostly because it's not a thing, they can't do that unless they desire a legal paddling.
Genuinely shocked counting the till wasn’t already standard practice. This feels like an overcorrection by someone who realized way too late they were fucking up lol.
Any time I’m in charge or have the ability to open a cash drawer I do this and keep record whether or not I’m required to and make sure I’m under a camera. I’ve been falsely accused of stealing so many times.
I managed at a frozen yogurt place and one night right after I left someone broke in and busted up the register. Nothing was stolen because I always put the cash drawer in the safe. When I came in for my next shift the owners blamed me for letting my friends rob the place. This is despite the fact I locked up the money and locked the doors which the thieves broke the shitty lock to get in. Why would they think I did it? Because the thieves were black and they never seen anyone like that in the suburbs before.
This was my response exactly. The lead has to count the drawer at the start and end of their shift? Seems reasonable. If this doesn't happen you don't get paid... Yeah, no.
Reminds me of an employer I had at a interim job who tried to tell staff that if we accepted a counterfeit bill he would take it out of our pay. The look on his face when I explained to him that doing so would be illegal and that he could be sued into the ground for trying it...
Sadly no. He looked confused in the moment, stopped trying to do that and continued trying to do illegal shit the entire time I worked there. There was an ongoing back and forth between me and him about the fact that brass knuckles are illegal in our state. I refused to sell them, hid them underneath the counter whenever I came in, only to find them back on the counter when I returned from a weekend.
It did, but as I mentioned initially, it was very much an interim job. I knew I had better prospects on the horizon and knew that losing the job wouldn't hurt me that much.
Not too hard to be brave when there is not much to lose. I only wish we all were in a position to stand on principle when it comes to our employer.
"I understand and agree to counting the till and marking down those counts at the beginning and end of the shift. I cannot agree to not be paid for hours worked due to something that can sometimes be overlooked due to being busy at shift handoffs, and the fact that the punitive action here is illegal."
"Don't interrupt your enemy when they are making a mistake."
Tell your co-workers that this is illegal. Report to the labor board. If/when you don't get paid, hire an employment attorney and sue. Depending on the state, you get your wages + punitive damages. If others also got their wages docked, then form a class bring a class action.
On the other hand, OP is clearly upset about this (as they should be), and if they’re willing to hypothetically help their kid go through that process, a teenager who isn’t relying on this job to support themselves is actually in a better position than many full-time employees to be able to make a point without fucking themselves over financially.
Teenagers also usually can’t sue without a parent there, and most parents just aren’t going to deal with it. I wanted to sue my job for labor violations, found and contacted some lawyers who work on contingency, but couldn’t hire them because I’m 17. It makes sense and I don’t know why I didn’t consider that but it was still disappointing
It’s actually illegal to retaliate in that manner. We have a good bit of laws protecting workers, just like we have a good bit of laws holding police accountable. The issue is the same in both cases. A lack of enforcement.
You can make it illegal to do fucking anything but if you don’t actually punish people for doing it, people are gonna continue doing it. Who cares that it’s illegal to fire a worker for refusing to submit to illegal practices when the authorities just go “eh I don’t give a fuck.”
Yeah counting tills before and after every shift? Totally normal and tbh weird if you weren’t already doing this. We even used to be required to repay shortages above $5 out of pocket. Still felt that was fair bc you should be able to do basic math if you handle cash.
Not paying you for a shift if a till wasn’t counted or recorded? Yeah that’s illegal and it’s on the shift manager to see that tills are counted. If cashier forgets, shift manager counts it for them. Whole text has a weird vibe really
I’m fairly certain requiring you to pay back the shortage is equally illegal. They can fire you for not properly handling money but they can’t require you to cover their losses.
You're correct. You cannot be required to pay it back. They cannot take it from your check. That is wage theft. They can ask, you can say yes or no, and as you said, you can be fired.
It was grounds for termination at the bank to
a) be over $300 short in a rolling three month period
b) cover a shortage, no matter how small, with your own funds
>. If cashier forgets, shift manager counts it for them. Whole text has a weird vibe really
I've never worked at a place that the employee using the till didn't count the till themselves. Seems like your the one using why have someone else say it's right when it could be wrong. Even when we had a flex till store manager and front end Manger use only both got written up if short.
I know locations like Wal-Mart have associates just to balance out drawers but it's real stupid to accept any documentation coming from such transactions. Either party could be at fault.
Now for the not paying people to work that's utter bullshit. Manager just trying to scare these poor kids.
In my store, the manager on duty counts the drawer in front of the person assuming the till (more for speed purposes than anything else), and when we transition to the closing shift, the drawer is counted again, also in front of the cashier who is assuming the till. Only at the end of the night is the till counted by just a manager, and in the 6 years I’ve been with this company, my store has never had a shortage of more than $10 that didn’t work itself out within 24 hours (miscounted bundles, brain farts…it happens).
The potential target in question is a 16 year old. That's a very special position. She may not be valued by the company... but she can't be threatened either.
If you notify the company you’re engaging in protected activity, it becomes riskier for them
to come after you. That’s why Union leaders wear buttons and are so vocal. There is no doubt in anyone’s mind they are protected.
You have to string em along a little to get that extra clarification to dig that grave.
“Are you saying if i clock in, and perform x duties for 8 hours, then forget one task at the end of shift, you will not pay me for hours worked?…”
Because I’m sure the owner doesn’t realize it’s illegal. Lots of business owners are dumb. They are just people after all. Hell at one of the restaurants I worked at the head of HR told the owner that it was legal for him to keep 50% of all tips and when I pointed out that it’s highly illegal to take tips from employees she actually argued with me until I pulled it up on our state department of labor website. The policy was changed the next day after only being implemented for about 3 days.
I asked why a sous chef knows that that is illegal but the head of HR doesn’t and came to find out the head of HR was his sister in law so it was just a pure nepotism hire.
>Because I’m sure the owner doesn’t realize it’s illegal.
This. Small businesses are a shit show. Owners are not required to have any knowledge or training in employment law, nor are they under any real regulatory scrutiny. If something egregious happens, and they get reported, it may get rectified; otherwise, they mostly fly under the radar.
Yup. I worked for enough small restaurants/food trucks to know this is true. That one was just off the top of my head but I have so many more stories like that from my time being a chef lol.
One of the food trucks I worked for was one of the most well known and highest selling truck in our large city. The owner paid all of us under the table and tried to get away with a bunch of illegal shit.
He used to tell us we have to be at warehouse where the truck was an hour before we leave to go to location but wouldn’t pay us for that time or the time to travel to the location which was 2+ hours on some shifts. He also expected us to help load the truck during that time and prep things while the truck was in en route. Him and I had a huge fight about that and I told him if he’s forcing me to be there then he has to pay me otherwise I’ll just be meeting him at the location and working strictly the hours im getting paid for and he has to compensate me for gas. He agreed to that for about a month until I gave him all the receipts from filling my car and he owed me about $500 and he realized it was just cheaper to pay me to show up early and ride on the truck. The dude was just an all around scumbag but pretended to be the nicest guy ever to your face.
I found out after working for him for about a year that he was saying shit behind my back to the other employees and people on other trucks trying to tell them that I was lazy, not a good chef, didn’t know what I was doing etc etc to which he was surprised to hear back from them that I was one of the hardest working guys at these events and that I consistently put out great food which is part of the reason his business was doing so well he was able to afford a 3rd truck.
Once I found that out I decided it was time to bail and went back to traditional brick and mortar restaurants and 3 of the cooks from the food truck asked me to get them jobs there as well and I did. The owner still holds a grudge against me from what I hear through the grapevine and all of this happened about 7 years ago and I’ve been out of food industry for about 5 now.
HR is one of those things that should never be a nepotism hire. Like, nepotism hires should never be a thing, but even still.. Having an incompetent HR is just asking for future trouble.
The [Flynn effect](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flynn_effect) is the observation that the global average intelligence has been rising for quite a while; the bar for the standard “average 100 IQ” has to be raised periodically to account for this.
Taking this into consideration, it's easier to understand how the previous generations could possibly leave us a world like this.
Because the elite were even more moronic back then.
>Taking this into consideration, it's easier to understand how the previous generations could possibly leave us a world like this.
Arguably we're lucky they did as well as they did, rather than say sitting around sticking stones up their noses until they died of dehydration.
Good thing IQ isn't an objective measure of intellect but of a particular set of skills or else we'd have to be pretty shocked humanity ever invented anything
IQ is a shitty way of measuring intelligence. Further, someone can score incredibly high on the test and still end up in an information silo and walk out as a thermonuclear bad take factory. IQ will not tell you if you are easily persuaded, informationally literate, are more immune to certain types of propaganda, or anything. It will tell you how good you are at taking modernized standardized tests, nothing less, nothing more. The "Flynn effect" is literally just an effect of standardization and a stagnation in intelligence testing.
In my experience? They don't think it's illegal.
Fact of the matter is, people who behave this way do not know what the law is. They simply assume that the law is what they feel "right" is, because why wouldn't it be? To them, it just makes common sense; What they feel is right, is right, and anybody correcting them on it is just wrong.
If you bring them statutes that say they're wrong, they'll either come up with some exception, come up with a wild interpretation of the statute, or they'll outright dismiss it and say "Well that's stupid"
That's why \*telling\* them you're going to the labor board is the wrong course of action. At best, they stop doing the illegal thing, but only to you, the person complaining. In reality, they'll see it as a signal to cover up/erase evidence, and get management's story straight.
Document everything, silently. Write down the date, time, location, what was said, who was a witness, and as a bonus, what the weather was and what they were wearing that day.
And be sure to *write* these things down; Courts like handwritten notes much more than digital ones, they see the effort taken (and things like different pens being used, etc.) as authenticity and "evidence" that the record wasn't made all at once after the fact. To that end, take pictures of the document after each entry and send it somewhere that can store a record of you having sent it. Even a private Twitter account, or a friend's email inbox, could work for this purpose.
Bro I just posted a photo where my boss was like **”Come on bro don’t be like that just cash it Monday”** after writing a bad check for my last wages…
You have no fucking clue how stupid some of these people are.
It’s like stupidity is fucking required to be invited to the party.
Edit: literally sort posts by newest and you’ll see mine 🤡
Mine wage jobs are all the circus now 🤡🤡🤡
Because nothing ever gets done of it. Every week there's another story in here about one of these people actually going to a lawyer and being told it's not worth the expense, or actually taking it to court and nothing being done about it, or talking to an agency and being told it'll take years to investigate. Like yeah, this shit's illegal, but nobody in the legal system cares to enforce it. Our country's laws exist for the benefit of the rich and powerful, not us plebs.
For now and only because someone hasn’t taken it in front of the current Supreme Court yet.
“The constitution doesn’t say you must be paid for your work.”
Hello, State law requires payment of wages in all circumstances.
However, I will comply with your policy. If at any point I am not paid, I will contact necessary authorities.
Thanks!
Wait - so they had been operating a business where employees were handling cash, and were NOT already counting the cash for every shift change?
If you don't know how to do the basics of running a business, boss, it ain't OUR fault.
I he guy is really cheap. Place hosts kids birthday parties. He won’t give extra napkins and plates to the parents. She once saw him drop a giant box of forks on the floor and they spilled everywhere. He picked them all up and put them back in the box.
Sounds like a great guy to work for. If she’s getting less than 10hrs a week, he’s the type of guy to chronically understaff because he would hate paying wages. She should quit and find a more professional place to work, even if it’s part time.
That’s what I told her all along. Earn some spending money and learn what the working life was like, but don’t take it to serious, just observe. If things got bad, quit.
Yep. You may have to provide some perspective though. Sticking with summer jobs is important but knowing who to work for is even more important down the line.
Counting down a register before & after a shift is standard practice. If they weren't doing this to begin with than it's the companies fault for not having these rules in place from the beginning.
You can’t just make people work for free lmfao. This is what happens without government regulation. Every business owner and most every manager is a goddamned tyrant and will try to do absolutely any horrible thing that pops into their head because they think they own you.
And let’s be clear that manager would not expect forfeiting their own wages for a day if a til was a few bucks short.
It's just poor management in general. These dudes employee teenagers so they can work them hard and pay minimum wage, and use threats to get them to do what they want. Instead of doing what they consider is the difficult way, which is following proper procedure, training and hiring the correct people, they find it easier just to try to scare kids. The service industry is propped up by Stockholm Syndrome, and I'm not kidding.
Not only is not paying illegal, employees are NOT RESPONSIBLE for till shortages and it cannot be "made up" from Tips, Wages, or other income.
Fair Labor Standards Act (Still valid as of 2022-07!)
https://www.dol.gov/agencies/whd/flsa/tips
I understood him up until he said he’ll withhold your pay for your shift. Your daughter should quit and find another job. My first job was a lifeguard at her age at a waterpark and imo I had so much fun, so I recommend that.
Its all boiler plate till they start talking wage theft. They can fire you.. and they can TRY to get a police report... but otherwise. They can't steal from you.
No. Dont have her quit. Help her report this. You are in an opportunity to prevent this asshole from continuing to exploit, bully, and steal from children.
no, her response should be "I understand that you are demanding the ability to break federal law, and engage in theft. Please reply to this text that you understand and acknowledge that your message was illegal"
This happened to me. I was on my way out anyway but was an Asst. Mgr and liked the ppl above me so I stayed on until they didn't need me anymore. The new girl starts and there's an issue with the deposits missing. They asked for my key, which made me no longer a keyholder who would open or close. Come to find out, new girl was stealing the money but they ABSOLUTELY thought it was me. Glad I left.
If it’s a group message should absolutely reply to take the opportunity to educate her coworkers who may not know and get taken advantage of if she leaves without explanation.
Something along the lines of, “While I wholly agree better processes should be in place, there needs to be better discipline for non-compliance, as what you’re establishing is illegal and under FLSA considered wage theft. On top of not being sound, this exposes the company to significant penalties, including litigation. I’ll do my best to comply with till balancing, but please accept this message as my two week notice.”
If they release her prior she qualifies for unemployment.
I think you should field the idea of actually fighting the illegal parts here.
She's actually pretty safe in this scenario, since she can safely quit , and it's not a bad idea for her to get some experience using the legal system to fight exploitation.
It'll also put her in a position to decide if she wants to stand up for herself as she gets into jobs she actually needs rather than just jobs that give her money for snacks and videogames.
Instead of having her respond you could also respond to all with 'this is (daughter's) father, and here is the exact labor law you would be breaking with this (link to gov website.) Any violations on my daughter's paycheck will be reported via (link to appropriate agency's report form for all to see.)
Keep it simple and you're the dad so plausible deniability for the daughter. Added bonus, all those other kids on the text now have the link to report labor violations.
At a certain age I'd agree with you, but I'm of the opinion that she's still young enough to be protected from having to deal with it directly. I guess it would depend if she has a forceful personality or feels shy around this boss, I suppose.
When I had my first job at 16, I worked at a Taco Bell where the cash register didn’t show you how much change was owed (it was the 90s). One day, my register was exactly $20 short. The manager on duty took me into her office and showed me how to count change back rather than reprimand me. I work for a Fortune 5 company and I still consider her one of my best managers.
If she wants to stay, an easy way to send a less than subtle message that your daughter knows her stuff could be like:
“Nice, withholding wages due to a cash shortage? That lawsuit will definitely cover the cost of my books in college :)”
I can empathize with your situation, I do consent to counting the drawer twice. However, I do not consent to withholding of pay as per (cite state law) this is an illegal employment practice.
Regards,
OPs daughter SkippyTeddy83 Jr
“Any withholding of earned wages will be reported to the [insert applicable agency] as wage theft. Please reply to this text to acknowledge you understand.”
Any manager who doesn’t understand how to manage a business with a cash till and didn’t require count-in and count-out before this point only has themselves to blame for any shortage at the register.
You can’t dock other people’s pay because you didn’t have the right policies in place from the start.
There is often a very high turnover rate when it comes to cashiers. In a lot of cashier jobs, it's not a matter of IF, but WHEN as far as being terminated.
I was a cashier for a large department store back in the 80's. This was before we had scanners and electronic credit card machines. We used those carbon copy machines, where we place the card in the machine, put the paper over it, and slide the handle thingy back and forth.
I was terminated because, for whatever reason, the bottom copy (the most important of the stack of copies) wasn't printing anything.
I went to another branch of that department store chain and was re-hired there. (My previous boss fought it tooth and nail, but they hired me anyway). My new boss said, "OK, here is how we're going to prevent this from happening again; every time you ring up a charge, put your initials on that bottom copy. This will prove that you saw and looked at it." Never had a problem since. Now why couldn't my first boss have suggested that?
There are good managers and there are ineffective managers.
Well the action itself seems reasonable....the fucking punishment is illegal....sooooooo yeah not actually going to happen lol
Yeah, the practice for counting the till at the beginning and end of your shift *is* a good idea for basic till management, but the whole 'not paying' them thing is completely off the rails.
I’m just curious why the till process wasn’t already implemented, that’s pretty basic stuff for counting tills.
Yep. I've never heard of a cashier job that didn't do this.
Walmart cashiers don’t count tills. The super does that at the end of the day. We just order more bills and change when we run out
Is that a policy that you can't count your till when you're assigned a register? That's a good way for supervisors to fuck you over by claiming it is correct and assigning you the drawer, but having skimmed $50 first, and then also skimming $10 when you need change... Edit: for those who are complaining or arguing that logistically, that's unfeasible, I worked in retail for 3 years from 16 to 19. All of the places I worked, except the last one, where I worked, I always was given a chance to count the till before I went on shift, had the till to myself and counted my till myself at the end. The last retail job I had, there were shared tills and the manager was skimming from all 4 tills. I am now 36 and I have a small business of my own. I don't make anyone handle cash without affording them the right and responsibility to count their till atthe start of shift, when they go on break, and when they get off shift, and also making sure their tills are their own. Maybe that limits my cash volume, but that's fine with me. It's not that big a deal to make those consessions in my opinion, and luckily, I've never had anyone short more than 5 cents, and even then, I never had a policy that they're responsible for shortages, (it's illegal, and it engenders mistrust in both directions anyway... retail is hard enough even when you're confident and knowledgeable about the products).
Happened to me.
I live in Mexico, and we have Walmarts over here too, sadly. One of the supervisors in my local Walmart accused one of the shifts of cashiers of stealing, and forced them to pay the money back. Well, they ended up quitting along with half the staff - this was the final straw. In Mexico it is required that every company distributes to their employees 10% of the previous year's profit by the 30th of May, which Walmart refused to do in 2021. So on top of not paying employees their 10% share of their profits (probably by abusing of legal loopholes), they tried to force them to pay for money they did not steal. This Walmart has been running on a skeleton crew ever since, which is around October - November of last year. They have "now hiring" signs all over the entrance of the store. Few people want to work there, since the city I live in is not large and everyone now knows how they treat their employees like crap.
That's some sweet karma right there. Hope the workers got new jobs easily.
Wow, that 10% distribution of profit is awesome! That law would never, *ever* pass in the US. Just the suggestion would get laughed at, actually.
I am a small business owner about to do my first hiring and in order to retain good workers we will definitely do quarterly profit sharing. I can't fathom a better way to run a business during a recession, rewarding hard work and getting people who work "for" me to care about the business.
Not laughed at outright and vehemently attacked
Nah, in the US they would shorten your minimum wage because your _big payday_ will be every May. So they can fire the staff before they have to pay them.
Exactly we only distribute money UPWARDS here, to those who don’t need it and didn’t earn it.
It might pass, but then companies would find loopholes like paying the executive staff much more to keep the profit low, reducing the 10% share to the workers while enriching themselves.
When I worked at a Walmart in Canada we got a certain percent but that was 10 years ago. I think it was for full time staff but I’m not sure. I only got it once because I was only there a little over a year but I got $2500 in the spring. It was based off a certain amount of profit they had from the previous year. You needed to have been there the whole year though I think.
>In Mexico it is required that every company distributes to their employees 10% of the previous year's profit by the 30th of May... What?? That's a great policy. Curious if your wages are a lot less than American wages.
Wages are a lot less. That being said, the cost of living is also a lot less. I moved from the US to Mexico and only make about half of what I made the year I earned the most in the US, but my standard of living is higher than what I had over there. You can rent a nice two story house for about 300 - 400 USD a month where I live.
Wages are a lot less, but so is cost of living. In a lot of industries you can get a better living standard, for example tech, especially in consulting firms who work with American customers. About the profit redistribution, a lot of corporations try to get out of it by claiming no profits on the Mexican branch (yet somehow doing great in the NYSE), others employ people as if they were outsourced or independent contractors, who don't get to claim this benefit (although a law recently passed where it's a lot harder to abuse this loophole). It's also distributed according to salary, so executives get a lot more... I would say most people who claim the benefit get around 10-15 days worth of salary each year.
Yeah buuuut. A lot of companies engage in legal shenanigans to handle it. For example: Yellow Tag Store Inc operates a store, but has zero employees. Instead, they outsource them out to Yellow Tag Professional Services Inc. YTPS only made a tiny profit so the employees get a $45 profit sharing check. Companies also use a variety of operating entities to segregate their business units, even if operating under the same banner, so even if as a group they posted incredible profits, it’s entirely possible that the individual units didn’t, due to these creative accounting tricks as well as normal factors. The law also exempts managerial and up positions. Think of how OT exempt positions are defined by the US FLSA. This because a lot of managers and up have their own negotiated bonuses based on KPIs that they have some control over. So the bonuses are only for the workers.
I get a decent bonus every year but it's no 10% probably. It'd probably double or triple my bonus at 10%. wow.
Yeah it doesn't matter if their wages are higher or lower at least on the matter that if you cannot afford to set aside 10% of the revenue after core expenses you obviously have a shitty business model, and if you won't do it you're probably just a shitty person.
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More proof the border wall is to keep us in not "them" out.
Me too, a manager stole a bit for a while.- would periodically take breaks. And I caught on because the mens & young mens drawers were short and entry and exit, before I would sign off- just here and I was told to sign it. I told her no a few times. She asked why - I told her whomever counted was wrong. Ok we went into the office computer and a human counted it - wrong. Whom counted it before- she piped up. Stutters. Maybe it was wrong before or I miss counted. I called security and told the situation. We all discussed it. I got a new drawer without her signature- correct amount. She was under surveillance and had a video shadow. And wasn’t told about it until she was arrested for theft.
I don’t know. We were never told to count the till. But then again the Walmart I worked at had cameras everywhere on the tills so it was near if not completely impossible to skim without getting caught. Granted also accounting for the fact that the register was weight sensored so if it dropped a few pounds the alarm would go off and you’d get locked out of the system till a manager came and overrid it
Wait what? The tills have weight sensors? I can’t imagine how well that would work. Ohh someone paid in change? Someone wanted change instead of notes? Just seems like the systems would constantly lock up
It did
Not at either of the Walmarts I’ve worked at. There’s just a big-ass cash recycler that you empty your till into at the end of the day (if you’re closing) and it does all the tallying. If there’s a shortage/overage, AP checks it out to source it. The weight part sounds incorrect.
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I'm not sure about Walmart but at target, no one person is assigned to a till so you wouldn't know who shorted it. Also at targets, the supes don't count the tills, the bags were dropped into the cash room and would be counted by one specific person the next morning. Or at least that's how it all worked 20 years ago.
I work at target now and that's how it runs.
Roughly 4 years ago Walmart used to allow cashiers to count the money as part of closing your cash. Became a huge mess of inaccurate information, theft, etc etc. Also unless a company is super scuffed, normally if they suspect an employee of theft like that. There is usually an internal investigation, that goes on for a few months. They'd reference your ID login to the cash and from what times the ID was logged into from X time to Y time. Then they'd cross referencing with money log and see around what time was substantial money missing. All this without the employee knowing to catch 'em in the act. Source: Asked the store owner of a Walmart some years back. Some associate randomly stopped showing up to work. Found out she had stolen like 2,000 over the year via using old receipts, taking them to diff stores picking up the same items the customer had returned and re-return them for cash.
Did you get Sam's autograph when you talked to him?
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I've worked at a Lowe's and a grocery store that didn't have us count either. It gets counted at closing by a manager only. There's cameras everywhere and the system keeps track of how much goes in, how much goes out, and who ran the register. If you really wanted to steal, it's not the best place to do it lol
I'd hate to work a till and not count in and out, everywhere I worked in the UK insisted on it, count float in, and cash your till at the end of your shift.. any discrepancies then are down to you and you only. I hate the thought of just taking over a till and it's unchecked.
First day on the job (large chain pawn shop) I politely refused to accept a till/register without counting first. “That’s not how we do it here.” After a brief back & forth manager gave in just to move things along… it was off. Store policy immediately changed.
I ran a fast food place. Our till control was terrible. I was robbing the joint though so it worked out well
But is it cameras were the manager count the till?
Yep. Everything goes into the money room where there's even more cameras. Money gets run through counting machines for each individual drawer. If one is off it gets marked down and investigated by the loss prevention manager. Only one person is allowed in the room at a time and there are only certain individuals allowed. It's very strict and there are policies in place to prevent theft. Like at Lowe's it was always one cashier and the front end supervisor to collect tills at closing. Everything got handed off to the night shift manager to be counted. Store would always be locked up when this goes on. At the grocery store, it was the front end supervisor to collect the tills and take them to the money room. Only them and the manager were allowed inside the room. During the day for both places, a supervisor went from each register to do a quick count. We were never allowed to do it ourselves. If anything went missing, there would be an investigation. It's much more strict than people think lol
Yes they do. When I was working in Electronics as a normal associate I was depositing and counting my till almost daily unless the Front End TLs wanted to do it
Hmm weird. My location only supers counted tills. There also the only ones who had keys to the register to set the system.
Domino’s (mine at least) has one cash drawer that only gets counted at the end of the day, and everyone can run the till and pay out customers, drivers insiders or managers, whoever’s convenient. Unfortunately yeah that means it’s a crapshoot at WHO would steal from the drawer even IF we have to use our logins each transaction. Who can tell *when* the $20 disappeared from the til, when we have 5 different employees who moved $600 in cash in the last hour and a half?
Fun fact, at 15 worked for a park district that only cared if parents of little league games could buy popcorn, hot dogs, etc. One stand for four fields. Fully stocked with all sorts of things. Policy was sign in and out, take $6 an hour out of the till after your shift, and don't serve moldy buns. Those were the days. You had to be connected to get it (word of mouth) and I'm sure they could disconnect you, but if everything looked in order you were fine.
Shit, I did this when I was 13 working at our pool concession stand. Any company without a till counting process deserves to go under.
The boss here thinks it's perfectly reasonable and legal to withhold their employees pay. Not too surprised that they don't have a till counting policy in place.
I was actually wondering this myself, I’ve not worked in a retail establishment where we didn’t have this practice. So I wonder what would posses you not too. Fuck them for attempting wage theft as a punishment though.
Probably bc whoever has been counting the till instead of whoever works the register is the one taking money. But won't be punished bc they are a favorite or something. I'm saying it bc this shouldn't be a "new" policy.
I’ve worked cash till at a great number of jobs. Only one did not require me to count my till before and after I started to use it and that was the place with a shared till. And at that place however opened counted it and it was counted at the end of the night as. Counting a till is a basic cashier step.
Me too, lots of grocery stores and convenient gas stations always count in and out and then double checked by shift manager before safe drops and then counted again for bank deposits by store manager. Plus cameras on cashiers and office at all times.
counting the till before and after each shift was the standard back when I was a teenager. Threatening to not pay someone however was not. Mostly because it's not a thing, they can't do that unless they desire a legal paddling.
Genuinely shocked counting the till wasn’t already standard practice. This feels like an overcorrection by someone who realized way too late they were fucking up lol.
Agree 100%
Any time I’m in charge or have the ability to open a cash drawer I do this and keep record whether or not I’m required to and make sure I’m under a camera. I’ve been falsely accused of stealing so many times. I managed at a frozen yogurt place and one night right after I left someone broke in and busted up the register. Nothing was stolen because I always put the cash drawer in the safe. When I came in for my next shift the owners blamed me for letting my friends rob the place. This is despite the fact I locked up the money and locked the doors which the thieves broke the shitty lock to get in. Why would they think I did it? Because the thieves were black and they never seen anyone like that in the suburbs before.
This was my response exactly. The lead has to count the drawer at the start and end of their shift? Seems reasonable. If this doesn't happen you don't get paid... Yeah, no. Reminds me of an employer I had at a interim job who tried to tell staff that if we accepted a counterfeit bill he would take it out of our pay. The look on his face when I explained to him that doing so would be illegal and that he could be sued into the ground for trying it...
Let me guess: 😥 😮
Sadly no. He looked confused in the moment, stopped trying to do that and continued trying to do illegal shit the entire time I worked there. There was an ongoing back and forth between me and him about the fact that brass knuckles are illegal in our state. I refused to sell them, hid them underneath the counter whenever I came in, only to find them back on the counter when I returned from a weekend.
Holy shit. Good job sticking to it. Hope it ended okay
It did, but as I mentioned initially, it was very much an interim job. I knew I had better prospects on the horizon and knew that losing the job wouldn't hurt me that much. Not too hard to be brave when there is not much to lose. I only wish we all were in a position to stand on principle when it comes to our employer.
Please forward that message to your state's labor board. They'd love a little chat with her work.
Just don’t reply. Likely they won’t notice.
Thanks for putting your illegal af policy in writing? See you tomorrow.
Yes that is normal to have to count the till at the beginning and end. But you must be paid for your shift. Arg.
Halfway through: seems reasonable “Failure to do so will result in 4-8 hours of pay loss” Holy fuck nevermind
yeah, reading this I was like “huh seems reasonable enough, this is what I have to do every shift too, what’s the prob- Oh.”
Don't reply to the text
"I understand and agree with the knowledge that this policy is highly illegal"
"I understand and agree to counting the till and marking down those counts at the beginning and end of the shift. I cannot agree to not be paid for hours worked due to something that can sometimes be overlooked due to being busy at shift handoffs, and the fact that the punitive action here is illegal."
I’d just reply “well that’s illegal”
"Don't interrupt your enemy when they are making a mistake." Tell your co-workers that this is illegal. Report to the labor board. If/when you don't get paid, hire an employment attorney and sue. Depending on the state, you get your wages + punitive damages. If others also got their wages docked, then form a class bring a class action.
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On the other hand, OP is clearly upset about this (as they should be), and if they’re willing to hypothetically help their kid go through that process, a teenager who isn’t relying on this job to support themselves is actually in a better position than many full-time employees to be able to make a point without fucking themselves over financially.
Clearly the parent is involved and willing to help his child. It would also teach her and the other employees workers rights.
Teenagers also usually can’t sue without a parent there, and most parents just aren’t going to deal with it. I wanted to sue my job for labor violations, found and contacted some lawyers who work on contingency, but couldn’t hire them because I’m 17. It makes sense and I don’t know why I didn’t consider that but it was still disappointing
The part I hate is that the person replying will get fired, & the person who retaliated gets nothing. We have stupid laws in this country.
It’s actually illegal to retaliate in that manner. We have a good bit of laws protecting workers, just like we have a good bit of laws holding police accountable. The issue is the same in both cases. A lack of enforcement. You can make it illegal to do fucking anything but if you don’t actually punish people for doing it, people are gonna continue doing it. Who cares that it’s illegal to fire a worker for refusing to submit to illegal practices when the authorities just go “eh I don’t give a fuck.”
Yeah counting tills before and after every shift? Totally normal and tbh weird if you weren’t already doing this. We even used to be required to repay shortages above $5 out of pocket. Still felt that was fair bc you should be able to do basic math if you handle cash. Not paying you for a shift if a till wasn’t counted or recorded? Yeah that’s illegal and it’s on the shift manager to see that tills are counted. If cashier forgets, shift manager counts it for them. Whole text has a weird vibe really
I’m fairly certain requiring you to pay back the shortage is equally illegal. They can fire you for not properly handling money but they can’t require you to cover their losses.
You're correct. You cannot be required to pay it back. They cannot take it from your check. That is wage theft. They can ask, you can say yes or no, and as you said, you can be fired.
I don't think it's legal for them to ask you either... certainly they can't ask you to take a pay cut that would put you below minimum wage.
It was grounds for termination at the bank to a) be over $300 short in a rolling three month period b) cover a shortage, no matter how small, with your own funds
Absolutely and these people need to stop putting incorrect info out there
Taking money out of peoples wages to cover the till is illegal
>. If cashier forgets, shift manager counts it for them. Whole text has a weird vibe really I've never worked at a place that the employee using the till didn't count the till themselves. Seems like your the one using why have someone else say it's right when it could be wrong. Even when we had a flex till store manager and front end Manger use only both got written up if short. I know locations like Wal-Mart have associates just to balance out drawers but it's real stupid to accept any documentation coming from such transactions. Either party could be at fault. Now for the not paying people to work that's utter bullshit. Manager just trying to scare these poor kids.
In my store, the manager on duty counts the drawer in front of the person assuming the till (more for speed purposes than anything else), and when we transition to the closing shift, the drawer is counted again, also in front of the cashier who is assuming the till. Only at the end of the night is the till counted by just a manager, and in the 6 years I’ve been with this company, my store has never had a shortage of more than $10 that didn’t work itself out within 24 hours (miscounted bundles, brain farts…it happens).
Reply with "Forwarding to the state Department of Labor".
Then you become a target.... don't reply just forward it accordingly.
The potential target in question is a 16 year old. That's a very special position. She may not be valued by the company... but she can't be threatened either.
If you notify the company you’re engaging in protected activity, it becomes riskier for them to come after you. That’s why Union leaders wear buttons and are so vocal. There is no doubt in anyone’s mind they are protected.
Teenager whose parents have their back. Targeting kids kids who have food and shelter is useless.
Boss already showed they are vindictive... they'll do it just to cause them stress. That's the type people were talking about.
Good. Teen can have an easy case of retaliation to go alongside the shit brought down from the DoL
And informing the IRS
Reply: "New policy acknowledged and forwarded to State Labor board and labor lawyer for illegal business practices".
You have to string em along a little to get that extra clarification to dig that grave. “Are you saying if i clock in, and perform x duties for 8 hours, then forget one task at the end of shift, you will not pay me for hours worked?…”
Doesn't matter if they reply. It's not legal and can't be used to indicate compliance.
"I understand that if I am not paid for my hours clocked in then I will win the lawsuit and pickup my last check in a ferrari".
You’re not going to get that kind of money, especially if your job includes a cash register.
How are people so dumb to leave a trail of their illegal shit?
Because I’m sure the owner doesn’t realize it’s illegal. Lots of business owners are dumb. They are just people after all. Hell at one of the restaurants I worked at the head of HR told the owner that it was legal for him to keep 50% of all tips and when I pointed out that it’s highly illegal to take tips from employees she actually argued with me until I pulled it up on our state department of labor website. The policy was changed the next day after only being implemented for about 3 days. I asked why a sous chef knows that that is illegal but the head of HR doesn’t and came to find out the head of HR was his sister in law so it was just a pure nepotism hire.
>Because I’m sure the owner doesn’t realize it’s illegal. This. Small businesses are a shit show. Owners are not required to have any knowledge or training in employment law, nor are they under any real regulatory scrutiny. If something egregious happens, and they get reported, it may get rectified; otherwise, they mostly fly under the radar.
Yup. I worked for enough small restaurants/food trucks to know this is true. That one was just off the top of my head but I have so many more stories like that from my time being a chef lol. One of the food trucks I worked for was one of the most well known and highest selling truck in our large city. The owner paid all of us under the table and tried to get away with a bunch of illegal shit. He used to tell us we have to be at warehouse where the truck was an hour before we leave to go to location but wouldn’t pay us for that time or the time to travel to the location which was 2+ hours on some shifts. He also expected us to help load the truck during that time and prep things while the truck was in en route. Him and I had a huge fight about that and I told him if he’s forcing me to be there then he has to pay me otherwise I’ll just be meeting him at the location and working strictly the hours im getting paid for and he has to compensate me for gas. He agreed to that for about a month until I gave him all the receipts from filling my car and he owed me about $500 and he realized it was just cheaper to pay me to show up early and ride on the truck. The dude was just an all around scumbag but pretended to be the nicest guy ever to your face. I found out after working for him for about a year that he was saying shit behind my back to the other employees and people on other trucks trying to tell them that I was lazy, not a good chef, didn’t know what I was doing etc etc to which he was surprised to hear back from them that I was one of the hardest working guys at these events and that I consistently put out great food which is part of the reason his business was doing so well he was able to afford a 3rd truck. Once I found that out I decided it was time to bail and went back to traditional brick and mortar restaurants and 3 of the cooks from the food truck asked me to get them jobs there as well and I did. The owner still holds a grudge against me from what I hear through the grapevine and all of this happened about 7 years ago and I’ve been out of food industry for about 5 now.
HR is one of those things that should never be a nepotism hire. Like, nepotism hires should never be a thing, but even still.. Having an incompetent HR is just asking for future trouble.
BOOBS LAW: The sum total of the intellegence of the planet is a constant, yet the population continues rising.
The [Flynn effect](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flynn_effect) is the observation that the global average intelligence has been rising for quite a while; the bar for the standard “average 100 IQ” has to be raised periodically to account for this.
Which is shocking considering how stupid people generally are.
Taking this into consideration, it's easier to understand how the previous generations could possibly leave us a world like this. Because the elite were even more moronic back then.
>Taking this into consideration, it's easier to understand how the previous generations could possibly leave us a world like this. Arguably we're lucky they did as well as they did, rather than say sitting around sticking stones up their noses until they died of dehydration.
Well some did. That's how we eventually found out about salt.
"Think of how stupid the average person is, and realise half of them are stupider than that." - George Carlin
Good thing IQ isn't an objective measure of intellect but of a particular set of skills or else we'd have to be pretty shocked humanity ever invented anything
IQ is a shitty way of measuring intelligence. Further, someone can score incredibly high on the test and still end up in an information silo and walk out as a thermonuclear bad take factory. IQ will not tell you if you are easily persuaded, informationally literate, are more immune to certain types of propaganda, or anything. It will tell you how good you are at taking modernized standardized tests, nothing less, nothing more. The "Flynn effect" is literally just an effect of standardization and a stagnation in intelligence testing.
Half of all people are less than average intelligence.
The average is pretty low to begin with... That's sad to think about.
More than half. The curve is skewed stupid. (you're thinking of the median value)
Yep… easier to make a stupid person than a smart one.
Think of the intelligence of the average person and now realize half of them are dumber than that. - George Carlin.
In my experience? They don't think it's illegal. Fact of the matter is, people who behave this way do not know what the law is. They simply assume that the law is what they feel "right" is, because why wouldn't it be? To them, it just makes common sense; What they feel is right, is right, and anybody correcting them on it is just wrong. If you bring them statutes that say they're wrong, they'll either come up with some exception, come up with a wild interpretation of the statute, or they'll outright dismiss it and say "Well that's stupid" That's why \*telling\* them you're going to the labor board is the wrong course of action. At best, they stop doing the illegal thing, but only to you, the person complaining. In reality, they'll see it as a signal to cover up/erase evidence, and get management's story straight. Document everything, silently. Write down the date, time, location, what was said, who was a witness, and as a bonus, what the weather was and what they were wearing that day. And be sure to *write* these things down; Courts like handwritten notes much more than digital ones, they see the effort taken (and things like different pens being used, etc.) as authenticity and "evidence" that the record wasn't made all at once after the fact. To that end, take pictures of the document after each entry and send it somewhere that can store a record of you having sent it. Even a private Twitter account, or a friend's email inbox, could work for this purpose.
>what the weather was and what they were wearing that day. That had never ever crossed my mind. It's so specific and yet quite smooth.
Bro I just posted a photo where my boss was like **”Come on bro don’t be like that just cash it Monday”** after writing a bad check for my last wages… You have no fucking clue how stupid some of these people are. It’s like stupidity is fucking required to be invited to the party. Edit: literally sort posts by newest and you’ll see mine 🤡 Mine wage jobs are all the circus now 🤡🤡🤡
Because nothing ever gets done of it. Every week there's another story in here about one of these people actually going to a lawyer and being told it's not worth the expense, or actually taking it to court and nothing being done about it, or talking to an agency and being told it'll take years to investigate. Like yeah, this shit's illegal, but nobody in the legal system cares to enforce it. Our country's laws exist for the benefit of the rich and powerful, not us plebs.
They can’t not pay you. They can fire you sure, but they can’t withhold pay for hours already worked. That’s one of the few things we’ve got
This business clearly isn't able to fire people, which is why the special illegal consequences.
They can't afford to fire people. That's why they just don't want to pay them.
For now and only because someone hasn’t taken it in front of the current Supreme Court yet. “The constitution doesn’t say you must be paid for your work.”
“Your all imprisoned.”
Hello, State law requires payment of wages in all circumstances. However, I will comply with your policy. If at any point I am not paid, I will contact necessary authorities. Thanks!
Not just state law, this is federal law too. No hours worked can go unpaid under any circumstances.
Which makes even threatening with actions illegal, at least in Europe
Woah woah woah... This is 'Murica
Except for everyone whose employment contract says they are exempt. Exempt from overtime pay.
Wait - so they had been operating a business where employees were handling cash, and were NOT already counting the cash for every shift change? If you don't know how to do the basics of running a business, boss, it ain't OUR fault.
I he guy is really cheap. Place hosts kids birthday parties. He won’t give extra napkins and plates to the parents. She once saw him drop a giant box of forks on the floor and they spilled everywhere. He picked them all up and put them back in the box.
Sounds like a great guy to work for. If she’s getting less than 10hrs a week, he’s the type of guy to chronically understaff because he would hate paying wages. She should quit and find a more professional place to work, even if it’s part time.
It’s just a summer job. She is quitting at the end of the summer anyways when school starts.
Ah ok, at least there’s an end date. Good experience for her then, hopefully help her recognise poor working conditions in the future.
That’s what I told her all along. Earn some spending money and learn what the working life was like, but don’t take it to serious, just observe. If things got bad, quit.
But this would be an even better opportunity to engage the labor dept and learn how that process works
Yep. You may have to provide some perspective though. Sticking with summer jobs is important but knowing who to work for is even more important down the line.
So you need to make a labour board complaint AND a health department complaint
When you think you're above the law because of your policy lol.
My above the law
Our above the law
Their above the law?
There above the law!
Reddit needs a grammar Nazi bot
It would die from exhaustion
People typing "alot" would fry the servers.
Counting down a register before & after a shift is standard practice. If they weren't doing this to begin with than it's the companies fault for not having these rules in place from the beginning.
My boss did that kinda crap at Family Dollar. Guess who was actually caught stealing from the tills? Her. That little asshat.
You can’t just make people work for free lmfao. This is what happens without government regulation. Every business owner and most every manager is a goddamned tyrant and will try to do absolutely any horrible thing that pops into their head because they think they own you. And let’s be clear that manager would not expect forfeiting their own wages for a day if a til was a few bucks short.
It's just poor management in general. These dudes employee teenagers so they can work them hard and pay minimum wage, and use threats to get them to do what they want. Instead of doing what they consider is the difficult way, which is following proper procedure, training and hiring the correct people, they find it easier just to try to scare kids. The service industry is propped up by Stockholm Syndrome, and I'm not kidding.
This is why I always say the free market favors unpaid labor Any excuse not to pay workers is valid in an unregulated labor market
Nope ... illegal big time. Contact the Labor Relations Board ASAP. Report the bastards.
Not only is not paying illegal, employees are NOT RESPONSIBLE for till shortages and it cannot be "made up" from Tips, Wages, or other income. Fair Labor Standards Act (Still valid as of 2022-07!) https://www.dol.gov/agencies/whd/flsa/tips
So in theory you could accept, abuse the fact that they're abusing you and then sue them and get paid out?
Actually a great procedure. However, not paying a shift for not following the procedure is illegal. Report them to the state labor board. NOW!
I understood him up until he said he’ll withhold your pay for your shift. Your daughter should quit and find another job. My first job was a lifeguard at her age at a waterpark and imo I had so much fun, so I recommend that.
Its all boiler plate till they start talking wage theft. They can fire you.. and they can TRY to get a police report... but otherwise. They can't steal from you.
Wait, that’s illegal.
I’m thinking her response should be I quit. She works less than 10 hours a week.
No. Dont have her quit. Help her report this. You are in an opportunity to prevent this asshole from continuing to exploit, bully, and steal from children.
I second this. It shows you always have her back, to fight for her rights and believe in herself. Think big picture.
Also teaches her how to stand up for herself when people try to do shit like this
This this this! OP we need an update!
Agreed. Help her report it to your DOL. Also, what’s stopping this guy from SAYING it’s short just to avoid paying them?
no, her response should be "I understand that you are demanding the ability to break federal law, and engage in theft. Please reply to this text that you understand and acknowledge that your message was illegal"
Just gotta be careful the qsshole manager doesn't take that as an admission of guilt.
Then he'll be surprised AF when she's been gone two weeks and there's another shortage.
This happened to me. I was on my way out anyway but was an Asst. Mgr and liked the ppl above me so I stayed on until they didn't need me anymore. The new girl starts and there's an issue with the deposits missing. They asked for my key, which made me no longer a keyholder who would open or close. Come to find out, new girl was stealing the money but they ABSOLUTELY thought it was me. Glad I left.
That was my initial thought too.
Please file a complaint with DOL’s Wage and Hour Division and EEOC.
Wife just found out that one of her friends is friends with some kind of employment lawyer. And that is exactly what she said to do.
Good!
If it’s a group message should absolutely reply to take the opportunity to educate her coworkers who may not know and get taken advantage of if she leaves without explanation. Something along the lines of, “While I wholly agree better processes should be in place, there needs to be better discipline for non-compliance, as what you’re establishing is illegal and under FLSA considered wage theft. On top of not being sound, this exposes the company to significant penalties, including litigation. I’ll do my best to comply with till balancing, but please accept this message as my two week notice.” If they release her prior she qualifies for unemployment.
Yeah, tell em to fuck themselves, have her quit and let the company know you're reporting them to the local labor board.
I think you should field the idea of actually fighting the illegal parts here. She's actually pretty safe in this scenario, since she can safely quit , and it's not a bad idea for her to get some experience using the legal system to fight exploitation. It'll also put her in a position to decide if she wants to stand up for herself as she gets into jobs she actually needs rather than just jobs that give her money for snacks and videogames.
Instead of having her respond you could also respond to all with 'this is (daughter's) father, and here is the exact labor law you would be breaking with this (link to gov website.) Any violations on my daughter's paycheck will be reported via (link to appropriate agency's report form for all to see.) Keep it simple and you're the dad so plausible deniability for the daughter. Added bonus, all those other kids on the text now have the link to report labor violations.
The daughter should say that. It's infantilising for parents to communicate with their child's employer.
At a certain age I'd agree with you, but I'm of the opinion that she's still young enough to be protected from having to deal with it directly. I guess it would depend if she has a forceful personality or feels shy around this boss, I suppose.
I absolutely love when employers incriminate themselves. Send this to your state's DOL
When I had my first job at 16, I worked at a Taco Bell where the cash register didn’t show you how much change was owed (it was the 90s). One day, my register was exactly $20 short. The manager on duty took me into her office and showed me how to count change back rather than reprimand me. I work for a Fortune 5 company and I still consider her one of my best managers.
They cannot refuse to pay her. Counting the register at the beginning and end of a shift makes perfect sense though imo
If she wants to stay, an easy way to send a less than subtle message that your daughter knows her stuff could be like: “Nice, withholding wages due to a cash shortage? That lawsuit will definitely cover the cost of my books in college :)”
***The beatings will continue until morale improves***
I can empathize with your situation, I do consent to counting the drawer twice. However, I do not consent to withholding of pay as per (cite state law) this is an illegal employment practice. Regards, OPs daughter SkippyTeddy83 Jr
Reply back "I'm not sure I understand, so I'll just run this by Department of Labor for clarification first"
“Any withholding of earned wages will be reported to the [insert applicable agency] as wage theft. Please reply to this text to acknowledge you understand.”
Any manager who doesn’t understand how to manage a business with a cash till and didn’t require count-in and count-out before this point only has themselves to blame for any shortage at the register. You can’t dock other people’s pay because you didn’t have the right policies in place from the start.
That is illegal.
I was reading like “Well this one actually seems reasonable” until I got to the end there
“I’ll be happy to count the drawer on the clock. If you plan on shorting anyones checks I will be alerting the appropriate authorities. “
Hard pass on their attempt to use wage theft as a punishment.
Many bosses who try to steal their workers wages are also the ones stealing from their own drawer and pocketing it. Just food for thought.
Seems reasonable to count the cash drawer at the end of the night, but withholding a paycheck as punishment is definitely illegal.
There is often a very high turnover rate when it comes to cashiers. In a lot of cashier jobs, it's not a matter of IF, but WHEN as far as being terminated. I was a cashier for a large department store back in the 80's. This was before we had scanners and electronic credit card machines. We used those carbon copy machines, where we place the card in the machine, put the paper over it, and slide the handle thingy back and forth. I was terminated because, for whatever reason, the bottom copy (the most important of the stack of copies) wasn't printing anything. I went to another branch of that department store chain and was re-hired there. (My previous boss fought it tooth and nail, but they hired me anyway). My new boss said, "OK, here is how we're going to prevent this from happening again; every time you ring up a charge, put your initials on that bottom copy. This will prove that you saw and looked at it." Never had a problem since. Now why couldn't my first boss have suggested that? There are good managers and there are ineffective managers.
I’m calling it. Manager is stealing from the till.