Working in an environment such as American Eagle it's important to have a float in your till before the start of the day, properly stocked with enough bills and coins to provide customers paying with cash the adequate amount of change. Whenever we don't have enough coins to give out, the manager on duty counts out $350 in bills, places them inside a pencil case, which is then placed inside a small AE shopping bag. This bag is given to one of the employees so that we can go over to the BMO across the way and exchange said bills for coins.
Our tale begins last Friday, the 17th of August when I was the employee whose responsibility it was to go to the bank for some coins. When I arrived at BMO and spoke with the teller I handed her the pencil case, which until this point had remained untouched since it was placed inside the shopping bag. The teller then informed me that instead of the $350 worth of coins we were requesting, we had only supplied her with $270 in bills. For those who have difficulties with numbers that's $80 that should have been there, that wasn't. I told the teller to just give us the amount of coins she could for the bills we had and when I returned to American Eagle I told Sarah, the assistant manager, that the teller found a discrepancy between what we should have had and what we actually had. Sarah double checked the tills to make sure that she had taken out $350 and not $270. Her numbers added up and we were left wondering what had happened to the $80. My shift ended without further mention of the incident.
I returned to work yesterday after 4 days off. I heard nothing of anything at the time. Today, I went back to work and discovered something. Sarah, the foolish, silly girl who can't get her own life together and somehow wound up being an assistant manager at AE, was accusing me of theft behind my back. During my time off people had been talking about me behind my back because of the missing money. I heard that 3/4 of the staff thought I was innocent, and that the store manager didn't think I would do something like that, but that it was interesting. The fact that I gave my letter of resignation that same day also, undoubtedly places the blame on me. As if I'm going to get very far in life on $80. The manager's actions are damaging to my reputation and a clear defamation of my character. Be that as it may, the point remains this:
A) I am not angry about being accused, rather, I am incredibly hurt. I would have hoped that after 4 months of working there my fellow coworkers would have opened their eyes up a bit more to see my character and the type of person I am. I may be a lot of things, some good and some bad, but I am not a thief. I don't steal. Period.
B) No one had the balls to come up and ask me. People instead chose to talks amongst themselves behind my back. Managers flat out accused me without knowing. No one had the decency to come up and ask me what had happened. People chose to come to their own conclusion, throwing simple things like the "truth" and their own experience with me and the person I am, out the window.
I said above I wasn't angry, and I'm not. If in the future they find out what happened to cause the shift in monies they don't need to seek me out because I already forgive them for accusing me. I'm merely hurt that after a handful of months they still don't know who I am.
I'm going to talk to the store manager tonight. Since I'm not on the schedule next week, tomorrow is my last shift and I don't want to leave this job without addressing the issue. Perhaps when I address it directly, then people will see that they have poor judgement of character.
