"The Homecoming"

The point that some of my coworkers had picked up on, and I had tried to get across was this.

Why would I be stealing from FYE, when I had been working so hard for three weeks to bring a group of thieves to justice.

Let me clarify. At the end of September we had a customer selling back a couple of PSP games. Said he didn’t play the system anymore. Ok. Fine. Whatever, we buy stuff back from customers on a daily basis. It is a major source of income for our company, and we are stressed to buy back as much merchandise as possible. You see, FYE buys items from the customers for a few bucks per title, then turns around and sells it back for as much as a 300% profit depending on the title.

Well, so here was this new buy back customer selling us his games. He got about $5.00 per title. And then he started coming in every day, sometimes up to five times a day. For three weeks this went on. Often he was selling back multiple copies of the same title. About a week into October, a security guard from Sears, and the mall came in and confirmed our suspicions. He had indeed been stealing the games from Sears, and selling them back to us. They had only to wait and catch him in the act. Game Stop had now refused to buy anything from him. Other managers told us that we should stop as well. What was Pats stance? No way. He wasn’t stealing from us. He was helping our store make money, so under no circumstances would we prevent a known thief from acquiring more money through us. Oh, if she could get in touch with Sears in time, to alert him he was in our store, fine. That was ok. But we would still buy his stolen items.

The final time I worked with her before going on vacation, he came into the store. She and I were both at the registers, and he approached me. Pat completely ignored the fact that he was right there, selling numerous titles back. Every attempt I made at alerting her went unnoticed. As SOON as he walked out of the store she came out of her hazy stupor. She feigned ignorance, claiming not to have heard me saying his name loudly numerous times. Bull fucking shit. I knew what she was up to. She didn’t want him to get caught. Why? Because his selling stolen products back to us boosted our used buy back numbers.

And that made her look good.

~Oz

"In The Hands Of The Prophets"

The Sunday before I went on vacation, I worked with two other employees, and another came in to visit us for a while. I was in a jovial mood, after all I was going on vacation in three days. As a means of boosting our drivers for the day (drivers being loyalty memberships, magazine subscriptions, pre-booked copies of upcoming releases) I decided to give the employees candy bars.

Now understand; I cannot ring up my own sales. Nor can anyone else except for the others managers, Pat and or Shannon. I would not be working with Pat, until after I had come back from vacation. Shannon I would see on Monday, but had no cash to give her that day. I offered to her as well to take a candy bar, and was more than willing to add it to the list of which had already been taken. She declined.

This is where I get in trouble. Shannon did not understand that I was going to pay for these candy bars. She told Pat. Pat (whom had already been looking for ANY excuse to fire me) jumped at this chance and immediately contacted Human Resources, Loss Prevention, and the district manager. She informed them that I had been stealing candy bars. A complete inventory was done on the candy bars, (for the first time in almost a year), and I was blamed for each and every candy bar that had been stolen.

I came in to the store to press my side of the story, but Pat wouldn’t even pretend to believe me. She gave me her usually, “if it was up to me this wouldn’t be happening, but I have no say in the matter” bull shit she tells everyone else she gets rid of, and that was that. After pouring my heart and soul into that company for almost two years, I was canned.

Unlawful consumption of food products.

~Oz

"Duet"

Fun times abound for Alex!

I went on vacation from FYE 3 weeks ago. On the first day of my vacation, I learned that I was to be terminated upon my return to the store, 10 days from then. I tried to fight the decision, but found only deaf ears. So, the past two vacations I have taken from work, have resulted in my firing at the end of the vacation. Now the Sears incident I will fully own up to. I was calling in at an average of twice a week. I no showed my final day there before my vacation was to begin (now I didn’t know I was supposed to be at work that day, as the schedule had been changed at the last moment and I hadn’t been made aware of that…). But the incident at FYE was an outrage. I am furious about being canned from there. I was never given the chance to defend myself. The decision to fire me was made while I was on vacation and therefore would offer no resistance to the allegations brought forth against me.

Up next…the reason for the treason

~Oz