Day job, part 6 - money hungry...

Dino at a Jamie Oliver restaurant in London...greedy much? 

I was really uncomfortable most of the time as I absolutely didn't trusted the boss and many of the regular employees there. Within 2 weeks I knew they were being less than honest with public money. And soon the boss knew I knew and the situtation grew really akward as I always refused to be bribed.
You see, after 2 weeks in the job there was what they called a "special sale". A big shop brand regularly gave large amount of non edible items they no longer had use for, like items used for their photo catalogue or discontinued items. Bedsheets, cutlery, plates, napkins, stationery, toys, school supplies and all sorts of decoration trinkets. The sale was taking place in the office building, not the shop and I volunteered to help that day (because my 2 other colleagues had already been there long enough to know they didn't want to do that LOL).
My job was to follow the customers, one at a time (like in the shop by the way, because as the boss stated: we have a special public here, you can't trust them). We were repeatedly told that we couldn't choose anything for ourselves until all the regular customers had gone. Like I wanted anything but that's another story.
My boss was at the till. No tickets. Nothing recorded...only the boss writing things down, very randomly, in a spiral notebook...and making up prices as she went. Let's say that several pages were torn out of that notebook...and as the day went by, the pile of stuff behind my boss just grew and grew as she was getting all sorts of junk for herself and her friends (she kept calling them all day). As the look of dispapproval of my face grew as the day went by, she felt she had to tell me several times that she was paying for that...
As I spent the whole day there and have a pretty good memory,  I had a fairly accurate idea of what was left at the end of the day...

Then there was the cash fund of about 60 euros. We were only supposed to count it at the end of the day after counting the day taking. It was locked in the boss's safe every day. When the boss was not there it was always interesting to find someone to open the safe for us. On several occasion we found no one...and had to use our own money as cash fund :/
When I put the money in the till in the morning, I couldn't help but count it...I mean, I did it without thinking much...one day 10 euros were missing...we didn't dare say anything...and put the money back out of our own pocket. Then it happened again with smaller amounts...I refused to put the money back, so we just said we probably had made mistakes when we gave back change. And one day there was 40 euros extra. On 60 euros, it's hard not to notice a  40 euro excess. Wow, we were just a stupid dishonest bunch, how could we make a 40 euro mistake. Because it had to be our fault, right, that 40 euros appeared in the safe overnight.
Let's say we never had any explanation.
A year goes by, and the special sale event is organized again. I am not volunteering this time...but bad luck, the room where it was usually held is not available...so the special sale would be held at the shop. Damn.
Also this time we knew what would be on sale as we had carried the boxes in the locked cellars ourselves. A single worker (not from the shop) was supposed to do that...but there was just too much for one person so he asked us to help. Our boss was less than happy about that...but had no valid reason to refuse.
A few days before the sale, I was in the boss's office when the side-boss (remember, the chick who hated our guts because she hated our boss?) came in and said, "I have noticed a lot of things have gone missing in the cellars, like every year" and left. Boss pretended nothing happened. And indeed, stuff was missing.
The day before the sale, we had a group meeting and the boss told us we had to make at least 4000 euros (like there was anyhing we could do to make people buy more junk)...on the day of the sale, the boss's boss comes in and tells us we have to make 3000 euros. Boss's face remained perfectly blank.
And yes, the spiral notebook was back...and pages went missing again. And she accused us of not only stealing but putting and hiding stuff for ourselves. The shop was tiny and crammed to the brim with stuff...seriously if we had wanted to hide or steal something it would have been soooo easy. After the first day sale, I was so pissed with her that I took the ugliest blanket there was (and that nobody had wanted because it was shit-ugly) and sort of hid it...you know, where I was sure she would see it...and sure enough, on the next day suddenly the blanket was in the pile of stuff she was "buying".

And that time one of my colleagues saw the boss steal 20 euros from the till. My colleague didn't say anything right away but in the afternoon, when she counted the day taking in the office, she said to the boss"here's the money minus the 20 you took earlier". Boss explained it was to test us. Right.

And there were all those shop papers I knew I had filed, lying around, with the numbers obviously tempered with...and the office supplies that were obviously taken from the "special sale cellars" hidden in the boss's shelves...and the stuff she ordered for herself and told everyone that it was for the shop clients  (we couldn't even put aside a pack of paper napkins for the customers...so sure, she would have special orders for some...) . I am still waiting for the money for some of that stuff, like a Tefal baking tray...and the stuff she took "to give Christmas presents to the old people in the retirement home".

There was an alarm in the shop...as the code has never been changed, pretty much everyone in town knew it...Well, the night after all the special sale items had been brought in, the alarm rang in the middle of the night. Usually the workmen boss would be in charge and would go check what happened. Oddly (or not) it's our boss who was informed and went to check...with the help of the big boss (who happens to be our boss's BF, if you remember). And the next morning, the big boss came in our boss's office when we were all there (I had never seen her there before) and exclaimed "How odd that alarm went off in the middle of the night!"

Read part   part 1 here
                   part 2 here
                   part 3 here
                  part  4 here
                  part 5 here