Don't Sh1t Where You Eat

Guys, something bad happened today.

Not horribly bad, not earth-shatteringly bad. Thank heavens, my family and friends in the path of Hurricane Matthew are all safe and accounted for. My kiddos, visiting their father in Arizona, are having a good time (so far.) Life, in general, is fairly normal in the Teens & Other Wild Things household.

At work, however... Well, not so much. Work is a frigging mess.

Have you ever experienced that weird feeling of devastation, like the world is falling apart around you, but nothing's moving? 

I work for a small store. There are five of us- A store manager, two assistant managers, and two cashiers. I know that sounds like a lot of managers, but there must always be a "key holder" in the store- so they need to split up the hours the store is open between the Store Manager and the assistants. We're a small, fairly tight-knit group. Right now, our Store Manager is out with an injury. She's unlikely to come back any time soon. Fortunately one of our assistants is experienced and well able to take the store over. We talked about it, and thought, hey we can do this. We've got a good manager, and we can pitch in and get 'er done. No worries!
Great, right?

Hey, no worries! We've got a great team, right? He's got this. 

Well... Not so great, because today I learned that the second assistant was arrested yesterday. It was a gut-punch. I literally felt breathless when I got the news. I teared up. I didn't want to believe it. I've worked with this guy for a while. He's funny. Goofy. A decent manager. Just an all around good guy to work with. I wanted to believe it was a misunderstanding. A false accusation. But no... I saw the evidence with my own eyes. He was definitely stealing.

I just don't understand. WHY would anyone steal from their own store? It just makes no sense. There's an old saying: Don't shit where you eat. It's basic survival. In this case, it translates to; Don't steal from the people who pay your bills! You idiot.

Now, I'm no angel. I don't mean to come across as a sanctimonious holier-than-thou finger-pointer. Stealing's not just wrong in a moral sense; it's goddamn stupid because you will always get caught, eventually, and nothing you could gain is valuable enough to weigh against your reputation, your conscience, and your future employment prospects.

A reputation is a terrible thing to waste. 

When my kids were small, they each went through a common stage- the pocketing a package of gum at the grocery store stage. When I caught them, in two separate incidents, I did what my own Mom did when I was about that age and pulled the same stunt- I marched them right back into the store, made them pay for the gum, apologize, and throw it away. Mean mommy? Maybe. But I pray I have instilled in them some sense of right and wrong, and that I will never get a call from my child seeking bail because they were foolish enough to believe they could steal from their place of employment (or anywhere else for that matter!!) and get away with it.

It shouldn't even have to be said: Stealing is never ok. :(

I don't know what else to say, guys. I'm sad. I'm confused. On some level, I even understand- I know what it's like to scrape for every dime on paychecks that never go far enough... but still, I'm having trouble realigning my view of this person to include the idea that he's been blatantly taking advantage of the trust of the entire team. Oddly enough, even though I'm only affected indirectly, I'm hurt. I trusted this guy. Thought he was one of the "good" ones. I'm disappointed and sad.

Goodnight, Friends.
Tomorrow is a new day.
Hopefully it'll be a better one.

All we can do now is clean up the mess and move on.