A Christmas Story

[RinglingRingling]

http://news.holidash.com/2009/12/22/tar ... employees/

just warms you all up inside.

[Bicycle Bill]

Didn't we have a thread back earlier this year about supposed abuses of Ticketmaster sales; namely, clerks at T'master retail outlets selling ahead of time, or otherwise pulling large amounts of choice tickets before the general public had a shot at them? This sounds an awful lot like the same thing.

I do have to agree with most of the comments as posted on that site. They violated the workplace rules; they should be held responsible for it. At the very least, if they are being rehired they should start at the bottom of the totem pole, just like a new hire....and they most definitely should not be paid wages for the time they were fired/furloughed/suspended/whatever you want to call it.

This sets a really great precedent. Go ahead and bust a rule or two! If you get enough people to make a big enough stink about it, the boss will have to cave in. Get real!! Do you really think that Target (or Walmart, or KMart, or ........................ — fill in the blank) worries about losing a couple of customers over a situation like this? Bushwah!!

People speak through their pockets and purses, and they will buy almost anything from anybody as long as the price is right. How else do you suppose that Walmart got as big (and has stayed as big) as it has, despite all the flak it has been taking over the years?

So Merry Christmas, re-hired Target employees. I hope your kids enjoy their fake hamsters; and when they go to bed on Christmas night you can tell 'em the bedtime story of how Mommy put one over on the head honchos to get them.

-"BB"-

[ScarletB]

I agree BB, whether it's a dumb policy or not it's the policy and violating it should have some consequences. Like you said, great lesson for the kiddies - you can always cheat and not have to pay for it. At the very LEAST they should not be paid for time lost, they violated the terms of their employment.

Geez, what a world.

[flyboy55]

Didn't we have a thread back earlier this year about supposed abuses of Ticketmaster sales; namely, clerks at T'master retail outlets selling ahead of time, or otherwise pulling large amounts of choice tickets before the general public had a shot at them? This sounds an awful lot like the same thing . . .

Maybe there is more to this story somewhere. It looks like the employees involved bought the toy during their overnight shifts. It doesn't say how many toy hamsters each employee bought or if any employee bought more than one, so I'm not so sure this is a case of a few Target employees trying to "corner the market" on Zhu Zhu pets.

What was the store's written policy with regard to this kind of infraction? Was it left to the discretion of the local manager? Was it a blanket statement of the kind that says "employees violating any workplace rules will be subject to discipline up to and including termination."?

If so, perhaps the local manager was a little overzealous in using termination instead of some other form of punishment. Apparently Target's upper level management thinks so . . .

Target released a statement saying they had "carefully reviewed the situation at the Walden Galleria Target store, and we have determined that the team member terminations were the unintended consequence of a good policy rigidly applied. Therefore, Target intends to reinstate all seven of the team members, effective immediately.

It sounds to me like the local store manager had his or her actions overruled by senior corporate managers.

As this post amply demonstrates, I have completely finished Christmas shopping, wrapping, labeling, etc and now I'm off for the holidays and have a few moments to respond to OT threads that spark my interest and wonder at others (threads that is) that have taken that last ride to the Great Beyond.

Merry Christmas.

[RinglingRingling]

yes, they violated store policy. Knowingly or not? who knows. However, the idea that a $15/$20 "pet" is worth a job... that manager obviously got a bit too far beyond his ability, power-wise.

Dock them, sure. Write them up, sure. Fire them... not a brilliant move.

It doesn't have a lot of detail in the story, but supposedly someone had to override the register codes to get them to operate in the off-hours, so that individual probably showed some bad judgement too. And all the folks posting on the website about the story about how it screws over Target customers forget, "as long as they sell, Target probably doesn't care."