Complaint Review: Family Dollar Store

I worked for family dollar for about a year and i've been an employee of dollar general for five years. What you did was 100% against company policy and you should have reported the manager who told you to keep the money. There's no reason to complain, b/c you have rights as an employee to refuse unethical orders from your manager. I was in the same position myself and i made the choice to turn my manager in. Just learn from this and you will be fine.

I worked for two companies that employed mystery shoppers. Sometimes it was aggravating, like when I did telephone sales and thought I had a sale (meaning a commission), and then after I thought I had closed a sale, the person would announce that he was a mystery shopper. After a while I would guess who the mystery shoppers were and tell them what they wanted to hear as quickly as possible. The other place was a fast food restaurant. I was told once that I had taken too long getting the customer's food to him. But we don't know what the mystery customer ordered, so it may not have been my fault. He may have ordered a burger w/o pickles, which would have to be cooked fresh. He might have ordered a chicken sandwich when the people in front of him just ordered 6 chicken sandwiches, making it necessary to cook his. Or I could have been out of quarters/dimes/nickels/pennies, and the manager did not bring them to me right away.

The FD "mystery shopper" incident described above seems more like entrapment to me. If I ever performed below satisfaction with a mystery shopper, I was told what I should have done differently. Firing the employee was going a bit too far. Honestly, how many irate customers forget their change? I have cashiered for a total of more than 10 years, I can count on one hand the amount of times that has happened to me. If anything, the customer will make a big stink of getting his change and making sure there was no mistake. Upset about waiting in line, yes. And even that's not typical. That "mystery shopper" could be upsetting an employee whose mother just died for all he knows.

I had no idea FD did this. There are some nice employees at the local store, I hope they are not repeatedly being subject to this. And as often as I've been in the store, I have not as of yet even seen a customer slam money down and leave.

Article written in the

Tennessean.com
Found on a Link by the Drudge Report
http://www.tennessean.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20050914/NEWS01/509140424

Family Dollar gave permission, then quibbled with time

By IAN DEMSKY
Staff Writer

COLUMBIA An employee was fired from her $7-an-hour job at the Family Dollar store in Spring Hill after taking time off to rescue two younger siblings from hurricane-ravaged Mississippi, she says.

Kolonie Sims, 20, third-in-charge at the discount retail store, said her bosses and a district manager gave her permission to go.

But when she got back Monday after two days in Mississippi, Sims said, she was told that she no longer had a job.

"I had to get my family," she said. "I had to get them. I went and did what I said I was going to do."

Her bosses didn't necessarily object to her trip, she said, but objected to her leaving work four hours early on Thursday and not leaving for Mississippi until late Friday.

Family Dollar officials declined to comment yesterday, citing a policy against talking about individual employee situations.

The company is helping employees affected by the hurricane, a spokeswoman said.

"We really have made every effort to support our associates and give them the time off when they need the time off and support them with continued benefits and supplies wherever we could," spokeswoman Kiley Rawlins said. "Our associates are very important to us, and we know that this is a very traumatic time."

The day before Hurricane Katrina hit, Sims' father, who lives in Long Beach, Miss., told her that he was not going to evacuate. She couldn't reach him Monday, Tuesday or Wednesday.

"I was getting more and more worried. I think I got eight hours of sleep in all those three days. It just stressed me out of my mind."

On Thursday, Sims' father left a message, pleading with her to come get her brother, David, 14, and sister, Kendra, 17. After finding a replacement, she said, she left work early to prepare for her trip.

Sims and her fiance arrived at the Gulf Coast at 4:30 a.m. Saturday and struggled to find her father's street. "We got out our flashlights and looked in the ditch, and I saw part of the street sign covered in electrical wires, branches and leaves, trash and everything."

Sims found everyone safe, but the storm had been a nightmare.

Rising waters forced the family to saw their way through the roof, Sims said. Liberty, the family's Great Dane, hunkered down on a mattress, rising with the water that didn't stop until the dog's head bumped against the ceiling.

After returning home, Sims called the store and said that she'd be in the next day, Tuesday. Her boss told her to call before she came in because they hadn't been sure when she would return.

Tuesday morning she called back and was told she no longer had a job.

Sims said that in her four months there, she had never called in sick.

David and Kendra, who have their father's last name of Maine, "have a tremendous time ahead," said their grandfather, the Rev. Billy Sims of Faith Baptist Church in Columbia. "This thing isn't over for them by a long shot. The family's split up, and it breaks my heart. I don't know what's going to happen to them."

David is staying with his older sister and has started high school in Chapel Hill, Tenn., while Kendra is with family friends in Nevada.

"How can (Family Dollar) be so hurtful?" Billy Sims said. "She went to look after her family, and they had the audacity to fire her."

Sims says she's tentatively found a job working at a mall gift store.

First of all, all employees are required to read the handbooks and company policies! Second, if a manager asks you to violate a company policy, you call the number listed on the poster in the back room! That was theft, plain and simple. There are many tactics that loss prevention uses! My husband and I actually performed a few "mystery shops" similar to that while we worked for the company! That one was a classic and I am surprised that you were not aware of that tactic being a long time employee! I wonder if the other cashier knew? Another classic is to purchase a tote or trash can with a lid and place some jewelry inside to see if the cashier will check it. Sometimes they do that with purses or bags or shoes, anything that another item can be hidden in.

At any rate, if a customer leaves without their change under ANY circumstances, that money goes into the register! It does not and never would in any company belong to the cashier! That customer might come back a month later wanting his change!