Testing the waters.

One of the more complex employee theft cases I had to work on was because there wasn’t a clear-cut way to explain to the associate that they were stealing.

Usually when I conduct an employee theft interview, the employee being question is aware of their wrongdoing. They may try to justify it or completely deny it, but deep down, they know it was wrong.

We had a cosmetics department in the store. At the different counters were the testers of eye shadow, and lipsticks, and of course perfume.

It wasn’t uncommon to see an employee occasionally walk by and give a little spritz as they walked to their selling department. Sometimes they would tryout a new shade of lipstick on a break. For the most part, the employees were respectful, and made purchases of the items they tested. Since this was no different than how we would treat a customer, we stayed out of the way.

One day, an employee came to me fuming because another employee would do their full makeup every day from their testers. Then this employee would take the lipsticks and eyeliners with them.

Because the makeup had no retail value, it was a hard sell when I went to talk to this employee. I explained moderation. I explained respect for the other associates. I even explained it was employee theft of company property. Nothing.

While they no longer work for the store, to this day, I really think she still believes that it is ok to take something that doesn’t belong to her, as long as it doesn’t have a price tag.

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