Being accused of theft by Supervisor

[Karen P]

What is the name of your state (only U.S. law)? Minnesota

Recently my supervisor accused me of theft - $100 on one occasion specific date and several hundred more on other dates over the past "several weeks" (was not specific as to which date and how much on each date). It is cash theft she is accusing me of. I work a cash/check drawer - at the end of each day we are required to total our checks and cash then match that to the computer report of sales. I have never been more than a $1 here or there off in over 2 years. She did not contact HR, her supervisor, loss prevention or anyone else - just called me into her office and said that the money is missing on "several occasions". She allowed me to see a photo copy of a register receipt where she had checked off a $ amount and said that I put in $16 when it should have been $116. Please keep in mind that I probably sold at least $116 4-6 times that day as well as multiple $16 amounts. Both of those total's are VERY common. When we count down our drawers everything match - cash/check total and report total. The computer won't automatically calculate our final total for the reports - we must physically calculate that ourselves. The next morning she then calculates the grand total for all employees (again, the system won't automatically calculate that) and check against what has been turned in. She recounts the cash/check for everyone at once. If something is off she then goes back and checks each person's work individually.

The day in question I was there only part day in the morning and did about between $3k and $4k worth of work. The day prior I did about $8k. The day after I did $12k. I am part time and was only scheduled half day that day.

When someone is done with their report/cash out all of it is placed in a free standing safe without a timer. Its not locked during the say - stands open. Customers have NO access to it but other employee's do - there are 8 total employee's including the supervisor. We have a new employee for the past three months with multiple issues with her reports - small $ amounts. Each day there is a short/overage an email goes out from the supervisor saying which area is over/short and how much. Each of us sells in multiple areas each day - so the email might say XXX dept -$2 (in red) YYY area +2 (green) and ZZZ area balanced. At no time EVER did any email go out saying any department is short $100. At no time has any an email gone out where all departments added together been short more than $6 MAX. But suddenly over the past "several weeks" (her words) my drawer has been short $100 on more than one occasion. Two weeks ago I had my annual review and was rated "exceeding expectations" with no mention of any missing money at all.

I am a union employee - part share. I work for a county.

How do I protect myself? I already am going to quit. Either she feels I am actually a thief, she's out to get me on purpose with malicious intent, or someone is taking $$$ out of my drawer on a regular basis. In any case, none of it is good for me. It bothers me that she has not reported this huge loss to anyone above her - not her supervisor, HR, loss prevention, etc. No one. Just talked to me about it. I'm not the only person to notice it. So it makes me question her ethics as well (there are other issues with that as well). Either the money is truly missing and she's hiding that fact from the company (really bad for her) or there is no money missing and she's out to get me for some reason. Either way . . . I don't want to be accused for doing something I did not do.

Thoughts?

edit:

After reading more posts about people being accused of theft, it appears I'm pretty much screwed. She can do/say what she wants when she wants it with little or no recourse. My only option is to quit before I'm charged with theft and fired.

I want to add . . . . her daily deposits have not been short by anything more than a few $$ on the days she had already reported there was a shortage. So the missing $100 from a few days ago somehow either was found, she ponied up the cash herself, or was a complete fabrication. How do I know? The reports are kept in an unlocked cabinet that anyone can access at any time for any reason. They are accessed from time to time when a customer has a question/concern.

The one thing I didn't add - as I hoped it was not true but am worried it is . . . . we work with very private data and are only allowed to share that data with certain people. The data is state controlled with strict state guidelines as to whom can view it, what can be shared, etc. Each year we must re-certify that we understand this. Its taken VERY seriously. About six months ago I was asked by a customer to provide her with information about a very close relative of hers. That guidelines clear - only the individual can ask for and be given that information. That person must be standing in front of "me" with photo ID before I can give it out. I told the customer that I could not do that, but if her relative came in, I would be more than willing to share the info. The customer started crying and offering excuses as to why her relative could not get into our offices when we were open. I offered up several options - get Power of Attorney for that person, gave her a list of locations that were open on weekends or late into the night to give to her relative, as well as a few more. She continued to cry. My supervisor stepped in and gave her the info she wanted. Before she finished giving the info I reminded her (privately, not in front of the customer) that in doing so she was violating State Law and County employment guidelines. She said it was not an issue.

Per law if I witness this I must report it otherwise I could be held just as responsible. So I did report it. I heard nothing from the state - and didn't expect to. But she was recently called into her supervisors office with an HR person. Since then she's treated me differently. I wonder if she got a slap on the wrist and is now blaming me.

 

[eerelations]

What did your union rep say when you told him/her about this?

 

[Karen P]

I've not yet spoken to my Union Rep - I intend to do that Monday. Honestly I was in shock Thursday when she accused me of it and didn't really start to process it until Friday.

 

[Chyvan]

My only option is to quit before I'm charged with theft and fired.

You do this, and you can kiss your UI good bye. You stay, and get fired, and then at a UI hearing, your employer is going to have to PROVE that you actually stole the money.

 

[commentator]

Don't be stupid. Stay there. Admit nothing, of course you have done nothing wrong. If your supervisor is stealing, she has won a great victory is she could get you to quit, then it looks like YOU were the guilty one. Talk to the union, keep showing up, keep doing your job to the best of your ability. If you have done nothing wrong, she will NOT be able to prove you have, and she will nto be able to justify your firing to the higher ups that would have to approve your firing.

 

[FarmerJ]

In the time being if you feel the information your supervisor gave out was in violation of state laws and if the person whose information was given out is a vulnerable adult or a adult with developmental disabilities then you likely fit our states definition of mandated reporter and should call it into Saint Paul and you start out your conversation with Im afraid of retaliation by my employer if I go over my supervisors head with what I would like to report. They will allow you to make a report and considering all the recent stink about elder issues with reports not being addressed its pretty good odds they will not take too long to address it.

 

[commentator]

Quote: " How do I protect myself? I already am going to quit. Either she feels I am actually a thief, she's out to get me on purpose with malicious intent, or someone is taking $$$ out of my drawer on a regular basis. In any case, none of it is good for me."

Okay in the first place, most of our posts regarding what an employer can or cannot do to you is not going to apply to you anyway. One, you are a county employee. Two, you are a union employee. Chances are pretty good that this particular person is not the boss of the whole area with the power to fire you without it being questioned and approved by higher ups. And this is especially true with government jobs, such as state, county and city jobs. These types of work are less like private industry in that they usually have some definite protections set up, have a full time in place formal human resources and EEOC office. You don't just up and quit because one supervisor is mad at you and is going to accuse you of something.

As far as reporting the privacy of information violations, I believe you should first make your own higher ups aware of what is going on. It appears they may have been aware of and dealt with this particular situation and it happened a while ago. I don't see much point in your reporting it to the state at this point and opening up a big issue only to find that it has already been reported and taken care of without your input.

And the next time there is an accusation of theft, deal with those accusations of theft issue promptly. Insist that it go to the next level, it's not just something this person is "doing you a favor" by not reporting it. Make her take it higher if she really thinks it has occurred. Be in full communication with your union representative.

I once had something happen to me concerning access to a professional organization bank account that I shared monitoring of with another person. Suddenly she was casually asking, "By the way, did you get xxxx amount of money out of the account? I noticed it had been taken out." And I assured her that NO, I had not done so. Alarms went off in my head. Then in a couple of days, she mentioned it again, and I immediately insisted we go to the bank and withdraw the money RIGHT then and get to the bottom of what was happening. Turned out this professional person actually had a serious drug problem and she ended up scrambling to get the money she had "borrowed" from this account back in before I called her bluff. People will totally surprise you. But you do not quit and run away, you act wisely to protect your own job, reputation and interests.

So this person does not like you, is upset with you because they think you reported them or got them in trouble. The very worst thing you could do is go on and quit immediately, so they can conveniently pin everything that has happened, from violation of information release to a fair amount of money missing on you.

If you do quit, and it sounds like it may be necessary for you to go find a better workplace but make sure it is ONLY after you have found another better job, and you are leaving to go to it, not just to "get out before they fire me." As I said, there'd be a whole lot to go before this person could fire you, and from the sound of it, she's more the one with problems than you are. Don't give her a ready out for what she's doing that is probably not right.

 

[Karen P]

If you do quit, and it sounds like it may be necessary for you to go find a better workplace but make sure it is ONLY after you have found another better job, and you are leaving to go to it, not just to "get out before they fire me."

Though I have worked is industry for just shy of 10 years total, my previous employer was private (under contract with State) and not union. I have never worked directly for a government agency or a union. So I have no experience with that at all.

I do not work on Monday so I will be contacting the Union for assistance and, I guess, go from there. Its possible there no money at all missing and she was attempting to scare me into quitting. (Quite frankly, anything is possible). If that is true, she could be opening a huge can of worms by doing this - the union or the county may want to take a look at the books to find when/where all of this is off and determine why it was not reported. I would imagine that there is a somewhat "magic" dollar amount that must be reported. For example, anything over $25 one way or another must be reported to ((insert department/person here)). $100 is a significant amount of money when you consider that our county is only able to "keep" a small percent of each transaction (rest is paid to the state) we process (generally less than 3% of most transactions - so on the day she specifically pointed out, assuming I did $4000 - then 83% of what the county was able to collect (my transactions alone) is missing. That's huge.

I don't work with vulnerable adults but I do work with private information for everyone in the state. Its not the medical industry, but think HIPAA laws. I did report it to the required people 6 months ago. No way I wanted to have my name attached to something like that. Minimally its a slap on the wrist - but it could lead to loss of job, heavy fines, and/or potential jail time. It happens - read about it in the paper about once a year.

What I did do on Friday when I closed my drawer - I ran two register tapes for each item:

2 check tapes
2 cash tapes
2 report total tapes
2 grand total tapes

I took my paid stamp and stamped each tape and initialed it. I then made copies of each all of that and placed it in a file in my desk. This dang near doubled my end of day work, but since I'm one of the quicker ones and I have to stay until the very end (close of safe) I am generally waiting for others to get their reports in. I want there to be no way that one of my receipts could be replaced.

I was hired under a different supervisor. That supervisor retired shortly after I was hired. Took about 3 months to find a this new one. Not many of us are fans of hers - shes a bit scatter brained at times. She knows here stuff about how to do the actual job, how to get what we need, etc. But she's not that good with people. She tends to jump to conclusions before asking and doesn't always listen to the full question before giving an answer - this frustrates me to no end. The #2 person in the office quit about 6 months ago as she could not take it anymore - too much frustration with her lack of people skills. She demanded that she do the schedule even though the #2 had been doing it for YEARS. All of the sudden we'd be short staffed on known busy days and overstaffed on known slow days. She one time forgot to time cards - all our paychecks were delayed. She recently racked up so much overtime the county had to put a stop on it - she is absolutely no longer allowed to work more than XX hours in a week without written approval. (I didn't know about the overtime as I'm part time and generally not in the office when she starts/ends her day). But she sent out an email telling all of us about it. None of us could figure out why she was racking up so much - the previous supervisor rarely racked up any. She still has not replaced the #2 person as well as another part time person that left about 8mo ago when her baby was born. So we are short staffed right now.

I do think I should start searching for a job - hold this one until I find a new one. No matter what happens in the next few days it likely will cause quite a bit of animosity and anger on her part. She will likely put everything I do under a microscope and report any an all missteps.

I'm not perfect - I don't claim to be. But I am not a thief or am I dishonest on the job. I step up to my mistakes when they happen. And - to be truthful, this may not be malicious or otherwise on her part - maybe an accounting error on either mine or her part making it look like money was missing when none was at all. But its enough to really question myself, this job, and her ethics.

 

[commentator]

When working with a difficult supervisor, use that union representative and do your own research as to exactly what your departmental policies are, don't "imagine" anything regarding possible accounting errors or misbalances and how they'd be handled, or exactly what a supervisor can and cannot do to you, what procedures or disciplinary actions she can take against you, what would be the steps in getting you fired, etc. Once you know all that, then you can't be bluffed by someone who's in the first place using you, and in the second place threatening you. As you said, she made it uncomfortable enough to cause someone else to quit, she's probably very much hoping to do the same to you.

But remember, be professional, be polite, but do stand firmly up for yourself. She has no super rights because she is your supervisor, she sounds like there are a whole lot of problems with her, and she's treading water and being watched herself. You're probably only a small part of what may be going on. Try to have most of your interactions with her where others can hear the conversations, and do insist that if there are accusations to be made about your work or your balances, they are taken to the level above her promptly.

If they are shorthanded, as you say, remember that you are only paid to work as well as you can while you are there, you are not expected to fix the overtime situation by working yourself to death or worrying about it. It is the job of the supervisor to take care of the work load. As long as you are showing up and doing your best in the time allotted to you, that's all you need to do. Let the county and this woman's supervisors see that there is a staffing problem.

The excess overtime issue is sort of a red flag. In the first place, that the employer has put her on notice that she is not allowed to do any more overtime screams that they've got more than one problem with her job performance. Many really bad supervisors love to work overtime. It makes them, in their own eyes look like they're doing a lot when they're not ( we used to have a supervisor who came in at dawn and did "me time" before everyone else, which included her daily devotional and painting her nails) and then would tell everyone how far behind we were, how she was having to come in at 6 am! And it gives them lots of time to snoop in your work and desk, etc. That is a very good idea that you're checking and make two copies of your work, may I suggest you also, since you are not there all the time she is, that you hide the copies or put them somewhere she's not likely to run across them and make them disappear.

Yes, sadly, it is usually hard to fix a bad workplace, and they generally do not get fixed. But in this circumstance, its possible this person may get into trouble and not last very long. Don't give her the satisfaction of running you off without a good place to move into though.

 

[Karen P]

I spoke to a union rep today. While I do feel a bit better, I am extremely frightened as well. Given I work for a government agency if an investigation is done and I'm found guilty - its a felony no matter the dollar amount! But . . . they (union) are getting the ball rolling on their end. If I do get called into her office again I'm suppose to ask for union representation before talking to her again. If she offers someone from HR, I can decline and ask for my specific union rep.

Clearly this is serious - far more serious than I'd imagined. I never in my wildest dreams thought felony charges could be issued against me. However, they would have to prove it in a court of law as well.

Nerves are shot.

 

[Karen P]

Just spoke to another union person. Many red flags came up for her about this whole thing - none of them against me. She did check generically at the HR office and found there there are no additional disciplinary actions going on that she has not been made aware of. So my supervisor has not reported this to anyone.

If its been happening "several" times over "several" weeks, why has it not been reported? Especially given the relatively large $$ amount in one instance and additional over a period of time?
Why as I not shown proof of what I did - actual accounting of my register tapes vs the report to show where its off?
If she feels its in how I'm doing my reporting at the end of the day - *how is my reporting different than that of my co-workers? *why am I not being retrained as to how I do my reports?

She told me what i need to do right now, what I need to do if I am called into her office again, and what I can expect from them over the next few days.

 

[commentator]

Go girl, don't be frightened! Just be professional and protect yourself. Bad supervisors and dishonest turkeys are out there at all levels. Hang in there! Do not run away.

 

[Karen P]

Follow Up

I was called into HR for a meeting. I requested my Union Steward be in attendance - and they were. Ultimately some shocking things came up. In the meeting I was never accused of theft. At all. What came up was how I'm running my cash register receipt. Three reports since Jan 1 were shown to us.

1. Happened in early Jan. I was never made aware of it until the meeting. The receipt was off by $0.75 but the money was eventually accounted for.
2. Happened in early Feb. I had been casually made aware of it, never shown the documents and thing more was said of it. It was not done in private nor was it part of any discipline.
3. Happened early March. My report total was off by $100.

When my union steward asked me to talk about what happened in the meeting I stated that I asked 4-5 times if I was being accused of theft. She finally admitted by nodding her head and lowly saying yes. This came as a shock to both her supervisor and HR - meaning they had no clue I had been accused of theft. That said a lot to both me and the union steward. Ultimately - i'm not being charged with any crime.

Over the weekend I reached out to some contacts I had about a job change. Yesterday an offer was made and I accepted. So I turned in my immediate notice. I feared retaliation if I stayed. My union person agreed that my supervisor seemed like the type to that as she spent the vast part of the meeting lying. Lying enough it was noted by HR - they asked her to remain quiet. So likely she will have some major questions asked of her.

I'm very happy with the outcome. Very.

 

[commentator]

Bravo. Best wishes on your new job!

 

[cbg]

Best of luck! Thank you for letting us know the end of the story - so often we never know the outcome!