I have lots of stories about employees and office staff who think they know how to steal from the company and get away with it. Some do get away with it for a while, but sooner or later they all get caught (I think).
When I started here in 1990, we had a loose policy that you got a 2nd chance if caught stealing. I quickly changed that because in my mind it was a license to steal until you got caught, once that happened, then you couldn't steal anymore. We have a zero tolerance for stealing, even when it is a "family" member.
Some examples:
- Cashier taking payment for rug cleaning and reducing the amount of the invoice after the customer left. The daughter of one of office manager.
- Doing a cash job and changing the invoice (and log sheet and "cash turned in" sheet using different colored ink). 17 year employee whose mother and brother-in-law worked for us.
- Cleaning furniture on the side and doing a really poor job, enough that the customer called to complain. She knew the work was done on the side but was not happy with the results. 18 year employee and the brother-in-law of the one above.
- Having customers call in and cancel while the crew is there doing the cleaning. We finally found it when we noticed this crew had a higher then average cancellation rate, so we started monitoring and drove by the job, witnessed him cleaning and fired him when he turned in the day's work showing the job cancelled. 20 year employee and his son still works for us.
- Customer called into complain that the carpet the crew did in the side browned out and they couldn't correct it. She knew the crew did it on the side but felt we should be responsible because we sent the crew to her home. 3rd generation family member. His grandmother, grandfather, father, brother and sister had all worked for us. His dad still works for us. That incident devastated him.