Read the following attachment
. What is your reaction to this story? How is it possible in this scenario that Melissa made more money than the restaurant? Which of her actions would be considered employee theft? How common do you think these types of activities are? Why do employees steal from their employers? Use the internet or any other source to locate statistics concerning employee theft. How can management use this information to prevent or limit the activities of employees like Melissa? How does this information change your perspective of employee theft?
Here is the attachment in case it doesn’t open.
Melissa just clocked in for the second half of her double shift. She is a server at the Old Town
Spaghetti Store. She really likes her job, but she is tired after all of the double shifts she has been
pulling lately. Plus, business has been slower so her tips have been lower. As a result, she is a
little behind on her bills and definitely short on fun money.
She doesn’t mind working tonight. Melissa is dating Jeff, the bartender on duty tonight. Because
they are dating, he will sometimes help her out with drink orders. He will go over to the tables,
take the drink orders,deliver the drinks, and just tell her what the guests have ordered. So, wi
this help, tonight should be fairly easy.
Immediately after clocking in, she is double seated with two parties of eight. Jeff walks over to
greet one of the tables for her and takes the drink order while she greets the second. She lets Jeff
know the drinks she needs from the bar and he tells her the drink order from the second table. He
works on the alcoholic beverages while she prepares the others and gets bread for both tables.
She is able to quickly get the orders taken for both tables and get to work on their soups and
salads.
To save time, Melissa only enters the items from the kitchen into the POS for now. Her boss is
standing there and sees that she does not enter the salads and soups that she will get from the
kitchen. He asks her why,and she indicates that she is super busy and will add them when she is
caught up. Melissa continues to work on these tables, and she is excited that she might earn some
extra money tonight. Her company had some coupons in the paper today and she picked up a few
extra copies. If these customers pay in cash, she will have a manager apply a coupon
after they leave and then she can keep the extra money.
Melissa continues with these two
parties. When they ask for refills on their beverages, Melissa runs over to Jeff who gets them ready for her right away.
Melissa gets the soups and salads out and the food from the kitchen is not far behind. Fortunately, most
of the guests order salads, so there is not a lot of food from the kitchen. With Jeff’s help, Melissa keeps their drinks refilled and the bread filled, and they are happy with the service they received.
Each of the guests is paying individually, so Melissa only rings up one of the salads for now. She reprints the guest check for each of the guests that had that as
their order. She prints the checks for the other guest. And then, she takes them their bills. She is glad that most of them are paying in cash as she has her own cash bank and the credit card machine takes too much time. She does have to go over and add another salad because two of the salad guests paid with a credit card. As these guests leave the restaurant, Melissa is excited to count the money and see that she actually made more money on this table than the restaurant did.