Fired for Choosing my Safety over Them

sweetsamara submitted 105 days ago

I used to work for Giant Eagle and I hated that job more than any job I've ever had in my entire life. Just to give you a brief overview of that horrid life as a cashier at GE: I had to ring customers, deal with their terrible attitudes, and bag the tons of groceries because GE didn't hire bag boys. They actually had the register structured in a way for cashiers to ring and do all the baging. I am a pretty small young woman and at the time I was even smaller than I am now. I had to lift 24 packs of Pepsi/Mountain Dew several times a day along with the heavy turkeys and Hams during Easter. We would only get 15 minute breaks and I would practically be close to tears while walking to work.

One day during a holiday weekend my family was going out of town. I worked from the afternoon till about 12am and since they were out of town I had no way home. I was not going to walk home in the dark and risk my safety for no job. Also the last bus that went my way came at 11:30pm.

I informed the frontline manager of my situation and requested to work an extra hour the day before so I could leave one hour early on the day my parents were going to be gone so I could get the bus. She told me "no." According to her I was the "only" cashier scheduled. That was nothing more than a lie! Since when does GE have only 1 cashier during the holidays?

When that particular day approached of course their were plenty of cashiers working. I asked the head cashier if I could leave early and inform her of my situation and she said yes. At 11pm I counted down my drawer, turned off my light and headed for the door so I could get the bus on time. Suddenly the head cashier is paging me back to my register as I walk out. What the hell? Did she forget she told me I could leave?! At that point I was pretty much done with GE.

The following day I came to work and was called in for a meeting. I was told that I was being let go because I left an hour early. They didn't care about my safety at all. All they cared about was me being there for one hour ($6.25). They then claimed my drawer came up short 2 times. -- I guess to try to justify their reasons because obviuosly this is wrongful termination. After telling me I was fired they told me I could go work my shift and then leave. "Are they really kidding me?" The funny thing is I was paying union fees for this job and this is what happened to me. What good is a union? -- Just another way to steal money from your paycheck!

Anyways, I went to the time clock punched out and went home. I hated that job anyway and they had some nerve asking me to work my shift after firing me. 2-3 weeks later I received a check for $2.64. Whoopie doo!