Employee Theft

​I remember the day that they had hired her. I saw her walk into the store for her first shift and she looked very familiar to me but I didn't know from where. She turned to me and smiled with her crooked yellowish teeth. She then said hello and knew my first name. Somehow she knew who I was but I still couldn't put a name to her face. I then asked her name and she said it was Heather Bower. Then it came back to me. She was from my high school. I had gone to school with her but I didn't really know her that well. I remembered her being notorious for something but I couldn't remember for what. I watched her as she took her place in behind one of the tills. She was very nervous and giddy and seemed to be laughing at everything; it was a nervous type of laugh. She was also very twitchy and at times she seemed like she was going to fall into a seizure. It was evident that she had been a drug addict in the past and was likely still using hard drugs in the present. But back in school she was not known for drugs, it was for something else. Over time I knew the answer would come to me.

​At the end of her first shift one of the girls reported that her hoodie was stolen from the coat room. That's when I remembered what Heather was noted for: stealing. She would steal anything. Her and her brother would always go to big parties with lots of people and when the alcohol starting flowing and things got a little wild they would covertly steal anything that they could get their hands on. Usually things like jewelry and rings, something they could slip into their pockets. They also loved stealing cash, drugs, wallets and purses. I had heard that for bigger items that they would throw things out the windows of the party house and come back later to pick them up. It didn't take long for people to catch on and as soon as they did Heather and he brother were no longer invited to the parties, but soon they found a new group of friends and the whole process started again. 
 
As for stolen hoodie at work I knew it was her but I didn't say anything. Then about a week later a couple of purses went missing and my workplace plummeted into chaos and suspicion. Everyone was playing the blame game. The week after that money was missing from some of the tills but it was never from Heather's. Despite the fact that the missing money was not from her till I knew that she was the one stealing it. I began to watch her. The scam she had conjured was beautiful. She always took the last till of the five in the store so all of the other tills were in front of her. She would then walk away from her till and stand in behind the cashier that was at the till in front of her. She would start talking to the cashier and act cool but when a customer came Heather would watch the cashier log in and would memorize their log in numbers. Then when that cashier would go to the washroom at some point during her shift Heather would take a quick look around to make sure nobody was watching. She would then slowly walk over to the till of the cashier that had just gone to the washroom and punch in her code and hit the no sale button. The cash drawer would pop open and she would grab a twenty. 

Weeks later the accountant talked to the manager about excessive gift card frauds and missing cash transactions. All the cashiers were questioned and two were wrongly fired as they had nothing to do with the thefts. The thefts continued and the accountant and manager didn't have a clue who it was. They fired another girl. Over time they completely turned over the cashier staff, except for Heather. Strangely the accountant and manager never fired her. 

Nothing changed as the cash thefts continued to mount into the ten of thousands of dollars.