Thursday, May 8, 2008

Much ado about a little Bit

I came across a story the other day in the Toronto Star about a woman who was fired from a Tim Hortons because she gave a Timbit to a child for free. Seriously.

The Timbit -- worth 16 cents -- was given to the youngster to keep her quiet. The woman, who had worked for Tim Hortons for 3 years mentioned that they often give Timbits to dogs and other kids, so she didn't see the issue. Apparently, their manager did. This is where I find the story outrageous and stupid.

The employee was confronted by three managers the following day mentioning they had caught her on videotape. This astounds me on a number of levels. Three managers? Were they concerned the woman was going to bolt out of the office? Was one guarding the door in case she had plans to flee the country? Perhaps they were going to play good cop/bad cop with her?

Manager 1: "Please, sit down. Would you like a coffee? We have tons of it, you know."
Manager 2: "Coffee?! You think she deserves coffee?! She stole a friggin' Timbit! She deserves nothing from us!"
Manager 1: "Don't listen to him. He's always like this. Want a sandwich? What have tons of those too..."

Luckily, it was probably a short conversation because the crack security staff at the store reviewed the video tape and somehow determined the woman hadn't grabbed a day old Timbit, but instead a fresh Timbit to give to the child. Apparently the fresh Timbits look nicer or something. Perhaps the older ones are separated from the new ones somehow?

"Awww, what a cute baby. Here's a Timbit..." *reaches into the trash can*

It's nice to know that kids and dogs get the leftovers. Good stuff. Thanks for letting us know.

I'm also thankful that the crack security system there caught the "theft" (as it was called!!) in action. Forget the money disappearing from the till -- this Timbit theft ring must end now! Geez.

You know what? They caught her. Maybe she shouldn't have done it -- even though apparently it's done all the time in the store -- but she did. Perhaps these 3 managers were college kids who got a hard on whenever they got to discipline someone, but lets not go overboard (like what I'm doing in this rant, for example). Geez, tell her to not do it again. Hell, fine her. Tell her she's docked 16 cents. Or really punish her and double the fine -- make it 32 cents. It's call discretion, folks, and managers are supposed to have it.

Mysteriously, the next day (today), she was re-hired, though at a different Tim Horton's store. The corporate headquarters called it an "overreaction" (duh!) and they're "working with the store owner" (meaning the managers were probably fired).

Now this isn't a Tim Horton's bashing, per se. They serve wonderful coffee (though I've never had a coffee in my life), and their doughnuts are tasty and fresh (assuming I'm not a kid or a dog), but this incident shows that sometimes people must learn to think and not just react. Reacting first and thinking second leads to newspaper articles that cost more to write than what the incident was worth.

You can find the two articles here:
http://www.thestar.com/article/422864
http://www.thestar.com/News/Ontario/article/422936

1 comment:

Unknown said...

That is so stupid. Over a timbit of all things. I mean geez. Wouldn't people rather have nice employees then rude ones? Could that not be considered building relationships with customers?

I bet the managers who fired her were boneheads to begin with and probably only got there by process of elimination. "well todd.. you are the longest lasting tim hortons employee.. I think it's time to give you a promotion"