Wal-Mart: YOU'RE FIRED!!!
 

This story was in the KC Star this morning. Wal-Mart fired a brain damaged cashier who worked there for almost 20 years for discounting a jug of sweet tea for a customer by fifty cents. I hope he sues their ass off. Story is here:

Thousands of people are rallying behind a brain-damaged Walmart worker who was fired last week.

Frank Swanson was a cashier at a Walmart in West Plains, Missouri for nearly two decades.

He was well known in the local community as an enthusiastic worker who loved to hug customers.

He was fired just 20 days short of his 20-year anniversary with Walmart.

A Walmart spokesman said he was fired for violating a pricing policy.

"Letting an associate go is never easy," the spokesman said. "For this associate, point-of-sale policies had not been followed in some instances. A recent violation of those policies moved the associate to the final step of our discipline process, resulting in his dismissal."

Swanson's supporters claim he was terminated for giving out hugs, and they are planning a protest at the West Plains Walmart on Saturday to show their support.

More than 1,500 people have committed to attending the rally on a Facebook page called "Hugs for Frank" and another 3,100 said they are interested in attending.

"Walmart has decided to fire Frank, the sweetest employee you'd ever meet, for hugging a costumer," the page reads. "So we're going to gather at Walmart on Saturday April 9th with signs or t-shirts offering free hugs. Let's do this for Frank."

The workers' rights group Making Change at Walmart also released a statement on the matter.

"It appears Walmart fired workers for being decent and kind. So, if you believe in hugs or being nice to customers, don’t apply for a job at Walmart," said Jess Levin, communications director for MCAW.

Swanson's bosses cited his hugs as inappropriate, but that's not why he was fired, according to the St. Louis Post-Dispatch.

Swanson broke store policy on at least one occasion by discounting a jug of tea by 50 cents, after a customer told him a competitor was selling the tea for 50 cents cheaper,the Post-Dispatch reports. He took the customer at her word, but under store policy, he should have asked her to produce a printed circular proving the competitor's price.

Swanson's sister, Babbi Marsh, confirmed that Swanson was terminated for excessive price matching.

"He never let anyone walk out without paying for their merchandise. What he was told was that he was being let go for excessive price matching," she told the West Plains Daily Quill.

Swanson suffered severe injuries including brain damage following an accident when he was young that left him in a coma for six weeks and temporarily paralyzed, his family told KSPR TV.

Walmart customer Jenn Harper called Swanson a "sign of hope."

"I feel like one of our own has been hurt," she told KSPR. "He's a sign of hope, he made your day better. If you were having a bad day at Walmart, he would light up your whole trip."

http://www.businessinsider.com/walma...0-years-2016-4

It's like Target for people without teeth.

I completely trust the story of the victim and completely assume WalMart was wrong and that they are an evil company.

Babbi?

Nice to see you're finally coming around in your thinking, PB.

https://www.facebook.com/groups/1537997443161423/

Soooo the guy has had a history of problems doing this...and Wal-Mart can't fire him because ...???

Unreal. Lets just hate Wal-Mart to hate Wal-Mart. I mean it's fun.

Here's a story for PB: North Wichita Wal-Mart gets jacked for a couple IPads, one of the thieves is wearing a KC Chiefs jacket!

https://scontent.xx.fbcdn.net/hphoto...5e&oe=57B46662

http://www.kansas.com/news/local/cri...e73752572.html

Why was a brain-damaged employee working the check out line in the first place?

Yeah, I think we can rest assured there is more to this story. There's no way the store would want a PR nightmare over basically nothing. Either he was doing the discounting against policy all the time or something else was happening here.

I'm not sure what he should "sue their asses off" for, if he was fired for cause or not. He can generally be fired for any reason or no reason.

What's the whole story? Was this a one-time incident or had he been disciplined and written up for similar violations prior to this one?

If he was such a bad guy, how did he last in there for 20 years???

Because everything on Facebook is true... ROFL

Not that I really want to agree with PB... I agree with PB.

Free hugs and cheap tea? What's not to love?

The latter.

Great, one less checkout person.

A guy, who was not brain damaged, had been at my company 24 years and was just fired 2 months ago for harassment of an employee. I don't see how they fired him after being here 24 years... he wasn't such a bad guy.

It just amazes me how people will allow emotions to drive their thinking.

Thanks. So its a simple case of employee sub-standard performance resulting in termination after the appropriate steps were followed coupled with some public sympathy because said under-performing employee was "special"?

All you really know in a blowfish thread which contains some bit of 'news' intended to incite rage or derision against someone is that you are never getting the whole story

ROFL

so just because he's been there 24 years he should be allowed to harrass someone?

This made local news in Springfield a couple weeks ago. It was for far more than a jug of tea. He had been giving discounts I think I read around 20 times more often than the next highest employee and had been warned several times.

But lets not let facts cloud our judgement of the evil empire of WalMart.

They all seem brain damaged to me.

Wal Mart needed that fifty cents.

They owe Pennsylvania Employees $224 million for forcing them to work during their lunch breaks:

http://occupydemocrats.com/2016/04/1...-lunch-breaks/

Target is better anyway.

Well it's a serious policy. $.50 adds up large for Walmart.

Also, doling out hugs to Wal-Marts customers is both disgusting and a good way to get your ass beat.

It's bogus. A 50 cent mistake doesn't get people fired.

Except for ushering in chip readers. Those annoy me for some reason.

They will fire you for being over on your drawer too.

You'll have to be more specific.

I was hearing about this story. Apparently he would sometimes not give people their change back unless they gave him a hug.

According to the OP, yes.

The KC Star story is here:
http://www.kansascity.com/news/local...e73691612.html

Part of the story:

"All this because a woman in Frank’s line that day wanted to buy a gallon of the sweet tea. She told Frank a store in a neighboring town had a sale price that Wal-Mart was supposed to match.

She didn’t have the ad, as required, but she didn’t need it with Frank. He’d always made it a point to keep up with prices at other stores, so he let her have it at the sale price.

That got Frank called in and fired after nearly 20 years.

“The bosses said I made up an imaginary price,” he said Thursday.

Frank went to Willow Springs and got an issue of a local paper that showed he was right about the price of tea."

if they don't hold him accountable then they can't hold the teen accountable when he dicsounts video games for his friends, or when another employee discounts a laptop. Big companies have policies, and if they don't apply them equally they get sued.

So we only care about this story because he has slight brain damage?

****s given: 0

6 years of college, down the drain

Hard to make a judgment here w/o all the details. On the surface, sounds like bad management at that store.

Why not:

Manager: "Frank, we need you to slow down on the price matching. If you feel you must match under our policy, alert a manager for review. At least for the time being. If you can't do that, then we'll have to move you off the register to another area."

Frank: "Ok."

PR crisis averted.

ROFL That would send me into a giant rage. The only thing I can think of on the rare occasions that I'm in Walmart is "I have to get the **** out of here" but first I gotta hug the reerun to get my change.

Yeah, not a surprise, most of these stories seem to be crossposted from The Daily Worker

http://assets.rollingstone.com/asset...1404743456.jpg

It's a legalistic myth.
You can't be perfect every single day.

Not saying it was necessary but they might have done this for all you know.

If not for this precedent I could have run wild in eight more years.

Well, if the ydid this, he should have been moved to door greeter/bag checker.

Well, the local grocery store snapped up Frank and gave him a job, so I'm glad the guy wasn't out of work for long.

But you have to know this has cost Wal-Mart thousands more in bad PR than what they saved by whacking this guy. They could have moved him off the register and let him do returns, or stock shelves or something. Just the latest in a history of poor employee relations for Wal-Mart.

I don't think so. I believe the paper only labeled him as "brain-damaged" to differentiate him from the 2% of Wal-Mart employees who are not brain-damaged.

If you work for a company and take it upon yourself to give away their money, you'll be fired.

This isn't rocket science.

I never want register jobs anyway.
I can't act all friendly while trying to make sure I don't mess up the money.
I either want a job that's me concentrating on the task or a job where the person interaction is the bulk of the objective.
Not at the same time.

Why? Because he's missing a few marbles and you feel sorry for him? His treatment should be dictated by policy so as to maintain equity in the workplace.
I doubt it is policy to move every terminated cashier to another position.

So how do you think this should have been handled? From what I can read, his price matching was 20X the next highest cashier. Not slightly higher, 20 times the next highest person. He has gone through the entire disciplinary process. In most companies, that includes multiple steps that include coaching, retraining, verbal documentation and finally written documentation. So you've had multiple conversations with this person about following the rules. This person continues to ignore the rules. How should it be handled?

I thought brain damaged was a job requirement at Wal-mart.

I really don't want to hug people just because they want to.

And if he's mentally disabled,why is he handling money?

"He was right about the price of the tea."

Ten minutes to Wapner.

Regarding this, it's completely irrelevant unless his price matching was incorrect. If they have evidence of that then yeah fire the guy. But that criticism is worthless unless there's proof he was abusing it.

Hugging is as bad as handshakes, and I think my position on handshakes is pretty clear. The only advantage that hugging offers is when you're hugging a woman and you get to feel the gentle, yielding pressure of her breastflesh against you.

But I digress. Handshakes should go away and same sex male hugging should go away. Once again, I offer the perfect solution - a slight and proper bow.

How is that at all relevant? It sound like the policy states that he must have a physical coupon or advertisement. After multiple conversations, he chose to not follow the policy yet again.

I could see how that would make you unpopular with anybody whose compensation is tied to store sales or profit.

The customer is required to produce a copy of the ad, according to the article. She did not have a copy of the ad.
Whether the cashier got the price matching correct is irrelevant.

You are correct. We aren't there and don't know if he had an advertisement or coupon for all of his discounts. By their accounts, we do know that they went through the whole disciplinary process. One would assume that this was not the first time that he has violated the policy.

I wonder how many customers took advantage of him knowing he would give discounts without any price-matching proof? I'm sure some of those protesters are mad to see their discount go away.

Damn straight.

I can walk in the ladies room and check out the poon in person now...

It would also make him popular with people that are trying to get a cheaper price. However, we don't know if he ever gave away an incorrect discount. We do know that he gave away 20 times more discounts that any other cashier, which in and of itself, is a red flag. But it sounds like he wasn't terminated for excessive discounts. It sounds like he was terminated for violation of company policy.

ROFL

Some LWNJs have bumper stickers: "don't like abortion? Don't have one!"


Same goes for shopping at WM. Don't like em? Don't go

Having read all of this, I have a new theory.

Reviewing the facts, we see that he was keeping tabs of prices at other stores, he was giving out discounts at 20 times the rate of other cashiers, and he wasn't requiring that they provide the competitors' ads. We also know that he was very customer-friendly.

My theory is that he was telling people at the counter that a lower price was available without them asking, and then he was ringing it up at that price for them voluntarily. If so, that's a big no-no.

Meh, if he did not have a brain injury and likes to hug people this would not even be news worthy.

The guy was told countless times that customers need the ad. Even if he was correct most stores require customers to do this or pull it up on their phone. Eventually, 20 years it seems, you are going to get fired for breaking the rules.

He was smart enough to work there for 20 years, he is smart enough to call a manager over.

He got another job, this will not hurt Walmart there and forgotten in a couple weeks.

FYI, I loathe Walmart.. But this is not on them.


Hell, if reports are true that he was 20x higher than the next person doing this then that means that everyone trying to get discount was probably waiting in his line. Most of them probably scammers that will reprint ads with lower prices.

That is very likely possibility. He probably rain manned all the prices each week.

Good point. In every movie I've ever seen, brain damage unlocks limitless power for stuff like that.

Well, every movie but Simple Jack, I guess.

I'll pay the .50 extra just to avoid the hug.

Charlie Babbit's underwear is on the highway.

I'm sure he would have been replaced by self checkout fairly quickly anyway

Ever been to West Plains? The next Wal-Mart is probably an hour away.

**** Frank. He knew better than to sell that goddamned tea and then grope the 13 year old girls.

I only go to Wal Mart for condoms, lube, and trips to the bathroom.

Uh, Wal-Mart has other stores too. It might cost some business at other locations. Of course, for those of you who have said things like "I don't want to hug a reerun to get my change" I'm sure Wal-Mart's business practices over the years don't make you never no mind. Hell, they've probably killed just about every other small business in West Plains, so the locals may have no other choice.

What the heck is going on in those bathrooms?

ROFLROFL

I use the woman's restroom, I feel more "comfortable."

FYI, the 20 days short of 20 years is a pretty big deal. If you work 20 years at Walmart, you get to retire with full health benefits as a retirement benefit. So it's a lot more than just 50 cents they saved by dropping him just short of 20 years.

Yeah, we're the bad guys for not agreeing to a hostage hug from a Wal-mart employee.