Walmart Ridiculousness: Maintenance Worker Charged with Felony Theft For Eating Oreo Cookies

 

Here we have Hellmart going crazy again with their bad employees and it pisses me off so much I want to rip off my hair, claw at my eye sockets, and bash in my broken skull head teeth. 

Why doesn't Walmart just start nailing their former bad and rule-breaking employees to crosses in the parking lot? Or they could turn the cart return into a stockcade!

Yeah, she should be fired for stealing cookies to eat, but a fucking felony and having the entire world know about it? This is sad and pathetic. Come the fuck on Walmart, how about we arrest your ass for all the shitty awful NAT-like things you have done to all your employees for years and years and years and years and years. 

The Huff Po article below said elderly maintenance worker Penny Winters revealed to investigators that she had been eating snacks at Hellmart for four years... I love how it says "revealed" We all know how it went down. It was an interrogation and they got the old lady to confess for eating snacks for years. 

In the video you can see the interview with her son. He is in shock, poor guy. From his account of who is mother is, I instantly got that Penny Winters was a good person but someone that had just made some very poor choices at work and may have issues with food - perhaps she needs help? Therapy? She is a human being. Did the fucking asshole management at Walmart ever consider that?

Fuck no because they are assholes.

Instead of calling the police, Walmart Management could have simply and privately fired her (and if they had any kind of human compassion at all connect her to some kind of doctor) That's it. End of story. People are fired and arrested every day for eating company-owned food. And they should be. Everyone moves on.

But not Penny Winters. 

Walmart says we are not just going to fire you. We are going to arrest you and press charges and have police interrogate you and get you to confess to more cookie eating crimes. We have to hang you on one of our shiny media crosses and splash your face and what you did across the internet for the entire world to see. It will embarrass your family. We are Walmart Penny Winters don't fuck with us.

Can you see what kind of bullshit this is? Yeah she should be terminated but arrested, coerced into confessing more snack eating, and then charged with a felony? 

Walmart purposely made a big deal out of her cookie thievery to gain publicity, even though they aren't available for comment. If they didn't tip off media themselves, they know that invovling "investigators" would make it public. I'm sure the video is going to hit the internet any day. After years of posting HELMART STORIES and WALFART RANTS, I can tell you they just loves to make a media display out the employees they fire. Many corporations in the retail world feel they need to make examples out of the employees who have done them wrong.  

Yeah, thanks for smacking us in the face with more hell Walmart. What's up next week, Walmart Employee fired for using too much toilet paper?

 

 

 

From Huff Po: An Indiana Walmart employee has been charged with felony theft for taking and eating "multiple" Oreo cookies from the store.

Penny Winters, a 63-year-old maintenance worker who earns $11.40 an hour, was arrested Monday for the Oreo theft after Walmart launched an internal investigation into the missing cookies, according to The Smoking Gun. An empty cookie wrapper reportedly tipped off company employees who began the investigation.

Surveillance footage showed “Ms. Winters select the package of cookies, open it, and proceed to consume multiple cookies during her work shift,” according to a Portage Police Department report obtained by The Smoking Gun.

After she was arrested, Winters admitted to police that she has stolen hundreds of snacks from Walmart over the past four years, according to the Chicago Post-Tribune. The thefts happened once or twice each week over the past seven months at the Portage location, and the rest at an Arizona location where she was previously employed.

She also revealed to investigators she stole the Oreos and other snacks because she didn't make enough money to pay for the goodies, according to CBS Chicago station WBBM.

WBBM notes that Walmart loses approximately $3 billion each year because of thievery, partly because of employee theft. Overall, U.S. businesses reportedly lose an estimated $50 billion a year due to such theft.

Walmart Media Relations was not immediately available for comment.

via www.huffingtonpost.com

Comments

[maskedmustelid]

I have trouble believing the claims of police interrogation/coercion though - sounds like you're reading a bit too far between the lines, biased on previous company escapades.

Heavy handed, sure, but it doesn't negate the fact she was stealing in the first place. If anything, it looks like they wanted to make an example of her, and admittedly an easy target that they wouldn't have serious opposition in enforcing.

[TiredTA]

It wasn't just a few bites or just oreos. From another source "She said she regularly snacked on gum, chips, sandwiches and chocolates, according to the police report." http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/headlines/2013/02/walmart-employee-hit-with-felony-for-snacking-on-store-oreos/
NOT OK! I worked in a grocery store, did not get the 10% Walmart discount, paid for everything and never stole anything!

[d]

While it is shocking, if it weren't a nice, pleasant looking grandmother then I doubt people would be freaking out. If she stole a box of cookies because she could not make ends meet and was starving, then I could understand being upset that she got dragged through fire on the media.

But she stole for YEARS. Her son seems to be a nice guy and I am sure if she needed to move in with him or needed help getting food, he would have helped her.

She wasn't going after apples or healthy food, she was literally just eating junk on Wal Mart's dime.

She is in the wrong and I am not surprised Wal Mart made an example of her.

[Chronoc]

I came across this story a couple days ago and feel no sympathy. I make 7.75/hr and I can afford to get snacks when I want, without any discount. Hell, most of the managers where I work don't make that much money and they can afford all the essentials while still getting snacks. And if she's been stealing let's say $5-10 in snacks every week for the four years she worked at Hellmart, the one where she was caught and the one she worked at previously both of which she confessed to, then she could have stolen hundreds or even thousands of dollars in snacks. I doubt there was any need for an "interrogation," since they have video of her taking Oreos.

[Pendragon]

Meanwhile, Wal-Mart hemorrhages money by giving it away on returns from things that are either a) past the return date, b) not eligible for returns, c) are returned without an actual receipt and/or d) weren't even purchased from Wal-Mart in the first place.

Not that this is the CSRs' fault; usually, it's management who are stuck in "appease the crusty" mode.

I'm not JUSTIFYING the theft, or even necessarily arguing against Wal-Mart's firing (there are worse reasons to be fired from The Mart), just saying that maybe felony charges might be a little overkill.

[Humor_Me]

And let's not forget Walmart's policy on letting NAT's walk out the door with anything and not letting employee's stop them. Anybody remember the elderly gentleman greeter who got cold-cocked and hit back and then FIRED for writing down the license number of a NAT? Makes me want to walk in and start stealing shit just so *I* can make ends meet.

[Skittles]

@Chronoc at 5-10 dollars a week over 4 years it would be between $1040 and $2080. Not an insubstantial amount of money.

I'm torn on this one. On one side whe stole a pretty considerable amount of moneys worth of goods and fully deserves to be punished. On the other hand making this big of a fuss over it smacks of using one particular case to use as a threat to other employees. Were I the one making the decision on how to handle this I would give her the option of paying a lump sum to reimburse for the snacks and being fired only, say $1500. Enough to hurt but not enough to put her in serious debt. Or calling the police and filing charges.

[Chronoc]

I've also heard that any case of shoplifting is a felony in Indiana, no matter the dollar amount. She will most likely plea to a lesser offense and end up with probation and paying some reimbursement. Or she could fight the charges and end up walking. Even if convicted in such a case it could be overturned in appeals or the sentence could be suspended pending appeal. I live near one of those Walmarts where a greeter got assaulted and the convicted assailant is out right now because her lawyer argued that the sentence was unusually harsh. We also haven't heard from Walmart, they may have offered some sort of deal that she rejected. I wouldn't count on it but possible at this point. As a final thought to the OP complaining about Walmart going after this lady but not letting employees confront NATs or prevent loss, let us remember that the last time Walmart employees made the news for "preventing loss" they'd killed a man unintentionally. Walmart would rather lose even hundreds or thousands of dollars rather than be sued for hundreds of thousands or millions of dollars over injuries suffered by NATs and/or employees trying to prevent said thefts. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/11/25/walmart-shoplifter-dead-a_n_2189558.html http://www.wilsontimes.com/News/Feature/Story/17820383---Walmart-wins-appeal-in-wrongful-death-suit Walmart and any other store with some sense will take losing some product over defending themselves in these suits any time.

[Jay]

She had been stealing snacks for over 4 years. It doesn't matter if you steal food, drinks, toys, clothing, jewelry or electronics. Theft is theft! Walmart had done no wrong here.

http://chicago.cbslocal.com/2013/02/19/wal-mart-worker-admits-swiping-junk-food-for-four-years/