I understand from the company’s perspective, it’s a liability issue, but still, something isn’t right.
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It’s almost hard to imagine that doing a good deed to the community could somehow throw your employment under the bus. Unfortunately for two XXX employees, they quickly found themselves out of their jobs after aiding mall workers and security officials with a shoplifter. The event occurred at the Cherry Creek Shopping Center where two xxxx employees on their break, Paul Shoemaker and Mike McGee, found themselves in an unusual situation when a shoplifter ran quickly past them with an Apple store security guard in pursuit. After a slight thought about what the shoplifter was hiding beneath his jacket, possibly merchandise or even a baby, the pair quickly were on foot and following the suspect throughout the mall. Eventually they chased him down to the parking garage where the pair quickly tackled the individual – holding him down until security and police officials arrived on the scene. Apparently the individual had stolen $500 worth of software and quickly follows another incident earlier in the month when an iPad customer at the same Apple store had his pinkie ripped off by a criminal.
After the whole incident, both McGee and Shoemaker filled out the appropriate paperwork and were quickly commended by other mall employees on the good job in capturing the shoplifter. Soon afterwards they received emails from XXXX corporate to describe the incident, but to their dismay, they were told that employees should not confront thieves. Without much breathing room, they were both called into separate meetings where they were informed that they were being let go for their actions – citing that it was being labeled as a form of misconduct. The two long time xxxx employees were obviously devastated by the news and had a Facebook page created to tell the story about the punishment they were given for doing a good deed. Although the two are still fond of the company they worked for, they currently do not plan on taking further legal action due to the cost and expenses of hiring an attorney and going through the judicial process. Hopefully the story doesn’t end here because the two employees surely acted on instinct and only did what they believed to be the right thing.
