I remember working at a large restaurant chain satellite store for a few days just to help out and learned there was a theft of funds while I was there. The systems are foolproof and almost always it is an outright theft and by the same token the thief tried to make it look like it wasn't. You see the money gets dropped into a safe and then cannot be opened by anyone unless they have the combo
WHO IS TELLING THE TRUTH?
The night manager says he dropped the funds into the safe. The morning manager says it wasn't there. Which manager took the monies? The company had its own on the payroll private detective who interviewed everyone and investigated the situation quite thoroughly. I was intrigued too because I thought both managers were upstanding men. Why would one of them jeopardize themselves this way?
MONEY IS LOCKED UP
The safe is in a managers office where when the office is not locked is-usually open and many personnel come and go throughout the shift to gt things. Not to worry however because the funds are locked in a safe. So it couldn't have been an employee only a manager but could it? What I discovered opened it up a bit more
MONEY DROP SAFE
I went into the office one day and just stared at the safe. It was a sturdy large heavy metal built-in place safe, had a combo lock and right above it was a slot just big enough to drop the shift monies into without having to open the safe and the 'drop" would fall to the bottom of the safe. Of course the next day you would have to open the safe to access the money.
ON A IMPULSE
Just for the hell of it, I reached over and stuck my hand into the money slot and felt no resistance whatsoever and managed to get my hand in almost up to the wrist area. Using my fingers, I was able to touch the money bag which was bulky and large sitting on the bottom and after a few tries was able to grasp the funds between two fingers and haul it up
IT IS NOT SUPPOSED TO DO THAT
It came right out of the slot that it was deposited into. Amazing... thought I. This is a huge flaw and is not supposed to happen. This opened it up to the employees now being suspect and not just the two managers or did it? Did one of the managers discover this before I did and make a move knowing that someone would discover this defect and in doing so take the heat off them? Whew.... when you start the thinking process
NO ONE COULD BELIEVE
I called the in-house investigator and said hold on to your hat because anyone could have taken those funds. He said "can't be done". When I told him what I discovered he was in dis-belief and said no way. I then demonstrated it to another manager who confirmed...after saying wow he then sat down bewildered. The system designed to protect was flawed. That meant every safe was a problem in well over a hundred stores
TELL ME WHAT HAPPENED
No one would confess, crack or agree to take a lie detector either which upped the suspicions greatly. The corporations solution was to disperse the employees to different stores and key players agreed not to talk about the "flaw" but the stigma of theft followed them wherever they went. Theft in the restaurant business is zero tolerance. I met one of the managers who was involved while working at another store and asked him about what happened.
WAS IT YOU?
He stuck to his story about dropping the funds in the night before and when I asked how did they get out then, he said ask the morning manager. I said that guy said to ask you. He was silent. Then I asked him, why didn't you take a lie detector test. He said he didn't have to prove he didn't take it and considered it beneath him. I started to suspect him and pursued this. The more he declined, the more I thought it was him
I KEPT SAYING...WHY DON'T YOU TAKE THE TEST?
Two days later, he agrees to take the test which threw me off from my suspicions. He passed too. The theft remained a mystery and was dropped but I proved one thing. That the money can be accessed by anyone allowed in that office just by reaching into the safe drop slot. I am sure they kept the offices closed to all personnel except management now. It was too expensive to replace all the safes in the hundreds of stores.
FINAL THOUGHT
Someone on someday while bored and having nothing to do decided to poke around and discovered (just like I did) that you can access the safe in a way designed so that you couldn't. Furthermore, the plastic money envelope was to big and bulky and once dropped through the slot remained sticking up allowing a finger or two to grasp it...From there, whoever it was, waited for a good evenings take and made their move
There is no way they can replace these safes as they are all built and concreted into the offices. Calling attention to it without fixing it would also cause a problem. To my knowledge, the problem exists to this day...
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