(Kansas)
I worked for my employer for 1 1/2 years. I was the only full time cashier, and was left many times to handle the front of the store by myself. I had to multitask quite a bit. I answered the phone while checking people out, let people into dressing rooms and showed them items in the jewelry case. On some occasions, it got very busy and I was still the only one available to help customers. At times there were customers waiting to see something in the jewelry case, someone else needing into a dressing room, and a few customers waiting in line for me to check them out, all at the same time. I tried to use the page system to request help when it got this busy, but at times, help was out of earshot of the page system, and couldn’t hear me requesting help, so I had to continue for a while by myself. This kind of multitasking and distraction can easily make a person make honest mistakes on their cash or credit card machine. During my employment, I did make a few honest mistakes on my cash drawer, or in entering totals into the credit/electronic check machine.
The company’s policy states that if a cashier’s till is off by $3 or more (over or short), then that cashier receives a write up, the first being a written record of a verbal warning, the next two being written warnings, and the fourth being termination. All of my write ups were for till inaccuracy. Twice, I was short, and twice I was over. I was never short in cash, only in electronic checks. Both times I was off in cash, I was over.
I always counted back my change, not only as a courtesy to the customer, but to ensure drawer accuracy, as I hated even being a penny off my till. I know of regular customers who could probably witness to my counting back change.
When I was fired, I filed for unemployment and the initial determination was that I was making a good faith effort to do my job, and that no misconduct had been established, so I began receiving unemployment. Just recently, I received a stack of papers in the mail stating that my former employer was trying to appeal my unemployment. In their appeal letter, they stated that they didn’t believe I was making a good faith effort, and that I had received verbal and written warnings per policy, and I hadn’t improved. Needless to say, this felt like a slap in the face after working there for 1 1/2 years.