Walmart Worker Fired For Redeeming $5 Worth Of Cans
East Greenbush, New York Sept 18 2017 An East Greenbush, New York, Walmart worker was fired after he took cans that were thrown on the ground in the parking lot and redeemed them for $5.10.
Thomas Smith, who gathered shopping carts at his local Walmart, was picking up discarded bottles and cans for more than two months before he was fired. The reason he was let go was because he redeemed drink containers on two occasions for a total of $5.10.
“I didn’t know you couldn’t take empties left behind. They were garbage,” he told the Albany Times Union. “I didn’t even get a chance to explain myself. They told me to turn in my badge.”
Smith was reportedly called into the security office and interrogated by his manager and two security officers before being terminated. Surveillance footage reportedly caught him redeeming empty bottles and cans, which the manager said was considered theft. Smith was never informed that redeeming containers was considered theft.
The man was fired three hours after the end of his shift because he agreed to work overtime. The manager asked him to repay the money on the spot but he didn’t have any cash, so he returned to the store two days later after taking an hour-long bus ride from Albany and returned the money.
After the story went viral, many expressed their outrage over the man’s firing. A GoFundMe was launched to help Smith, and many wrote letters to the CEO of the company.
Some readers felt that Walmart was completely in the wrong.
“Walmart owes this man an apology openly, and reinstate his job position, with a raise. People make mistakes in their lives one way or another, but this man is trying to make a new start, why discriminate him for his past ? Should be praising him for good work ethics, next they’d complain he was standing idle and stealing from the company. Makes you wonder,” one Mad World News reader commented on the site’s Facebook page.
“Some managers see themselves as so important that they do not see the little person trying to make a little extra money that would have gone in the garbage. So sad. The manager will have to answer one day,” another wrote.
“The Walmart manager has to be let go! how could somebody be so freaking cruel and if it was trash outside or inside, just empty cans laying around! That is for someone to pick up, shame on the person who left them there! That is not Sealing that is someone who is trying to make a lil extra money on picking up somebody’s trash. Walmart is really starting to tick me off with the evil that is coming out of it. What is wrong with these managers!” another added.
