Comments on: Cheese With That Wine

By: hoser

hoser — Tue, 03 Aug 2010 15:42:35 +0000

She sounds like a thief to me-what else is she stealing? A policy pertaining to accepting gifts from customers should have been in place from the very beginning and posted conspicuously so employees and customers alike could see and understand it.

By: Jeff

Jeff — Mon, 02 Aug 2010 15:54:58 +0000

OK, there was a reference to mailing items that I missed. I suppose intercepting a mailed package is technically illegal, but the employer could have allowed the EE to open the package and still confiscated the contents.

By: Jeff

Jeff — Mon, 02 Aug 2010 15:53:31 +0000

This is not theft or mail theft (where did you see any mention of mailing anything?) As the first commenter noted, a boss is entirely within their rights to prohibit employees from receiving gifts from customers – in fact, it’s a good policy because it discourages kickback fraud on the part of the employee. HOWEVER, such a policy should be clearly communicated to employees when they are hired. Sounds like this boss was trying to sneak away with the stuff without the employee ever knowing, which is sleazy. At the very least, it would be nice for the EE to know that the customer was pleased enough to want to reward them even if they weren’t allowed to keep the swag. Further, the boss should have returned the items meant for the EE to the customer, not kept them for herself. So to sum up: illegal no, un-ethical yes.

By: John

John — Sun, 01 Aug 2010 16:20:47 +0000

When the OP realized what was going on (that this had been going on for some time), they should have notified customers that the company policy was that employees could not accept gifts. They would have stopped sending them and the arrogant boss would have been cut off from the supply of goodies.