Cheats

Tweet

At the last place I worked the company offered employees fifty dollars a year for new steel toe work shoes. The employee would have to buy a new pair of work shoes. Then take the receipt to the office so they could verify the shoe were steel toe shoes and that the employee bought the shoes. If the fifty dollars did not cover the full cost of the shoes the employee could save the receipt and take it back the following year and get money to cover the rest of the cost of the shoes–up to fifty dollars. I learned in the last month I worked for the company that some employees were buying the shoes, getting the fifty dollars, then returning the shoes to the store. I think this is cheating. Matter of fact, it didn’t even cross my mind to do this. First, I hate returning something to a store. I have always hated it. There are times I bought the wrong size pants and ended up returning them, but I didn’t like doing it one bit. So for me to think of buying something just to return it would not have been something I would have thought of doing. Second, doing something like this, in my mind, is cheating. Sure the company offered it, but it was to help the employee with the expense of buying the proper footwear for the job. Would you think buying something, getting the money, return the item and keeping the money, cheating? Or would you think the company owed you the money whether you bought new shoes or not therefore it is not cheating?