Sacked for taking cash from customers

Birds Bakery manager sacked for taking cash payments and using her card to pay instead.

https://www.nottinghampost.com/news/nottingham-news/birds-bakery-manager-sacked-taking-4378325?fbclid=IwAR2x_xrYCkgFDGsfga6ksYkew5YNuXep6xdIIEZaimg6EnUKceQyjYNgch

Birds are not accepting cash from customers during the coronavirus pandemic

A woman who has worked for Birds Bakery for more than 40 years has been sacked after she was found to be taking cash from customers and using her debit card to pay.

Megan Metcalfe says she was dismissed from the company for gross misconduct.

During the Covid crisis Birds has said they are not accepting cash for hygiene reasons and they wanted to minimise any risk to staff and customers.

A lot of customers at the Birds store in Radcliffe-on-Trent where Megan worked are elderly and don't have a card, the 60-year-old of Ruddington said.

To make sure they didn't leave empty-handed, she would ask them to put the money straight into her purse and then put the payment through on her card before showing them the receipt.

The bakery business said it was "with regret" that they had to dismiss Megan because of her actions.

"I realise what I was doing was against company policy. But they had picked up the items and already gotten to the till ready to buy them," Megan told Nottinghamshire Live.

"There's no way I could let an elderly man or woman walk away telling them they could not buy it because they didn't have a card. They had also already handled the stock so that would have to be binned or cleaned."

Megan says she took around £180 of payments in cash and put them through on her card and has kept receipts of the transactions.

She said she was suspended from work for a week with full pay on June 19 and appeared before a disciplinary hearing the week after before being dismissed from the company.

"I was just trying to do the right thing. I am really upset by it of course," she added.

"I worked at Birds for 44 years and 25 of them as a manager.

"I was told I was endangering staff members' lives by doing what I did.

"At no point did money transfer hands. It was straight into my purse and then I put the payment through on card and showed them the receipt.

"I should not have done it but I don't like to let people down and a lot of these customers depend on us, coming to us every day."

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Lesley Bird, chief operating officer at Birds Bakery, told Nottinghamshire Live: “At Birds, we take the safety of our staff and customers very seriously – and have very tight procedures in place during this pandemic. A lot of our customer base are the elderly – many of them vulnerable – and it is our responsibility to keep them, and our staff, safe.

“Like many other food outlets, during this pandemic we have asked customers to only use debit cards because notes and coins are not clean – and this poses a risk to our staff who are handling that money.

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“In the case of Megan Metcalfe she was taking cash from customers and then making payments with her own card.

"This contravenes our current health and safety policy relating to Covid-19 and is also against company regulations.

"It was with regret that we had to ask Megan to leave the business because of those two issues.”

This week Nottinghamshire Live reported that a 94-year-old customer who wanted to buy bread from the Bulwell branch of Birds had to leave empty handed because she only had cash.

A lot of customers at the Birds store in Radcliffe-on-Trent where Megan worked are elderly and don't have a card, the 60-year-old of Ruddington said.

To make sure they didn't leave empty-handed, she would ask them to put the money straight into her purse and then put the payment through on her card before showing them the receipt.

The bakery business said it was "with regret" that they had to dismiss Megan because of her actions.

"I realise what I was doing was against company policy. But they had picked up the items and already gotten to the till ready to buy them," Megan told Nottinghamshire Live.

"There's no way I could let an elderly man or woman walk away telling them they could not buy it because they didn't have a card. They had also already handled the stock so that would have to be binned or cleaned."

Megan says she took around £180 of payments in cash and put them through on her card and has kept receipts of the transactions.

She said she was suspended from work for a week with full pay on June 19 and appeared before a disciplinary hearing the week after before being dismissed from the company.

"I was just trying to do the right thing. I am really upset by it of course," she added.

"I worked at Birds for 44 years and 25 of them as a manager.

"I was told I was endangering staff members' lives by doing what I did.

"At no point did money transfer hands. It was straight into my purse and then I put the payment through on card and showed them the receipt.

"I should not have done it but I don't like to let people down and a lot of these customers depend on us, coming to us every day."

Lesley Bird, chief operating officer at Birds Bakery, told Nottinghamshire Live: “At Birds, we take the safety of our staff and customers very seriously – and have very tight procedures in place during this pandemic. A lot of our customer base are the elderly – many of them vulnerable – and it is our responsibility to keep them, and our staff, safe.

“Like many other food outlets, during this pandemic we have asked customers to only use debit cards because notes and coins are not clean – and this poses a risk to our staff who are handling that money.

“In the case of Megan Metcalfe she was taking cash from customers and then making payments with her own card.

"This contravenes our current health and safety policy relating to Covid-19 and is also against company regulations.

"It was with regret that we had to ask Megan to leave the business because of those two issues.”

“In the case of Megan Metcalfe she was taking cash from customers and then making payments with her own card.

"This contravenes our current health and safety policy relating to Covid-19 and is also against company regulations.

"It was with regret that we had to ask Megan to leave the business because of those two issues.”

I hope everybody boycotts that company. Shameful behaviour ,clearly dont
give a dam about the elderly who have probably been supporting them for years.
Hope there is a claim for discrimination.

I would think there would be a claim against Birds as how can handling cash be gross misconduct? I get the overall message of this thread but simply "handling cash" common sense, something is not right here?

No one will boycott Birds because they are all brain washed SELFISH BRAINDEAD SHEEP,im all right jack long as I can buy and sell f__k the weak and infirm,and everyone inbetween.

Corporate policy would see anyone die on the floor if it was written. Lice / policy officers...carrying out the policies of the government corporations. A human becomes alive by showing empathy and is persecuted!

So wrong, what will it take to wake the masked zombies?

Take a look at their website, at the bottom they state "We care about everyone"
https://birdsbakery.com/

If anyone wants to email them your discust ,the link is below.


getintouch@birdsofderby.co.uk <getintouch@birdsofderby.co.uk>;

Named n shamed via FB. Never used the platform much before [lockdown] / b4 but does have its merits, there are many topics with people into this n that. Easy to share info globally some good folk there too

Too right LS, affidavit time

LionsShare wrote:I would think there would be a claim against Birds as how can handling cash be gross misconduct? I get the overall message of this thread but simply "handling cash" common sense, something is not right here?

Most of there weekday and weekend business is with those older and pensioners so why is handling cash an issue, in point of fact all supermarkets we have tried during lockdown accept cash and it is a fundamental part of the job, and during off peak periods most of it cash transactions, so agree no misconduct.

daveiron wrote:I hope everybody boycotts that company. Shameful behaviour ,clearly dont
give a dam about the elderly who have probably been supporting them for years.
Hope there is a claim for discrimination.

We have one not to far away from us and a local group for pensioners have already began a campaign to boycott them, but the main problem is they claim to be a local bakers but aren't as the children have been busy growing the company; but back to the boycott, many of our pensioners are also boycotting them and those pensioners have children and grandchildren and some have great grandchildren who are also boycotting them so yes it is hitting them financially and hard.

Since when were plastic debit cards immune from carrying supposed viruses? Obviously the cashless mandate is designed to wipe out as many elderly and poor people as possible and part of the expenditure/credit rating surveillance grid.

Birds Bakery has deleted it's twitter account Hashtag birds bakery brings up this though,
( dont act like you can do nothing, these twitter accounts and facebook accounts etc are read by many )
https://twitter.com/hashtag/birdsbakery?lang=en

mitch wrote:Since when were plastic debit cards immune from carrying supposed viruses? Obviously the cashless mandate is designed to wipe out as many elderly and poor people as possible and part of the expenditure/credit rating surveillance grid.

Quite Mitch, the plastic credit cards or the plastic bank notes, what's the difference? handling money they say, so what's the difference between staff handling cash and numerous people putting their credit card into the reader and punching in their pin number, actually none but they never clean card readers and these can transmit the virus.

Staff handling cash is a safety issue, usual diatribes and rhetoric, dont bakery staff wear gloves when handling fresh produce? every bakery I have been into does so wheres the risk if the people handling cash change their gloves? none.

Sacked for being kind - Get Megan Metcalfe her Job back at Birds Bakery

https://www.change.org/p/lesley-bird-chief-operating-officer-at-birds-bakery-sacked-for-being-kind-get-megan-metcalfe-her-job-back-at-birds-bakery