I’m off right this moment, so right here’s an older put up from the archives. This was initially printed in 2017.
A reader writes:
This previous summer season, the part I supervise had some interns working right here. All of them have been provided jobs right here as soon as the internships have been over. However one in all them has created a scenario the place she lied to the police, however my boss and HR have nonetheless determined to supply her a job.
A employees member actually preferred the intern’s jacket and would typically remark saying so. When the jacket went lacking, the intern went to safety and the footage from the foyer and parking space confirmed the employees member taking the jacket to her automobile when most different folks have been in a assembly. The intern received the police concerned and instructed them her pockets with all of her ID and credit/debit playing cards have been in her pocket. It was discovered that dozens of Amazon orders have been positioned with the intern’s credit card within the identify of the employees member, to be shipped to a pickup level close to our workplace. Our workplace is opened with out assigned seating so though IT might say which pc was used to put the orders there isn’t a approach of figuring out who did the ordering.
The police consider it was the employees member and he or she has been charged for stealing and utilizing the credit card. She admits to taking the jacket however says she doesn’t know something concerning the card. She says the intern positioned the orders in her identify as soon as she realized the jacket was lacking as a type of revenge. The employees member is credible, she has no historical past of hassle working right here, has no prison document and is a good one who volunteers and is lively along with her church and her household. He husband has instructed me that her lawyer suggested her to take plea to get much less time in jail as a result of a trial wouldn’t be good for her.
I’m involved concerning the intern having lied to the police and her now being provided a full-time job. I’m not positive how one can frame this once I communicate to my boss. I wish to talk about it with him as a result of a few of my different workforce members have considerations about this intern additionally.
I don’t understand how your workplace might presumably type by way of this higher than the police and prosecutors can. You’re presumably not prison investigators, and it feels like there’s no apparent solution to inform who positioned these orders.
But I’d be very cautious of assuming that the one that stole the jacket is telling you the reality about the remainder of the incident. You say that she has no prison document and is a good one who volunteers, however you additionally know that she stole a jacket from an intern. I feel it’s essential contemplate that there’s extra occurring along with her than you knew about.
The one reality you realize for positive right here is that she did certainly steal from a coworker (it’s on videotape and he or she admits that). Given that, you possibly can’t give her the advantage of the doubt concerning the items of this that aren’t on video.
And be aware that you simply’re taking her phrase as reality. In the opening to your letter, you wrote the intern “lied to the police.” But you actually don’t know that. Your solely proof for that’s the phrase of somebody who stole from a coworker and now has sturdy motivation to downplay some other items of that crime.
If you could have different considerations concerning the intern, which it sounds such as you do, you possibly can completely share these along with your boss. But you don’t have grounds for alleging that she positioned these Amazon orders herself, and it could be mistaken of you to say that as reality. You can definitely go alongside to your boss that your different coworker is claiming that’s what occurred, however try to be cautious to notice that you simply’re solely passing on data and that you haven’t any approach of judging the veracity of any of this. (And if nothing else, your boss must be conscious that you simply and others within the workplace are wanting on the intern with such suspicion. That has the potential to create a actually dangerous scenario, so your boss ought to know.)
All that stated … it could be awfully poor judgment to make use of your individual identify when ordering on another person’s stolen credit card! It’s like robbing a home and leaving a signed be aware behind. If something right here makes me marvel concerning the intern’s model of occasions, it’s this. But a number of folks commit extremely silly crimes in order that in itself isn’t proof of something … and once more, these are all questions for the police, the prosecutor, and your coworker’s lawyer to work out. Your workplace can’t remedy this.
