There is no greater evil than stealing from those who have less than you.

I have an area supervisor whom for privacy reasons, we should call Judy.

At a young age of 30+, Judy was a single mother of 5 children. Judy was pretty and had a loud boisterous voice. Everyone who knew her called her a jolly person with a shining personality. They said she was fun to be with and was a great addition to the team.

Last December, we started noticing some discrepancies from what she reported to the office to what actually happened. Two days before the end of the month, she called me up to report that they were scammed by a client. The client despite buying two items, did not pay for her Php 1,450 purchase. Given their wish to reach the sales quota, they were so busy and exhausted that they were unable to get the client’s money.

“How did that happen?” I asked.

“Eliza gave the client the packed items. Because I thought that the client already paid Eliza, I gave the client her receipt,” Judy nervously explained. “Later on, when we were counting the money, we found out that neither she or I received any money.”

They enjoyed good sales that day. My issue was that I believed her account and did not investigate more of the issue especially as Eliza deposited the correct amount of the money onto the company account.

“I will advance the money, Ma’m” Judy said. “Eliza and I would just share the discrepancy.”

Jennifer exited the company last week. I had assessed her the previous month, and unfortunately, she did not pass the standards required for regularization.

This week, Eliza came to the office for a different matter. Her account was so different from the report of Judy. Here was her report:

Yesterday, Eliza came to the office and told her side of the story. She said that:

1. While it is true she packed the items and the paper bag, she did NOT give the box to the client directly. Instead she gave it to you, and you were the one who gave the items and the receipt to the client.
2. You have already left when she counted the money before her closing shift. It was not that both of you discovered the shortage together.
3. When Eliza discovered the shortage, she called you immediately and you said that it’s possible that you have left the money in the cabinet and asked her to find it.
4. When she could not find the money, you called me up and said the customer did not pay you. But how can she not have paid you if you were the one who gave her the receipt and the item.

Attached is Eliza’s incident report. Please offer a formal explanation regarding this issue.

Instead of Eliza giving the item to the customer, and Judy the receipt, it was actually Judy who received the items from Eliza, and it was she who gave both the item and the money to the customer! What’s worse, Judy admitted of taking the money first hand, and it was only later when Eliza could not find the money that Judy said that she was scammed by the client.

In addition, since the time she left, reports are coming out that:

1. Judy borrowed Php 5,000 from her sales staff and promised to pay her. Please note that as a manager, Judy makes more money than her staff. However, she came up with the story about her kids and used her authority to borrow money even though it is explicitly prohibited in our Code of Conduct.
2. She took two items from our store to replace the two items that she lost.
3. She lost another item from another store, and the customer was mad because it was missing. We have a record that she outflowed the item from the store, so this jewelry was in her possession.
4. She swapped the tag price of an item, selling an expensive item for a cheaper price. Apparently, she’s been swapping a lot of the tags of the item so we have to reconcile the tags to the item.

There is no greater evil than stealing from those who have less than you.

I can handle the missing items. The company can cover this.

However, I cannot imagine how evil Judy is for actually using her authority to get money from her subordinate. This subordinate makes less money than her, but via her sob story, Judy convinced the subordinate to give her the money.

Judy has not paid off her loan which was already due. I think that while Judy may say she borrowed the money with the intention to pay it back, Judy STOLE the money because she has no intention to do so.

People like Judy use their charm and wits to persuade people to take pity on her. She always mentions her five children and her plight as a solo parent. Apparently, four of her children are with her ex-husband, and she’s only supporting one.

Regardless of her condition, Judy should NOT steal from people who are poorer than her. If she borrowed money, Judy should pay it back. The money that she borrowed could have been very helpful for the sales staff in supporting her family. Instead, by believing in her, the sales staff lost the money and is now in dire straits than before.

This is a lesson for doing business in the Philippines — DO NOT LEND PEOPLE MONEY.

There is a reason why loans here are charged 20% interest PER MONTH. Regardless of all sweet words and good intentions, most people have no intention to pay for their loans and are perfectly comfortable from stealing money from people less fortunate than they are.

This is a sad story of us allowing a snake to live in our home.

You take pity on her because you feel for her plight, but Judy used her single motherhood-ness and her sob story to take advantage of others. She could not borrow from me because she knows this is against policy. Judy only preyed on those who trusted and believed in her, and she took their money and ran.

There are many people here like Judy. There should be a special place in hell for her.