Some workplace mistakes are forgivable, but stealing isn’t one of them.

So, what would you do if an employee admitted to taking cash from a coworker’s locker, but acted like it wasn’t a big deal because she offered to pay it back?

Would you go along with her plan?

Or would you make sure that she was escorted out of the store immediately?

In the following story, a retail worker shares what their manager did when faced with this exact situation.

Here’s how it all went down.

Girl couldn’t understand why stealing was a fireable offence

I was told this story when I worked for a mid-range fashion store.

A store was being refitted, and the company was bringing in visual merchandisers and asking nearby staff to join in (as I was part-time, I could do with the extra money, and wanted to progress into merchandising), so I volunteered.

This story was from the VMs who regularly worked together on re-fits and setting up new stores.

A few weeks before, they had worked on fitting a new store while staff were being trained.

Luckily, they knew who did it.

One of the new workers had gone to their locker and found it open, and money was missing from their bag.

They reported it, and fortunately, the store already had cameras set up, and they caught who did it.

They pulled the girl into the manager’s office and asked her if she had taken the money (I think it was £20).

She bluntly said yes, she needed it and would pay it back when she got her first pay.

Still, she came back the next day.

Understandably, the manager said this was unacceptable and that she would be escorted out. The girl said, “Alright,” and followed the boss to the exit.

The next morning, she was at the side door waiting to come in—they had changed the passcode as per protocol, and she couldn’t gain access.

Apparently, she thought her only punishment was leaving work yesterday! The boss had to explain that stealing was a sackable offence.

She disagreed because she had promised to pay the money back.

Yikes! She didn’t think that through very well.

Let’s check out what the people over at Reddit think about what happened with this girl.

According to this reader, they should’ve reported her to the police.

This is actually pretty terrible.

He was obviously very wrong.

Here’s someone who dealt with a similar situation.

Maybe there’s more to this. Honestly, she may have done it on purpose just to see if it would work.

If you liked that story, check out this post about a group of employees who got together and why working from home was a good financial decision.