Imagine going to the same small business so often that you become friends with the employees. If the cashier sometimes gave you a small discount that you didn’t even ask for, would you insist on paying the full amount or assume it’s no big deal and a way of the cashier being nice?

In this story, one dad is in this exact situation, and he never thought the discounts were a big deal. Then he talked to the store’s owner and realized he may have been very wrong.

Now, he’s unsure what he should do. Keep reading to hear more about his dilemma.

Unauthorized discounts

Paula (names changed) worked at the hardware store nearby. I’m in there freqently – at least once a week and often more – and often with my kids.

We got to be good friends.

She would sometimes give me little discounts here & there – rounding $5.79 worth of nuts & bolts down to $5, not charging me for a Coke, giving the girls those little 2/25¢ Peppermint Patties for free.

This was all done in the open, and I never asked for a thing – i.e. I’d get two Peppermint Patties out of the box, put a quarter on the counter, and Paula would push it back to me.

OP was worried when he didn’t see Paula around for awhile.

I also got to be good friends with the owner, Kyle.

If I was buying something particularly expensive like a mower, I’d ask him if there was any “wiggle room” on the price, and he might knock a few bucks off or give me a spare blade or something for no charge, or he might not, and that was that.

One day I realized I hadn’t seen Paula in a few weeks, and asked Kyle if she was ok – I knew she’d had some health issues in the past.

Kyle said “Yeah, um, she’s fine, but we actually had to let her go – we realized she’d been stealing from us, probably for years. We started keeping a close eye on certain things for a few weeks, and the evidence was undeniable. We didn’t get law enforcement involved or anything, but we had to fire her.”

He’s worried he’s reponsible.

I can’t help but wonder if they caught her stealing items or cash for herself, or if the alleged theft was actually the little discounts here & there, of which I was a recipient without knowing they were unauthorized.

I should probably take Kyle aside for a word, and offer to make it right.

I feel bad for Paula, but also feel bad that I might have benefitted from her thefts.

It couldn’t hurt to tell him about the free candy and small discounts and see if that’s what Kyle was referring to. Perhaps it’s something else entirely, but if that is the issue, since she’s already fired, telling the truth definitely wouldn’t hurt anything and might actually help.

Let’s see how Reddit responded to this story.

It was probably a bigger problem than he realized.

Her little discounts probably really added up.

She was probably doing more than just giving discounts.

Nobody thinks he’s to blame.

Small discounts can really add up.

If you liked that post, check out this post about a rude customer who got exactly what they wanted in their pizza.