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This happened years ago so the details are a bit fuzzy, but I'll cast a drift net and see what comes up with it. I can't remember enough details so I'll have to pass on transcribing the conversations.
I worked second shift at a gas station while working through a local community college (and then summers after that). One day a guy comes in, puts a $100 bill on the counter, and asks if I could break it. Our policy (as shown on signs everywhere) was nothing larger than a fifty. However, we frequently kept a couple hundred in twenties in the bottom of the safe due to this problem.
I had no idea what was in the safe as I'd been in the cooler restocking and the other cashier had swapped with me a few minutes earlier. So I needed to check first, but I was pretty sure we'd used up the twenties earlier in the day and hadn't built up enough to swap them out. (Anything over $20 in the drawers was suppose to immediately be dropped into the one-way hole on the safe.)
I made the fatal error of choosing to not touch his money until confirming that we could break it or not. On retrospect, I should have taken it and then given it back. The logic I was using was to not touch it so that he couldn't claim I pulled a fast one and switched it for a fake bill. Silly me. When I turned around, the bill was gone from the counter. I told him that, sorry, we couldn't break it. He said that was fine, would I give him back his bill?
eh?
Thus started 15 minutes of back-and-forth arguing on whether or not I'd taken his money. It culminated with him demanding the police, who I happily called, and the manager, who I had to go pick up as her car was broken.
So the police arrive and we gather in the office. Which, in this case was a corner of the store room. "Cram" would be a better word. "Pack in like sardines" would be best. We'd just taken in a shipment so the office/store room was full of plastic totes. And, sad to say, the local police, um, don't exercise much. Anyways, the manager replays the security tape. It shows the guy putting the bill on the counter, me walking away to check the safe, and his hand moving towards the bill. Unfortunately this is the slightly unclear part, at least for the SC. To cram as much footage onto the tape as possible, the cameras only take one or two frames a second. So his grabbing the bill was not on the tape. Yet his hand moving towards it and then away from a now empty counter was. Along with his hand then going inside his coat, presumably to his shirt pocket. I was obviously well in the clear when the bill pulled its disappearing act as money is want to do.
So the cops are giving him the “uh huh” look as he continues to insist that I took the bill. So we play the tape again. One frame bill with his hand near it, next frame no bill with his hand eerily almost in the same spot as before but this time balled up.
Then we do it again.
And again.
And again.
And he still insists that he did not take the bill. By now my manager is getting a bit mad. She’s sick with a cold and didn’t want to get out in the weather in the first place, the store’s crammed, the other clerk is giving us significant looks about needing help, and this guys is still insisting he didn’t touch the bill.
I guess privacy laws kept the cops from making him empty his pockets, but they were getting tired of it too and so were starting to be a bit rude. Basically, “Look, there’s the bill, now it’s gone. You hand is near it, heck you’re the only one near it, this guy [me] is 10 feet away, so shut up and give up.” After more whining they ask him to please, show us how I did it. After yet more heehawing on his part they point blank ask him if he wants to press charges. Even if he does, I’m not being arrested and they’re going to go into exacting detail on the report about what they saw on the tape. Plus the tape’s evidence, so the entire court will see it too. At this he finally gave up and left. After free coffee and a few minutes of “can you believe that guy” they too departed.
A week later he comes back in, sees me and complains again about how he never found the money. Too bad thinks I.
I worked second shift at a gas station while working through a local community college (and then summers after that). One day a guy comes in, puts a $100 bill on the counter, and asks if I could break it. Our policy (as shown on signs everywhere) was nothing larger than a fifty. However, we frequently kept a couple hundred in twenties in the bottom of the safe due to this problem.
I had no idea what was in the safe as I'd been in the cooler restocking and the other cashier had swapped with me a few minutes earlier. So I needed to check first, but I was pretty sure we'd used up the twenties earlier in the day and hadn't built up enough to swap them out. (Anything over $20 in the drawers was suppose to immediately be dropped into the one-way hole on the safe.)
I made the fatal error of choosing to not touch his money until confirming that we could break it or not. On retrospect, I should have taken it and then given it back. The logic I was using was to not touch it so that he couldn't claim I pulled a fast one and switched it for a fake bill. Silly me. When I turned around, the bill was gone from the counter. I told him that, sorry, we couldn't break it. He said that was fine, would I give him back his bill?
eh?
Thus started 15 minutes of back-and-forth arguing on whether or not I'd taken his money. It culminated with him demanding the police, who I happily called, and the manager, who I had to go pick up as her car was broken.
So the police arrive and we gather in the office. Which, in this case was a corner of the store room. "Cram" would be a better word. "Pack in like sardines" would be best. We'd just taken in a shipment so the office/store room was full of plastic totes. And, sad to say, the local police, um, don't exercise much. Anyways, the manager replays the security tape. It shows the guy putting the bill on the counter, me walking away to check the safe, and his hand moving towards the bill. Unfortunately this is the slightly unclear part, at least for the SC. To cram as much footage onto the tape as possible, the cameras only take one or two frames a second. So his grabbing the bill was not on the tape. Yet his hand moving towards it and then away from a now empty counter was. Along with his hand then going inside his coat, presumably to his shirt pocket. I was obviously well in the clear when the bill pulled its disappearing act as money is want to do.
So the cops are giving him the “uh huh” look as he continues to insist that I took the bill. So we play the tape again. One frame bill with his hand near it, next frame no bill with his hand eerily almost in the same spot as before but this time balled up.
Then we do it again.
And again.
And again.
And he still insists that he did not take the bill. By now my manager is getting a bit mad. She’s sick with a cold and didn’t want to get out in the weather in the first place, the store’s crammed, the other clerk is giving us significant looks about needing help, and this guys is still insisting he didn’t touch the bill.
I guess privacy laws kept the cops from making him empty his pockets, but they were getting tired of it too and so were starting to be a bit rude. Basically, “Look, there’s the bill, now it’s gone. You hand is near it, heck you’re the only one near it, this guy [me] is 10 feet away, so shut up and give up.” After more whining they ask him to please, show us how I did it. After yet more heehawing on his part they point blank ask him if he wants to press charges. Even if he does, I’m not being arrested and they’re going to go into exacting detail on the report about what they saw on the tape. Plus the tape’s evidence, so the entire court will see it too. At this he finally gave up and left. After free coffee and a few minutes of “can you believe that guy” they too departed.
A week later he comes back in, sees me and complains again about how he never found the money. Too bad thinks I.
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