Boo to Tim Horton's

[Big Cliff]

Just read an article in the Toronto Sun where a single mother of four was fired from Tim Horton's because she gave a baby a Timbit.

 

Fired for giving away a Timbit

 

I am sure there will be several varying opinions on this but here is a copy of my email to Tim Horton's:

 

"I just read an article in the Toronto Sun where a Tim Horton's employee, Nicole Lilliman was fired for giving a baby a Timbit. Well, as far as I am concerned you guys have hit the bottom of the barrel. You pride yourselves on Community and Goodwill and then you fire an employee for demonstrating that spirit? Where are your brains? As far as I am concerned she should have been given a raise and a promotion.

 

I use to stop at Tim Horton's EVERY morning on my way to work but you know what? Coffee Time will get all my future business, I'll be dammed if I will support an organization that is so hypocritical. That $0.16 Timbit could have gotten you much more in return but your actions will cost you not only an employee but a customer too.

 

Have a nice Day!"

 

OK, so I'm a little cranky until I've had my coffee LOL!

[pikehunter]

It's all about the money Cliff, no compassion from some of these idiotic managers untrained about customer service or human relations in the fast food joints. Then maybe they were trying to find a reason to fire her, we will never know and this could be the underlying reason.

 

Kind of states why we do still need unions. No I am not a union member, just see why there can be a need for them, especially in these joints.

[Clampet]

That is difficult to beleive!

Can you imagine the repurcusions?

I predict this is not the last we will hear about this atrocious behavior displayed by Tim Horton's staff.

Three managers! How small of them. They must feel really proud of themselves.

 

I call for an outright boycott of all Tim Hortons.

 

[fish_finder]

hmmmmmmm.............they give my dog a timbit everytime we go through the drive through!

 

Capitalist b&^%%^#@!

[Greencoachdog]

Some large company's have very strict policies about giving product away... they'd rather throw it away than give it away.

 

She should've paid for the product out of her own pocket.

 

Babies shouldn't be eating that greasy crap anyway... maybe the managers were just looking after the childs health.

Edited May 8, 2008 by Greencoachdog

[Rich]

Yeah and if a coffee, sandwich, donut, etc. is returned there unopened, they chuck it in the garbage. Employees will be fired if they take it for themselves.

 

They are a horrible company. I rarely buy anything there unless there's nothing else around.

[Roy]

WHOA! Let's not get our knickers in a knot over this.

 

A Tim Bit to a child that age? Some would consider that child abuse! You could spin that any way you want.

 

Let's just see how many guys forfeit their tourney fees in all of the tourneys Tim Horton is sponsoring.

[ccmtcanada]

Yeah...what fish finder said....they always offer a free one to my dog and they fire someone for giving ONE to a little kid? Jeez...I maybe get 2 coffees a week from Tim Hortons....that's gonna go down to zero now.

[Sherriff]

I agree that is seems horrible and I am sure the papers played it up but policy is policy. Rules are rules.

 

It does not really matter if the company is a billion dollar company or a small mom and pop shop they are there to make money. If every employee at Timmies starting giving food away when they felt the need too, I am sure Timmy's would be in $ trouble. Starts out as a timbit, then coffees and then who knows what staff will start "feeling the need" to give away....

 

Also, I use to work fast food years ago and at the restaraunt I worked at, if there was any leftover food the employees could take it home. Great. Better than wasting it right? Then people started cooking extra so they had food for home. Wrecked it for everyone.

 

I gotta side with the restaurant. Plus, as mentioned above, there may be more to the story. As usual, the people who made the rules are being penalized for following up on them....

 

Yeah and if a coffee, sandwich, donut, etc. is returned there unopened, they chuck it in the garbage. Employees will be fired if they take it for themselves.

 

Anything that goes over the counter must be chucked out because, who knows what some whacko has done with it. Seems silly when you have eye contact with the item at all times but, again, policy is policy. What if someone got sick from it? People take people to court for EVERYThing these days so everyone must protect themselves. Eg. Coffee spilt at Mc D's and the person sued and won because it was too hot. dang joke...

 

Just my 2 cents....

 

Sherriff

[Greencoachdog]

It could be considered a choking hazard to a very small child, and probably opens a huge can of liability worms because it was given to the infant by a Hortons employee instead of being purchased by the parent and then given to the child.

Edited May 8, 2008 by Greencoachdog

[Sherriff]

Yeah...what fish finder said....they always offer a free one to my dog and they fire someone for giving ONE to a little kid? Jeez...I maybe get 2 coffees a week from Tim Hortons....that's gonna go down to zero now.

 

It says the dog treats are day olds.

 

Guess if she gave the kid a day old the mother could have sued Tim Horton's ass.

 

Sherriff

[lew]

It's an interesting predicament for sure Cliff, but at what point do you stop promoting and giving raises to folks who steal from you and start cracking down on thievery and call in the coppers.

 

Granted it was only a Timbit......which I luv BTW.......but at what point does it go from giving away freebees and become employee theft ?? Do you get fired after giving away a single Boston Cream, or does it take a box full, or maybe grabbing a toonie from the till to give to the homeless dude in the parking lot ??

 

Employee theft is HUGE business that we ALL pay for in the end and I have no problems with a company cracking down on it. I may not have fired her for this one incident, but I would certainly make sure that she paid for the theft and that the penalty was worth far more than .16¢

 

And just because they give goodies to the dog in the Drive-Thru, doesn't make it right, it's still stealing from your employer as far as I'm concerned.

 

Course this is only my opinion.

[Billy - Curtiss]

I am hereby boycotting Tim Horton's. What a pathetic joke. Capitalism at its finest.

Edited May 8, 2008 by Billy - Curtiss

[bushart]

I'm going to say that the only thing this has to do with Tim Hortons is the name on the building and boycotts maybe a bit premature.

 

I'm sure this decision was made on the fly by local supervision and most likely was handled improperly.

 

In a perfect world the girl could have been brought in and given a written warning and placed on a probationary period and I'm sure she would have got the message.

 

The funny thing aside here is nobody really wants to work for timmies as every one of them I've visited is looking to hire--maybe it could have been handled better.

 

Problem with places like these is that usually the people that last longer than a month are promoted and without the proper training do not know how to deal with employees.

 

Bushart

[splashhopper]

ok,,, i live in London and will NOT BUY from any of this particular franchisees locations for one day.

[Greencoachdog]

ok,,, i live in London and will NOT BUY from any of this particular franchisees locations for one day.

 

That'll teach 'em!!!

[Burtess]

It could be considered a choking hazard to a very small child, and probably opens a huge can of liability worms because it was given to the infant by a Hortons employee instead of being purchased by the parent and then given to the child.

 

I can't see the liability here... Unless the baby was driving and the employee handed the Timbit directly to the baby lol... Obviously the mother would have taken it from the employee and made the decision to give it to her child.

 

Pretty grimy though by Hortons! What do you think the margin off a coffee is? When minimum wage recently went up so did the coffee prices by $0.10.... How many coffees per hour do they have to sell to offset the wage increases; with that price increase, not many!!

 

Hortons is burning us every day we buy it, thats why most days I make my own...

 

Burt

[wallyboss]

All we've heard so far is the employee's side of the story. I will be picking up my Extra Large Double Double as usual this morning and every other morning. I am sure that anybody in there right mind would fire somebody for giving a Timbit away. Unless she was already warned not to do that again!!!!

[Stoty]

Pathetic.

 

The managers were probably just jealous because the child got the Timbit!!

[Deano]

Big deal, it's just a timbit, and even if it was a donut so what. Even if all the employees took advantage of the place it might account to $100 of goods at counter prices, which is marked up so much that it's lucky if it was 10 to 20 dollars. These companies underpay people, expect quality work and professionalism, and then can't even give out a free meal as a perk, ridiculous. I like all these places where they want a days notice if your gonna be sick or take a day off, but expect people to come in and work with an hour notice. You show up for work 15min early and help out cause it's busy, and all you get is thanks for the help, but heck if you took a timbit, you can get fired. No wonder it's getting hard to get good help, when all these people are learning companies don't really care about you. What goes around comes around, soon these places will be begging for people to work for them, it's already starting to happen.

[Stoty]

What goes around comes around, soon these places will be begging for people to work for them, it's already starting to happen.

 

Amen brother!

[bowshep]

l am with Lew on this... how easy is it to blame the company. l don't see anyone working one day a year for free for the betterment of the company they work for. We all drink to much coffee anyhow.

 

Added note:

 

Then you sit in line at the drive through with the car idling. Get your food in the environmentally friendly paper products which goes into the garbage; l hope. We are damaging our environment to make our lives easier. Now the new thing is the gas boycotts it all comes form the same depot. You don't see tanker trucks with the names on them anymore. So where are you going to get the gas, if your going to boycott gas company's leave your car at home.

 

Its always easy to point the finger at someone else but it is us that should be ashamed because we are all hypocrites. We all want to be good for the environment but do we do everything that we can for it.

 

Ken

Edited May 8, 2008 by Bowshep

[Greencoachdog]

I can't see the liability here... Unless the baby was driving and the employee handed the Timbit directly to the baby lol... Obviously the mother would have taken it from the employee and made the decision to give it to her child.

 

Pretty grimy though by Hortons! What do you think the margin off a coffee is? When minimum wage recently went up so did the coffee prices by $0.10.... How many coffees per hour do they have to sell to offset the wage increases; with that price increase, not many!!

 

Hortons is burning us every day we buy it, thats why most days I make my own...

 

Burt

 

It didn't say she was working the drive thru, It sounds more like they were inside the store to me.

 

 

In Reality

Being in management, I know how hard it is to terminate employee's these days. There's a lot of paperwork and documentation that has to go along with it. Terminating a non productive or problem employee can be frustrating and doesn't happen overnight. With 3 managers present, I'm sure they've done their homework.

 

Do you think Tim Hortons is terminating their good help? How bad of an employee would you have to be to get fired from a Timmies???

[Billy Bob]

Boycott THAT Tim Horton's not all of them. They are a franchise business so the corporate Tim Horton's doesn't have anything to do with it.

 

I drive the senior citizens to doctor appointments one day a week for the senior center in my town. I often go through Timmy's for medium cup of coffee. All the different (there are many) Timmy's here charge me $1.45 for the med coffee except one that charges $1.46 because that manager wants to get every last cent he can from his customers. The other Timmy's must round it down with tax to $1.45 so you know which one I avoid if I can for that extra cup of joe in the morning

[pikehunter]

Do you think Tim Hortons is terminating their good help? How bad of an employee would you have to be to get fired from a Timmies???

 

Pretty easy if you are found stealing, that is why they used this as an excuse to fire her. There very well could be a whole list of issues as long as your arm in regards to this employee. The "theft of a donut hole" is the icing on the cake for management. With this they have a legitimate reason to can her.

 

Another point is that perhaps this is an ongoing problem with her or with many cashiers at this location, maybe they are giving away too many freebies?

 

As said, we only are reading the paper's view point on this and it is one sided.

 

So many if's and maybe's to draw a conclusion. One thing for sure is that Horton's isn't going to be hurt by a small boycott over this.