Mending My Mistakes

 

While I was employed at my previous job I was left with a lot of trust and freedom that I took advantage of. When my supervisors weren’t around I sold myself merchandise for the staff purchase price which was a remarkable deal and then I returned the item for the full price that a customer would pay. I was getting free money by pressing a few buttons and it felt so easy. After I did this once and was not caught, I got carried away and did it again. This was very selfish as it was affecting my employer because they were losing money, and very greedy on my part. I was stealing from the company that had been nothing but good to me for 2 years. This continued for about a month. One day I went in for my shift and was approached by the general manager and asked to follow him to his office. He told me he knew what was going on, that I was being terminated and the police had been notified. I was then referred to Restorative Justice where I had the opportunity to fix the mistakes I had made. Restorative Justice took me through a variety of steps. I first met with Shannon and went over what happened. This gave her a chance to understand everything that happened. We then had the conference which I feel was the most helpful part of the program. It gave me a chance to tell everyone what went on, why and we made decisions about what would help repair the damages I had caused. I feel that what I did was very wrong and this was very out of character for me. Ever since the day that this happened I have felt guilt inside, not only for the employer but everyone involved. My poor decisions hurt my employer because if they lose money they don’t have enough to pay their employers they could go out of business, they hurt my parents because they trusted me and are very disappointed, and it hurt me to know that I could do something so wrong. To help fix things we came upon the agreement that I will participate in the Theft Intervention Program provided by Restorative Justice, write a letter to the employer that I took the money from and write a story explaining everything that happened. I also felt like it was the right thing to do to return the money I took from the employer. I am very grateful I was given the opportunity to fix my mistakes and would like to thank the staff at RJCK for being so helpful in my situation.