A few years ago, my wife’s cousin worked for a large lingerie company and had a 30% staff discount. During all this time, my wife only asked to use this discount once or twice – unlike her many friends. Needless to say, she no longer works for this company.

Perhaps, if the user LadyGarcia, the author of our story today, had known about this earlier, she would not have allowed all her relatives, friends and even acquaintances to clearly abuse her own staff discount. But here the situation has gone too far. So, let’s just read on.

More info: Mumsnet

The author of the post works for a British luxury brand and has a very generous staff discount

Image credits: Sam Lion / Pexels (not the actual photo)

The woman has always tried not to misuse it and to only get gifts for her mom, sisters and sister-in-law from time to time

Image credits: LadyGarcia

Image credits: cottonbro studio / Pexels (not the actual photo)

But recently the author’s sister-in-law spilled the beans to her cousin – and really launched a “domino effect”

Image credits: LadyGarcia

Since then many people have asked the woman to use her staff discount – and she just couldn’t refuse them

So, the Original Poster (OP) works for a luxury British brand and, in her own words, has a very generous staff discount. For quite a long time, the author had used this discount quite rationally – for herself, sometimes for her mother, sisters and sister-in-law. But, according to the laws of the genre, sooner or later such prosperity had to end…

And so it happened – one fine day the SIL blabbed to her cousin, who urgently needed a gift for her daughter’s birthday. And our heroine, as a kind and soft-hearted person, could not refuse. And didn’t even reproach her SIL for not keeping the secret. As it turned out later, this did not lead to anything good.

A real “domino effect” resulted – since then, both the SIL and her cousin, and also their numerous friends, many of whom the woman knew only superficially, have approached the original poster with various requests. And she didn’t actually refuse anyone.

It even got to the point that this very cousin and her sister were planning a trip abroad, and asked the author to allow them to use her discount separately, so that they could buy gifts for their friends! And this, of course, irritated our heroine incredibly. Also because she actually doesn’t receive anything in return for such generosity – not even a single word of gratitude.

So the original poster finally decided to ask for people’s opinions online – is she being unreasonable for getting irritated by this? Especially since, as she admits, her mom and sisters never asked her to help them by sharing her discount – because they know well that anything she gifts them will be from her work.

Image credits: Consumerist Dot Com / Flickr (not the actual photo)

Well, from a technical point of view, the original poster’s actions can be classified as “sweethearting” – that is, a specific form of abuse by employees of their discounts to benefit their friends and families. Moreover, according to research conducted by the NY Times, this is one of the most common forms of employee theft.

Yes, that’s right – it’s considered theft. After all, in fact, a staff discount is given to an employee as a kind of incentive for working for this company, for being loyal to it for a long time. And when discounts are handed out left and right to people who have nothing to do with the company, this can technically be regarded as stealing money from the company.

Moreover, this is a very common problem worldwide. “In fact, the NRF recently pegged the cost at approximately $100 billion per year. With roughly 1/3 of shrink being employee theft, it’s safe to say that sweetheart is costing businesses billions of dollars annually,” Solink’s dedicated article claims. And many companies have strict anti-fraud policies aimed at preventing sweethearting on the part of their staff.

By the way, many commenters on the original post tried to draw the author’s attention to this. “In every company I’ve known, you can lose your job for this,” one of the responders wrote in the comments. “Just tell everyone they’re cracking down and you can’t do it anymore. They’re incredibly cheeky.” “If it’s allowed I’d do it. If not, just tell them it’s not allowed,” another person added.

In other words, people in the comments sincerely urge the author to stop this practice before it’s too late. “Where I work, staff discount being used out of your immediate household is gross misconduct and a sackable offence. Can you just say ‘sorry, the rules have changed, don’t want to get sacked’?” someone reasonably suggested. And do you, our dear readers, also agree with this point of view? Please feel free to express your thoughts in the comments below.

People in the comments urged the woman to stop this practice as soon as possible as it may cost her the job

Image credits: Yan Krukau / Pexels (not the actual photo)

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