Woman fired from bakery after paying for elderly customers who only had cash

31 July 2020, 11:41

By Alice Dear

Bird's Bakery in Radcliffe-on-Trent have fired a member of their staff after she accepted cash from elderly customers and paid for them on her own card.

Megan Metcalfe, who has worked for Bird's Bakery for over 40 years, was fired after breaking company policy.

The woman worked in the Radcliffe-on-Trent branch, and was dismissed from her role after paying for some customers with her own card.

Megan said that because some of the elderly customers in the area didn't have cards, she would take their cash and put it into her purse before paying for their items on her own card.

This comes after the bakery stopped accepting cash payments for hygiene reasons amid the coronavirus pandemic.

Talking to Nottinghamshire Live, Megan explained: "I realise what I was doing was against company policy. But they had picked up the items and already gotten to the till ready to buy them.

"There's no way I could let an elderly man or woman walk away telling them they could not buy it because they didn't have a card. They had also already handled the stock so that would have to be binned or cleaned."

It has been reported Megan took around £180 in cash from customers who didn't have cards, before charging their bill to her own card and showing them the receipt.

Megan told the publication she was suspended form work for a week with full pay, and then later appeared before a disciplinary hearing before being dismissed.

She said: "I was just trying to do the right thing. I am really upset by it of course.

"I worked at Birds for 44 years and 25 of them as a manager.

"I was told I was endangering staff members' lives by doing what I did.

"At no point did money transfer hands. It was straight into my purse and then I put the payment through on card and showed them the receipt.

"I should not have done it but I don't like to let people down and a lot of these customers depend on us, coming to us every day."

Chief operating officer at Birds Bakery, Lesley Bird, said in a statement to the publication: "At Birds, we take the safety of our staff and customers very seriously – and have very tight procedures in place during this pandemic. A lot of our customer base are the elderly – many of them vulnerable – and it is our responsibility to keep them, and our staff, safe.

“Like many other food outlets, during this pandemic we have asked customers to only use debit cards because notes and coins are not clean – and this poses a risk to our staff who are handling that money.

“In the case of Megan Metcalfe she was taking cash from customers and then making payments with her own card.

"This contravenes our current health and safety policy relating to Covid-19 and is also against company regulations.

"It was with regret that we had to ask Megan to leave the business because of those two issues.”

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