Sorry lady, the store needs watching
Who knew that assisting the police could result in losing your job?
Well, that’s the case when it comes to an Oregon Home Depot employee. After intervening in an alleged kidnapping that occurred in the Home Depot parking lot, he was eventually fired from the company for a safety violation.
The incident
The incident took place on May 12th when another unnamed employee witnessed a man assault a woman and take her child from the car in the parking lot.
After hearing the woman scream for help and claim, “he’s stealing my kid,” the employee notified his coworker inside and they promptly called the police.
Though the police warned them not to intervene, they did ask that the employees keep a close eye on the man until they got there. The employees did just that, eventually following the man out of the parking lot and down the street until police apprehended him. After taking over, the police determined it was a domestic dispute and took the employees’ statements.
Though it seems like a courageous act to the rest of us, the higher ups at Home Depot did not feel the same. After weeks of evaluating the circumstances, they eventually fired the second employee claiming he violated their safety protocol by leaving the store premises during his shift.
He was later granted unemployment and only after the store decided to re-evaluate the situation did they say he could work there once again.
Oh internet, you crazy
This would normally be the end of such a backwards decision had the internet not decided to get involved. In an uproar, many Imgur users took to the net to leave a flood of negative reviews for the Oregon Home Depot.
Some one-star reviews read that the company should “train employees better” as they rudely interrupted this customer’s plan to kidnap a small child.
Although their efforts may have influenced Home Depot’s decision to rehire the employee, these activists on the internet should have paid a little more attention in geography class.
Unfortunately, they assumed the employee worked at the Salem Home Depot instead of the Portland store he was from. Hopefully Google will sympathize with the Salem store to get their ranking back on track.
#theheroweneed
