Lenscrafters employee moral conundrum

[Hawthrn]

I worked almost 4 years at Lenscrafters as a lab tech. I would like to share with you a revelation that I have had about Lenscrafters and their corporate infrastructures and policies. There is no honor in truth. This statement has taken me years to realize. Please, let me explain. Lenscrafter’s breakage policy is based on percentage. The lower the breakage, the better your lab numbers will be. Low breakage means that you (the associate) will make money (spiffs), your numbers will be good, everyone will be happy, the sun will be shining and your associates will sing and dance. With this in mind, what is the incentive to be truthful about breakage when there are ways to get around it without disrupting the inventory? If you are true to yourself, and show the breakage, the numbers are bad, you will not make money and there will be no dancing. So where then is the honor in truth? Will you get a happy feeling inside when you report your breakage accurately? No.



Let me share another experience that I have had, proving my theory that there is no honor in truth with this company. In Massachusetts I worked as a lab tech for almost 3 years. All of the associates and I would rummage through the gift of sight boxes that were donated, and take frames from them. The rest were neutralized, or disposed of if they were unusable. When I moved to Florida, I was unable to transfer because of a write up that I fought and won. That write up was unwarranted, unfair and yet another example of their flawed system, but I digress. To the point, I was fired for taking frames from gift of sight in Florida. I told the General Manager that I took them FROM gift of sight when I was asked. Let me give you a scenario. Had I lied, and told the General Manager that the frames were FOR gift of sight that I had collected, I would not have been terminated. I would still have my Job, and working for the company. There was no warning about my termination, I was not even allowed to finish the day. In retrospect, I should have lied instead of taking the high road and telling the truth. I was wrong to think that if I owned up my actions, and I was truthful to myself and those around me, if I kept my morals above the proverbial Oz Principal line, that I would have been ok. It boggles my mind to know that in one state these actions are embraced and perfectly acceptable, and in another state they are not.



Ladies and gentleman, in retrospect, I see that in both instances dishonesty, cheating, and crookedness is the way. What can be done?


<~~ gets off my soap box

Thank you

[Judy Canty]

1. Your paycheck is what you get for doing your job. Spiffs are what you get for doing it better. You can't lie to give yourself a raise.

2. There is no moral conundrum for stealing frames from Gift of Sight. Stealing from a charitable project is morally reprehensible.

Judy Canty
President
Arlington Sunrise Lions Club
GOS Kenya 1993

[High_Abbe]

I agree with Judy. And why in the world would you want those cheesy frames from gift of sight? I mean your in the biz why do you need thrown away glasses?

[GOS_Queen]

As someone who has recycled thousands upon thousands of used glasses for GOS, I am thrilled they nailed your booty for stealing out of GOS. :angry:
In the loss prevention manual, it clearly defines taking glasses out of GOS as stealing. However, I think most people learn this lesson of life sometime around kindergarten.


Regardless of how you feel any company operates, that doesn't give you free reign to do whatever you want. Okay, I suppose this is still America and you have free reign to do whatever you want but let's be adults. Taking something that doesn't belong to you is stealing. That is wrong. There is a right and wrong ~ there needs to be limits and boundaries for society to function. All hell can't break loose and we do what we want regardless of the outcome!

There should be self-restraint within you ~ just because "someone does you wrong (what YOU perceive as wrong) doesn't give you the right to do something wrong in return". :finger:

Shame on you. I'm glad you were fired.

Oh, and just so you know, ANY employer is going to do things that frustrate you ~ just know that so that won't be a "surprise" going forward.

[Hawthrn]

I understand that taking Gift of sight frames is wrong, but when managment says that its ok in one state, I assumed that it would be corprate wide. Is that assumption wrong?

[GOS_Queen]

It is clearly stated in the Loss Prevention manual that taking GOS frames for personal use is theft. If that is happening in another state, then I think Loss prevention should be notified and an investigation should take place.

This is TOTALLY against company policy.

[Johns]

Let me get this straight...


-Your an optician.
-You were earning a decent wage.
-You got fired for stealing from a program for the poor.

If those are the facts, I agree, you shouldn't have been fired...


















You shoud have been put in the the town square in stocks, the jailed !

[Steve Machol]

I understand that taking Gift of sight frames is wrong, but when managment says that its ok in one state, I assumed that it would be corprate wide. Is that assumption wrong?

So are you saying that you allow your company morals (assuming you are correct) supercede your own?

Frankly you have no one to blame but yourself. I suggest you re-evaluate your own personal moral compass and learn to take responsibility for your own actions. I know that goes against current trends, but that's still no excuse to act immorally.

[sharon m./ aboc]

What Were You Doing With The Stolen Frames- Making Glasses For Yourself Or Friends With Stolen Lenses? Just Curious.

[Aarlan]

The fact that you don't see anything improper with raiding the box of donations intended for those less fortunate is troubling.

Incentives for running a tight ship are a good way to encourage folks to go above and beyond just putting in their time. I think LensCrafters should be commended for rewarding labs that minimize breakage. Many industries have similar incentive programs to positively reward behaviour that will help the company.




AA

[stephanie]

Please believe me when I say I didn't like working for LC, but I have to add...WHAT WERE YOU THINKING?? and why would you want that stuff anyway??? Don't they give you a pair after a year anyway and if memory serves pretty much anything you want? Yea, I would pass up the Adrienne Vidittadini's for the 7 year old worn out GOS! Just because everybody else is jumping off the bridge doesn't make it a good idea. Just my two cents.

[Blake]

When I first read your post, I thought you were talking about taking returned/exchanged frames to be used in case of a breakage. (I can't omagine you'd be dying to have some blue hair old lady's vintage frames covered in face cheese and nose butter.) However, even this is a violation of LC policy, since for one thing no one wants to pay "new" prices for a "used" product.

Honesty with others is all well and good, but first you've got to be honest with yourself (see: integrity). Certainly the first time someone suggested pulling those Ray Ban's from the GOS bin a voice in your head said "Are you sure?" Same goes for falsifying breakage. Doing it under the watch of a manager who approved was bad enough - doing it where it wasn't approved (even unofficially) was just plain stupid.


Sorry this hasn't turned into the LC hate-fest you were expecting (we usually start those on Thursdays so stick around), but it is not the company that has the moral problem - it's you and people like you.

[sharon m./ aboc]

I still want to know what the frames were used for.

[Hawthrn]

I see that the point I was trying to make has gone astray. I neither intended this to be a Lenscrafters hate fest, nor did I intend to provoke negitive response. I wanted to learn from this experience. I can understand taking on some flack for my actions, which is fine. I followed the direction of my leaders, but I took my own responsibility. If you read the original post, you will see exactly that. I told the truth. The leaders that I was under did not say that taking frames from GOS was illeagel, as a matter of fact they did it themselves, and more. The entire infrastructure was currupt. Right from the top, the General manger, to the assistant lab manager, and the assistant retail manager......all of them. They were a very tightly knit group and they covered thier own and each others perverbial ***. My only interest at this point in the game is to learn and try to understand WHY. Why is it ok for upper managment to be so currupt? Why is it ok for my assistant lab manager to lie and cheat on the numbers, and show me that its ok to do, leaving me to face my own morals. The company and the corprate "open door" policy is a farce. The strong facade that they portray is only as strong as the managment and employees. If the managment is stealing and falsifiying documents and fudging numbers, what kind of leadership does that leave for the employees? Im not saying that all leaders in lenscrafters are incapable of doing thier job correctly. There are a handfull with impecable integrity, and strong morals that are truly inspiring. They truly hold the lencrafters core values close to thier heart, unfortunatly I was not working with them.:(

[William Walker]

Not to preach, but when I find myself in a situation where it comes down to morals, and a choice between what is right, and would be better for me - I try to see myself at the end of my life at the pearly gates. Most of the time, it puts things in perfect perspective.

Yeah, taking the frames wasn't so cool, but I do commend you on telling the truth about it - even if you might not have realized the reprocussions.

[sharon m./ aboc]

Hawthorn, I'm sure you'll find an even better job and learn from this mistake. Good Luck.

[Jubilee]

OK. So at your old store the entire group was taking GOS frames and using them either for personal or falsification purposes. Were these returns/remakes where you would then get lenses at 50% off and have a nice pair of "new" glasses? Some of the suns that get donated (I have seen some Revo's that were put in do to scratch on finish, etc) Or were you using them for parts/ covering for broken frames, etc. I think if I am reading into this correctly it was for personal use.

Even if you grabbed those glasses the moment they were returned and put them in a pocket, it is still theft. IT doesn't matter if they were already in the box or not, the company counts those "returns/remakes" as charitable contributions, and also relies on those to help support their GOS efforts. Think about it. If every store inacted policies like that, where every Versace, Vittadini, Mitani, etc.. frame returned through the 30day C-Sat was offered to associates for the mere cost of lenses (marked to half price) then thousands of pairs of glasses for GOS, and the money LC saves on taxes for their charitable contributions would be lost.

I to have known several store managers who feel like making some money off the returns is better than tossing them to charity. The problem is that they aren't looking at the big picture. Sure it was a $334 return.. but that now is a $334 charitable contribution that saves us a few dollars off our taxes, plus helps our GOS efforts which gives us lots of good publicity. If you take them, we might get $100 but that is all we get for it. And if made public that materials designated for GOS was actually going to associates, might turn the public off from donating, or in some cases our corporate sponosors that donate their frames, lenses, and equipment for GOS purposes.

As far as the Breakage thing. How do you hide it? If you have too many defects, it raises a flag and triggers an audit. Do you have all of your defects recorded and documented on your paperwork? If you have a lot of "other" for maintenance and diagnostic purposes, you better have been in contact with your RQC so they have record of your equipment issues? If you are just taking lenses, and not recording them in any manner, then inventory discrepancies will trigger auditing. IF you are writing them out of stock (2-3) a week, then that means of recording is used so little it triggers suspicion. Just because you have gotten by with it for a few months, doesn't mean an investigation isn't on going, or that records aren't being monitored. I have seen one lab completely let go in one afternoon after they felt comfortable hiding their tracks for a 6 month peroid of time.

All of the above boils down to a blanket charge of theft, or at the very least falsification of company documents and both are firable offenses. Take the lumps, hope they didn't report you to a clearing house of people fired for theft/fraud and good luck finding a new spot.

Even if you are no longer with LC (and that in its own right is a blessing) you can still call 1-800-Lux-help to get further clarification and report any abuses you have seen.

PS: For what it is worth, getting fired from the Crafters was one of the best things that happened to me last year ;)

Cassandra Brackmann
Regional GOS Captain
2002-2005
Mission Chile 2002
Terminated for Participating on this Forum (you want to talk about unfair practices!)

[sharon m./ aboc]

Yikes! that does seem harsh.. Hawthorn is better off w/o lenscrafters.

[Snitgirl]

Cassandra

You were "Terminated for Participating on this Forum" ??????????

[Hawthrn]

Heres how we were able to manage the inventory without sending up flags or triggering suspicion. We often got jobs in that required only one lens. The retail would put the job through, and "forget" to put it through as one lens only so we would have two lenses on the job white. This was orchestraited by the Assistant Lab Manager. We would use one lense, but staple two squ tags on the ticket marking both lenses from inventory. This would give our inventory a Positive balance. Clever? Yes, but very wrong. They RQC was informed on a regular basis about our machine issues. I was put in charge of maintanance. Well, only because if I didn't do it, then nothing got done. We would keep track of all of our normal usage other lenses of course but there were times when somthing would happen and the ALM would say "Ill take care of it". By this he ment he would either put it in as usage other with some very clever verbage in the computer, or he would simply toss the squ. It wouldent show up as a lost Squ number because we kept tabs on all of the extra lenses in inventory. We had wonderfull numbers. Every once in a while we would show a high percentage of 3+% to keep it real, but it was rare.

Speaking to the GOS issue again, I was made GOS captain for the last 6 months I was in my parent store, before I voulenteered to move to another store. The GM "promoted" me. LOL some promotion :hammer:

[Jubilee]

The thing is that while the numbers were the same.. Say you had 1200 lenses, and inventory showed 1200 lenses, the opc's would not match. Which again triggers suspicion.

It would seem very fishy if you were supposed to have 120 Featherwate Ovations, and only had 100, while being 20 over on PSR Ovations. Trust me as someone who did loss prevention for many years, it is still shows a pattern. The other thing is what happens when you don't use all your "excess" lenses. You show up with an overage. To most people in the LP department, this triggers a red flag as well. Since most overages monetary or inventory wise are actually acheived through unethical means...

The other pain in the **** this provides is a very inaccurate inventory. How often were people doing inventory adjusts or drop shipments.. increasing special orders due to lack of lenses? Did it ever get frustrating not having what you were supposed to in stock?

Again, while it seems like you were being clever.. Enough triggers and auditing, and monthly inventories begin.

How many were clocking jobs early? Altering times? etc... It is still out right falsification of documents. Might be the reason why the whole system was changed where most of the lab bonus is based upon retail results rather then the labs own merits..Nothing like honestly exceeding the lab standards and not making a dime because we didn't meet our goals out front.

It is a shame that you were in a store where theft and fraud were so prevalent. It still doesn't absolve you of the blame, because you should have known if not by reading the associate handbook, then by pure common sense and decency that it was wrong.

Cassandra

[Spexvet]

Terminated for Participating on this Forum (you want to talk about unfair practices!)

You need to tell us more about this.

[Johns]

Yeah, taking the frames wasn't so cool, but I do commend you on telling the truth about it - even if you might not have realized the reprocussions.

Actually, I think it is more commendable to tell the truth when you do know the reprocussions.

Ok, we can take the optician out of the stocks now, and reduce the sentence to cleaning nose cheese off the GOS frames.

[Spexvet]

... I followed the direction of my leaders, but I took my own responsibility. ...:(

Did any of your supervisors ever direct you to take a GOS pair out of the box?

[Jubilee]

You need to tell us more about this.

This is indeed a long story, and one that I have to be careful about since I was told that the Legal Department would be monitoring my actions...

The short version is that I was told that by my pervasiveness on this optical board, I was acting whether purposefully or not as a company spokesperson and thus while many times it has been beneficial to the company, certain items I have said casted LC in a negative light. And by their definitions, that is a violation of the company confidentiality agreement, and thus was eligible for immediate termination.

I was previously warned in 2003 that the Optiboard could cause me problems. On that occasion I revealed information that would be found in any Prospectous or Annual report with how the management structure was set up.. oh and I mentioned a laymans term for the "profit sharing" program they use.

I didn't agree with their stance then, but I could somewhat understand their concerns on it. This past August I was having some difficulty after a safety incident and felt like my rights were being violated. I asked for some additional detailed information from people who had more knowledge about the chemicals involved than I, and for some advice on if indeed I was seeing the situation correctly, and if so how to proceed. I had previously sent letters to my regional managment and my corporate occupational health and legal departments. The interesting thing is that I predicted the eventual outcome on those letters I sent.

After I was approved to come back for work, I wasn't allowed to do my regular job, nor was I allowed to work the retail floor. I was essentially stock girl, and took care of some inventory and special order issues they experienced in my absence. I also noticed my name was no longer on In/Out boxes, they were interviewing people, and my security level had been changed in the computer.. I knew it was coming, and when my regional management appeared for a visit..For some reason they thought they needed 2 Regional Level Managers and the GM to "discuss" things with me. I am sure it had nothing to do with the previous safety incident, and my GM whispering to me that I brought it all on myself, since I mentioned in a previous conversation with her that I asked experts here about the chemical, was for "guidance" purposes only.

I could have fought the system.. asked for Whistleblower protection, but at the end of the day, why would I want to go back to that environment. I was already being told that my asking to be off by 5 two days a week so I could take my son to Sylvan as too much to ask if I wanted to continue to be in managment, and that requesting time to go to Wisconsin to go to my husband's grandparents memorial service was a stretch since they died 6 weeks before the services. Nevermind that my father-in-law was having to complete a FDA inspection for the major medical diagnostic company he works for, where they deal with live samples of the AIDS virus.. nor the fact that they were creamated and the state law said they have to wait so many days before the bodies can be sent for creamation to make sure an autopsy doesn't need to be performed.

I now work for a place that truly believes in family first. I am told that I am appreciated routinely, and the doctor treats me like a partner. While I may not make as much money as I did at LC or have the benefits, I have my health, my sanity and more importantly my son has a mom who can spend more time with him, and participate in kid things, like scouting and sports.

Cassandra

PS.. Is it wrong that I sent the manager a thank you note? ;)