Bob CollinsLet this be a lesson to you: Don’t pick up Walmart’s trash.
In upstate New York, a Walmart worker who was paid $9 an hour to collect shopping carts in the parking lot, was fired because he picked up bottles and cans that people threw on the ground and turned them in to get the deposit back.
Thomas Smith admitted to turning in $5.10 worth of bottles and cans.
“She said that’s stealing and I said I didn’t steal anything,” Smith told an Albany TV station.
“Mr. Smith was terminated due to theft inside of the store and has signed a statement admitting to the crime,” a Walmart spokesman said.
“I didn’t know you couldn’t take empties left behind. They were garbage,” Smith told the Albany Times Union newspaper. “I didn’t even get a chance to explain myself. They told me to turn in my badge.”
A GoFundMe page has raised about $2,500 for Smith after the story appeared in the local paper.
