Walmart Employee Fired for Telling Customer Not to Keep Dog in Hot Car
A Walmart employee's concern for animal rights has gotten her fired.
A pharmacy technician at a Walmart in Ontario, Canada has been fired after she told a customer not to leave his dog in his car with only an inch of open window space.
Carla Cheney wasn't even in her work clothes on a particularly hot day this week when she approached the man about the pup, who told her it was none of her business.
Cheney took matters into her own hands and called police, who arrived and talked to the man about his treatment of the pooch.
The next day a manager reminded Cheney -- who had spoken to a different person about leaving a dog in a car a few weeks earlier -- that if she saw something amiss she should talk to him, first. When she said, "I [told him] if I did see something unsafe, that I would just go to the police if I thought it was necessary," the manager fired her right then and there.
Walmart has sided with the manager, claiming it falls in line with its policy about "pets in danger":
We require our associates to follow these guidelines, which include reporting any safety concerns to a member of management, and engaging customers in a manner that is respectful."
Cheney, meanwhile, is the second employee to be let go in under a month for getting involved when seeing an animal in a car.
Was Cheney's firing justified? Should she have gone to management first or was she right to get involved?