A Wal-Mart maintenance worker in upstate New York found $350 in the store’s parking lot, waited about half an hour, then turned it over to his manager. Two days later, he was fired.
“The only thing I did wrong was hesitate,” Michael Walsh, 45, told the Albany Times Union after he was canned. “I didn’t steal anything.”
Walsh, an 18-year-veteran at his Wal-Mart job in Niskayuna, NY, told the paper he found the cash in early November while picking up garbage and fetching stray shopping carts in the store’s parking lot. The bills were in an unmarked envelope, he said.
Walsh finished his task, counted the bills and headed inside to turn it over.
“A woman was yelling at a manager, freaking out that she lost her money and I got nervous,” Walsh told the Times Union.
Walsh, who has anxiety issues, went back to work and gave the cash to his manager about half an hour later.
Two days later, he was shown camera footage with a time stamp and then fired for “gross misconduct” for waiting to turn over the money, according to the Times Union.
“I enjoyed my job, I was a good employee and always got to work on time,” Walsh told the paper. “I got treated like a common criminal.”
“I was really looking forward to that lifetime discount card in two more years. They took that from me.”
A Wal-Mart spokesman told the paper he had no comment.