Dear Tom Ryan, chairman, president and CEO of CVS/pharmacy,
You don’t know me, though I have worked for your company since April 2001. The past two summers I stocked shelves and ran a cash register at your store in Ardmore, Pa.
You run an empire of more than 4,000 stores that competes with the likes of Wal-Mart and Osco in the convenience store and pharmacy markets. I read in the Providence Journal-Bulletin that you made more that $11 million in 2000, though I’m sure you’d give part of that back if you knew some of your employees had to work 45 hours or more every week just to get by.
One of those employees was John, whose real name I’m leaving out of this letter for his protection. John’s a bright kid who worked hard for you and didn’t complain. He did what he was told, showed up on time and didn’t bring his personal problems to work.
John was fired in January for marking down the price of one product so his cousin, who also worked at CVS, could buy it.
No second chance. No warning. No discretion used.
John is just an ordinary guy, so he had no attorney to help contest the charge. Former Enron financier Michael Kopper did have a lawyer when he pleaded guilty in August to obtaining $12 million illegally in deals with the energy corporation.
“Michael hopes these actions demonstrate his deep regret for his own conduct,” Kopper’s lawyer, David Howard, told Reuters.
I was touched by Kopper’s “deep regret.” It means a lot to me that Kopper, once given a deal by federal prosecutors, realized it was wrong to steal $12 million.
Even my school, Northwestern, didn’t escape unscathed. In July, Doris Green, the former assistant director of NU’s Buehler Center on Aging, was indicted on charges she embezzled almost $930,000 in university funds over seven years. Just two years ago, Green was a finalist for Chicago Campus employee-of-the-year.
Now she could spend up to 30 years in prison.
Every time I turned on the TV this summer, it seemed like one of your fellow executives was being hauled off in a squad car for ruining thousands of Americans’ lives.
And who did you have your eyes on, Mr. Ryan? $6.50-per-hour cashiers.
In August, another long-term employee at the Ardmore store was fired. The charge? Drinking a couple sodas without paying for them.
I guess $2.52 was more important than keeping an understaffed store functional. Stealing is stealing, and I can’t argue that it’s right to take anything, no matter how small.
But if I were you I’d be more worried about your executive buddies. These days, they are the ones ripping the heart out of a country desperately trying to recover from one of the most horrific events in history. You’ve got surveillance footage of every breath I took in your store this summer. But you have no idea which one of your competitors’ accountants carried an extra one into the millions place last week.
Don’t sweat the sodas, Tommy Boy. The workers aren’t the problem in this country.
Sincerely,
Cashier 75479
Jesse Abrams-Morley is a Medill sophomore. He can be reached at [email protected].
