Marissa Holcomb was fired for not paying back $400 taken from her during an armed robbery.
This disturbing security camera footage shows Marissa Holcomb, a former shift manager at a Popeye's in Channelview, TX, being robbed at gunpoint while on the job. It was a terrifying experience for Holcomb, who is pregnant with her fourth child. In that moment, all she could do was survive. But apparently, her bosses expected her to turn vigilante.
Less than 36 hours after this incident, Holcomb was fired. She was given an ultimatum: pay back the $400 taken by the thief from her own pocket or lose her job. She told KHOU, "I told them I'm not paying nothing, I just had a gun to me. I'm not paying the money." So she was canned.
The official explanation was that she was fired for not making cash drops often enough, which left too much money in the register for the robber to take. However, she insists that it was an unusually busy evening, and that $400 is what they'd made in in the last hour. Also, if that's the reason, it doesn't explain why she was asked to pay back the money itself. That offer was apparently not reported to Popeye's corporate office.
Marissa Holcomb.(via KHOU)
Since this story went viral, there's a new development. The outpouring of support for Holcomb and criticism of her bosses reached Popeye's, and they're trying their hardest to make it right. They offered her her job back, along with $2,000 in back pay for the time she's missed so far. They also issued this statement:
"We deeply regret the way this matter was handled. We are committed to continuing to work with Ms. Holcomb, and we apologize to her, our employees, the public and other franchise operators of the Popeyes system. We have let them down and are committed to do better."
Although this could easily be an example of a corporation just trying to put out a PR fire, it's also nice to see them taking responsibility. Holcomb, however, isn't so sure. She's not exactly eager to rest her family's future on a company that treated her so poorly, then showed no remorse until it was publicly exposed. She told KHOU:
"I do need a way to support my kids. I don't want to go back to a business where I'm treated the same and I just get pushed back out if something else happened."