Tim Horton's Fires Single Mom For Giving A Free Donut Hole To A Baby
We pause this blog to bring you a message from Canada: A single mother has been fired by the iconic Canadian donut chain Tim Horton's for giving a free donut hole to a fussy baby. The chain said the worker was caught on video "stealing" the donut hole, which, in the mysterious Canadian language, is apparently called a "Timbit" and looks freaking delicious. Reader Chris, who alerted us to this story, explains: "It's important to understand that Tim Horton's is a Canadian national icon. That makes this story so much sadder."
From the Toronto Star:
Nicole Lilliman, 27, was fired yesterday from her Tim Hortons job for giving one of the 16-cent blobs of fried dough to a tot.
"I have been fired for giving a baby a Timbit," Lilliman said yesterday.
"It was just out of my heart – she was pointing and going `ah, ah...' I should have gone to my purse and got the change, but it was busy."
Lilliman, who has worked at the store for three years, said she thought little of the incident since Timbits are often doled out to dogs and children.
She said the baby was about 11 months old, and she gave her the treat to quiet her, since her mom – a Tims' regular – had been ``having a bad day."
"I could see (the dismissal) if it was a sandwich or something," she said. "But it was a Timbit."
Three managers greeted her yesterday, saying she had been caught on video giving free food to a child.
"They said, `Remember, Monday you gave out a free Timbit,' " she said.
"I had to think, then I was like, `Oh yeah,' and I smiled because I thought I'd get a warning."
Instead, she was fired for theft.
That's harsh, Tim Horton's. Very harsh.
Tim Hortons fires single mom over free Timbit [Toronto Star]
(Photo: FlyGuy92586 )
UPDATE: Hey, she's been rehired!"We're working with the store owner on this policy,” said a Tim Horton's spokesperson, calling Lilliman’s firing “an overreaction and not appropriate.”
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Comments:
They give free donut holes to dogs?
There's got to be something else at play here. What store would be stupid enough to fire someone for giving a 16 cent freebie to a regular customer?
It's the baby's fault for going to Tim Hortons! Little tyke wasn't taking it seriously!!
Wow...that's cold.
So, who's going to be the first to "blame the victim"?
I blame the victim.
I beat you to it!
does "single mom" make this story worse? i smell mongering.
Absurd. I regularly get 'extra' Timbits with my orders out of the generosity and seeming discretion, of Tim's employees. It was probably a store owner with a grudge. Hopefully this will raise some hairs at corporate.
So if it is a well known act to give a single donut hole to a dog or a kid, why did they fire her?
I'm guessing there may have been some pin headed boss behavior in play and someone was just looking for a reason to fire her.
I'm wondering if they wanted to fire her for something else, perhaps attitude, work performance, etc, but needed an offense that could be proven, to protect them from law suits. Then this happened, and it was all they needed.
The principle: if you don't own it, it isn't yours to give away. If she didn't have permission to give away free product, she clearly violated policy.
They had justification to fire her and show other employees that employee theft is not tolerated. Just as I would fire any of my employees caught stealing from my company.
We have Tim Hortons here in the Detroit area. I don't go there too often but those Timbits are good.
This story though is just silly. Why couldn't they just ask her to pay for it? Is firing someone over .16 cents that common? There must be something else going on with her performance. This doesn't make any sense otherwise.
I blame the timbit for being so delicious. If they didn't taste so good, the baby wouldn't have thrown a fit, and the employee wouldn't have had to steal one to placate the toddler.
This is similar to what happened to my brother about 10 years ago at Target. It was his first job, so he was pretty enthusiastic and well-intentioned. A lot of new Target employees are forced to work the food court area before they "move on up the chain", so that's where he was. Anyways, whenever they had extra cookies left over at close, they were instructed to throw all of them away. He always did this, but if there were chunks of crumbs left over in the display case (like from M&M cookies..mmmm) he would just pop them in his mouth and think nothing of it.
Fast forward a few months. He got to work and was pulled upstairs with the security officer and two managers who accused him of stealing somewhere along the lines of $2000 worth of cookies over the course of several months and said they had video evidence and were moving forward with prosecution unless he signed some forms, got fired, yadda yadda yadda.
My brother, who was 16, was obviously not prepared to handle this, was in tears, didn't know what he had done wrong, etc. My mom worked in the Prosecutor's Office for my county helping to track down deadbeat dads, and luckily, was good friends with the prosecutor/several other attorneys who offered to make up some legal documents challenging target's claim, threatening to sue, and all of that.
Eventually, everyone involved met together where the Target district manager accused my brother of being a pussy and a little rich boy (for knowing a lawyer - my mother and step father didn't make very much money and never went to college), amongst other things. My brother quit and is still banned from all Target stores.
I'm still trying to decide if the managers of these two establishments have no heart or no brain. I'll get back to you on it.
Does this manager have the unhinged head thing like the Canadian baby on Southpark?
@Bladefist: It's highly likely that they were looking for reasonable cause to fire her. Especially with multiple witnesses there to convey the termination message.
In sort, she probably wasn't the best employee to keep around.
The principle: if you don't own it, it isn't yours to give away. If she didn't have permission to give away free product, she clearly violated policy.
Then charge her sixteen cents and tell her not to do it again. She didn't give away an HDTV.
I'm from London and would really like it if someone could find the address or at least the general location of this Tim Horton's.
@buzzybee: actually if a food joint is looking for reasons to fire an employee the employee is usually great. if the employee's crap at their job, late all the time, steals regularly, mouths off to customers and generally is an ass you don't need to look for reasons to fire her. if you need to search for valid reasons to fire someone it's because they aren't giving you any and you just have the crosshairs on them for whatever reason. managers find stupid reasons to fire perfectly good employees all the time just because they don't like them.
My friend once worked at a Winn-Dixie. They have those stupid reward cards you scan so you can get the sale price of items. Someone came through the checkout and didn't have one, so he scanned his own. He got fired for it.
Wow, that is harsh.
Maybe we are missing some details?
Customer service can be emailed at:
customer_service@timhortons.com
When I think "27 year old Single Mom", I don't think timbits. Lapdance maybe but timbits, no.
Comment on Tim Horton's Fires Single Mom For Giving A Free Donut Hole To A Baby She got her job back and Tim Horton's apologized about their overzealous manager.
@mgy: I'm still trying to decide if the managers of these two establishments have no heart or no brain. I'll get back to you on it.
If it ever makes it to a vote, I'll choose C: all of the above
@VnlaThndr775: aha so it does look like a single store manager/owner was a spaz! thanks for the link.
I worked at a timmies for one ill advised time in my life - the last shift, they had no drinkable water, but a) kept the store open and b) made me carry boiling pots of water across the store in order to fill the coffee makers. The management at these are generally the very lowest form of scum. Horseshit they give away dayold timbits - they make you COUNT the timbits and then throw them out - and they absolutely refuse to donate them to charity. One night we threw away 12 dozen apple fritters, that i'm sure some group would have been happy to have.
Yup, i'm still bitter.
That won't really accomplish much. Tried emailing them once when they stopped doing "roll up the rim to win" on small coffees, still waiting for my response
its good that she was rehired
strange that she would be fired in the first place for something timmy's does on a regular basis
@buzzybee: If you were going to fire someone over a .16 donut hole, then I'm sure they'd be really forthcoming on if they liked you or not. Good luck on getting the truth, tightwad!
@buzzybee: That's a great way to never get any customer loyalty, ever. The way you keep customers coming back is by at least pretending you have a heart, that you care about them. A 16 cent item for free probably made that mother a lot happier. Maybe she'll buy a donut with her coffee next time, and you'll recoup the 16 cents. Maybe she'll buy three dozen donuts from you next time she runs a bake sale, and you'll make it back in spades.
The point I'm trying to make is that being a hard-ass and always watching your bottom lines and cutting corners is not the way people should run their businesses.
It's not like she was eating them herself, which I would see as a much more serious offense. She's being a good employee and providing good customer service.
People like you are why half the stories on this blog come up, because business owners have all lost their souls.
@Bladefist: I figured that since they were watching closely enough to catch a little incident like this, and she admits that stuff is given away all the time, that they were cracking down on employees giving away free food. Maybe they had already given a warning to her, another employee, or everyone.
But damn. Even if they had plenty of reasons to fire her, it seems so sneaky to call her out on 16 cents. There's just so much dishonesty surrounding this incident.
@farmerjoe: i agree! they never count timbits where i live. if you ask for a snack pack of 20 there is usually 25 or so.
btw the free timbits they give to dogs and kids are day olds that were destin for the dumpster
hey, is this a scam to flush out canadian commenters?
@AlexTNOA: Meg, would you be able to update the story with this? She was rehired the next day at a different location.
@chrisjames: Ya I agree. There is often a lack of information. I don't think a company would terminate someone over .16. She could claim unemployment and they would have to pay her for however many months.
It would be cheaper just to part time her out and let her sit on her ass. There is more to this story.
I'm with those who are thinking that there were probably other issues at play and management needed a solid, verifiable reason to fire her. I've heard a lot of stories like that. An employee for some reason earns the ire of management, either legitimately or not. Management for one reason or another cannot fire the employee and looks for something they can prove (no matter how small of an action) as grounds for termination.
Why couldn't they just ask her to pay for it?
@Rupan: That was the first thing I thought.
They had justification to fire her and show other employees that employee theft is not tolerated.
@buzzybee: Wouldn't it make more sense to just fire those employees who also give away food if theft is not tolerated? Why make an example out of just her? If the penalty for giving away food is termination shouldn't that be the case for everyone who does it?
Wow, harsh. I have to wonder what else was going on here. Aside from the other folks here talking about how it's possible this employee wasn't the best one around and Management just needed a reason--any legit reason--to fire her, I have to wonder what else was going on here with the order itself. At Dunkin Donuts here in Chicago, anyway, if you order less than a dozen Munchkins--say, three of them--the people behind the counter will usually just give you a handful. They aren't going to count how many they actually give you. But they aren't going to just give you one if you didn't order any to begin with. In the case of what happened at Tim Horton's, well...if the mother of the fussy baby never ordered any Timbits to begin with, maybe that made all the difference? But it's still pretty dumb, firing someone over a 16 cent blob of dough. Jeez.... :(
Good news! She was rehired.
Tim Hortons rehires Timbit donor
Sheesh -- sounds like the manager that fired her was from the U.S.
she was given the Job back at another location with the same franchise owner as she didn;t feel comfortable working at the same location and they are paying her for any loss time.
@Bladefist: Yes, there's NO WAY an employer could ever be an asshole! And yes, you're right to be wary of single mothers -- God knows nobody has more reason to slack off and risk getting fired than somebody who is supporting a kid on her own. You're SUPER SMART.
I think what many of you don't realize is that theft under a dollar is a felony in Canada. She's lucky they didn't prosecute her it carries a punishment of up to a decade in prison or a poutine enema.
Great. Now I want a donut for breakfast. Thanks Consumerist.
I hope that manager got spanked BIG TIME. He potentially caused a lot of PR damage over a 0.16 Timbit.
@buzzybee: Guess I should have been fired long ago. I give clients post-its and paperclips and copies that don't belong to me ALL THE TIME. I'm pretty sure if I refused, that would be MORE grounds for me being fired. We'll be watching for when your business goes down in flames.
See??? Its not just us, America!
Phew!