1977 - A Thief In Our Midst

In 1977 is was unable to see what dad saw so clearly. After over 30-years controlling every aspect of inventory I can read an inventory report like a novel. Wish I had a copy of the report here that started this story. I love detective work but my detective work rarely, or never, involves a murder and rarely, but sometimes, a theft.

1977 – A Thief In Our Midst

“Look at this,” dad said. “This right here. You’ve got a thief working for you…and I believe they work Wednesday and…hmmm…Saturdays…at the drive in.” I looked at the figures he was indicating…it was all-Greek to me. “These numbers indicate that someone is making off with popcorn and Coke’s…no…hmmm…Coke…syrup. It’s almost doubling your Wednesday usage and increasing Saturday’s usage by around 15%. This is coming off your bottom-line costs.” …Now, that got my attention!

The bottom line costs here was directly tied to my operating budget out of which all supplies and employee paychecks came. Higher costs meant a smaller paycheck for me as I got what was left. Anything coming off my bottom-line costs were actually coming out of my pocket. Dad explained that after he took an inventory he would review the costs, receipts and on-hand inventory for each item in his head. In doing this he had noticed a glitch on a couple of items. Dad had not gotten past freshman high school in his formal education so didn’t realize he was charting ratio’s between usage, profit and on-hand in his head. This was something that I only suspected at the time but which years of experience have confirmed.

I was the new manager of an indoor and outdoor theatre operation in Effingham, Illinois. The Heart Theatre, the indoor house, operated 365 days a year and the outdoor location, the Rustic Drive-In, was opened after the snow melted for the last time and closed after the first snow. The Heart was named after the geographic “Heart of the Midwest” which was located under a heart-shaped manhole cover in the road immediately in front of the theatre. Each of my brothers spent some time as theatre managers for one of the many locations this medium-sized Midwestern theatre company that owned and operated around 30 theatres in the southern Illinois, Indiana, Iowa and parts of Missouri. Dad was a VP of Concessions, which, as it turns out, is where most theatre profits reside. Almost all box-office receipts go back to the movie company, the bookers, and the theatre company. The individual theatre location itself often operates solely on concession profits or, the sales of popcorn and soda. This day he had arrived to help me with the bi-weekly inventory.

Dad had enough influence to eventually get all of his sons’ theatre-manager jobs. Each of us lasted about a year. I took the position although I had gotten well used to San Diego weather by ’77. I didn’t see why anyone would want to willingly stay in such a miserable place where the world looked like it died every winter, and then sealed the situation with body-numbing wind and cold that freezes the very water out of the air. Then about the time you are resigned to your fate, little green shoots appear as though the world is now saying: “Never mind – hahahaha – it was all a joke.”

Yeah – very funny.

It was late in the afternoon when he told me I had a thief working at the drive-in. I still found this difficult to believe. I trusted every one of these people and was sure dad was mistaken…but I still had to check. As I was the only person with a key, whatever thievery was done had to be during open hours, most likely hours when I wasn’t on-site.

The Drive-In was about 3-miles from the downtown theatre in a rural area. The only businesses in the area that were not farms were the drive-in and the John Deere dealer directly across the street. After entering from behind the screen, which had its back to the only road, you found fallow fields on either side of a generous well-kept lawn. A small playground occupied the tiny little lawn immediately under the screen. The screen itself was huge with room to climb a ladder all the way to the top of the backside of the screen. The view at the top was wide but fairly unassuming as we were surrounded on all sides by farms, fields, woods and the little town 3-miles down the road. The property was backed against woods that came right up to the last row, which was 6 rows back from rear of the snack-bar. A tractor-path ran through the wood and emerged near the center of the last row. We kept this “secret” entrance blocked by a chain to which I had the only key. It was by this route I entered the drive-in on Wednesday night after leaving by the front exit and alerting my assistant manager to perform the necessary closing tasks. I set myself up in the back row awaiting the completion of the clean-up crew before they doused the interior snack-bar lights. After that only 2-people were required to stay for button-up and to await my arrival for final lock-up of the snack bar & front gate. Much to my surprise soon after the light went out the back door opened and a big garbage-bag full of something light, probably popped popcorn, and a 1-gallon carton of Coke-syrup, which made 5-gallons after adding water and CO2, walked out the door in the arms of one of my most trusted employees. Shocked, I watched them drive away.

As it was summer and the kids were all out of school, early in the AM I called each outdoor employee for a staff meeting, which I scheduled for late that morning. They arrived without any idea why I had called a meeting so I put the early-shows to work until the remaining employees showed up.

They had all arrived by 10:00 AM when we convened. I let them know I had witnessed the removal of the supplies the previous evening to which they quickly admitted without hesitation. I continued, not being very kind because I wanted them to understand, in no uncertain terms, that they had let me down. “The fact you waited until the snack-bar was closed, the fact you said nothing to me, and the fact that you pulled a car up to the door to hide the theft from other patrons’ points to your knowing your actions were suspect. By failing to respect the rules we all work under you also fail to respect yourself. This is beneath all or any one of you.”

“But you told us we could eat as much popcorn and drink as much soda as we wanted! We volunteered to bring refreshments to our YFC (Youth For Christ) meeting on Wednesday nights and 2-weeks ago we brought some to the weekend YFC-Getaway. We thought it would be ok! We would have asked but we forgot!”

“Come on,” I said, “Use your common sense. I don’t buy that. We can’t supply your clubs, friends or relatives with snacks or I’ll be broke and you’ll all be out of a job. You should know that. This stuff isn’t free. Someone has to pay for it – and it’s us!” I let them know that the free soda and popcorn was only valid while they were actually at work. I also let them know where their paychecks came from…my budget. The look on their collective faces told me they were, evidently, unaware of exactly from where their paycheck originated. Once they understood the money was coming out of MY pocket they began to apologize vociferously.

“We’re so sorry! We didn’t know! We thought the company paid for the supplies! We didn’t mean to get you in trouble!” They went on for a couple of minutes. Talking among themselves about how they didn’t know and how sorry they were. I let it die down on it’s own as all the words were those I wanted to hear. Eventually they all quieted and huddled together for a moment before splitting up into couples and individuals. Monique looked at her shoes and spoke quietly. “We can all quit if you need us to.” She looked up with tears in her eyes. I glanced at the other girls and the one guy that made up my staff. The girls all had tears rolling down their face. Greg choked back tears as he said, “We didn’t mean to let you down. We’re so sorry. We can all leave if you want us to. I might know someone that could take my job.” As he sobbed the last he lost his battle with his eyes and he turned away.

I realized this was an offer, not a threat. They really appeared to be as concerned about my welfare as their own. “No guys,” I replied, “If I didn’t trust you to learn your lesson and do the right thing we wouldn’t be talking and I would be looking for a new crew.” They all looked contrite but somewhat relieved. Elizabeth continued to weep as the others dried their eyes. She knew I counted on her to police the others as our many conversations revealed her to be mature and responsible – perhaps less so than I thought. She offered again to quit – I considered this but decided they had learned their lessons and additional punishment would be counter-productive. This was a group of youngsters that tested the system and found out the system was neither as dumb as thought nor was I as easy as they assumed.

We finished our ½ day by cleaning equipment and picking up the lot until they had all put in the 4 hours minimum I had to pay them if they showed up on my request. They promised to be back that evening early “In case there’s anything you need us to do.” It wasn’t necessary but I reinforced the idea telling them I appreciated the extra effort, which I would expect for a while. I told them I didn’t expect more hours but better dedication to the job at hand.
They didn’t quit until sometime after I had left the company and during the little get-together they had several months later, which served as my going away party, they gifted me a hooked-rug upon which they had collectively spent 2-months working. I didn’t have another minute of trouble with any of them for the remainder of our time together. In fact, they turned out to be one of the finest crews I’ve ever had the honor of managing.

I think of them often. I think of every one of them fondly.