Goodwill Employees Baffled After Worker Says She Was Fired for Buying Garfield Plushie

A Goodwill employee says that they were fired for purchasing a large Garfield plushie they had their eye on at the store, which is confusing TikTokers who said that they, too, were Goodwill employees who have had zero issues buying items while being employed by the store.

TikToker Esme Adore (@adore.esme.now) uploaded a viral video about her unfortunate Goodwill experience that resulted in losing her job. If she was torn up about getting canned, however, it's difficult to tell from the clip she uploaded as she hugs the Garfield plushie that her father purchased for her, all smiles as he exits the store.

"goodwill just fired me for violating their no shopping policy," Esme writes in a text overlay of her video that shows her holding a giant stuffed Garfield toy that's placed side-by-side with another video of a man purchasing the same gigantic stuffed Garfield plushie.

She explains in another overlay that the man in the second clip is actually her father who she asked to go inside of the Goodwill store she works at in order to skirt a particular rule that doesn't allow employees to shop at the store.

"making ur dad go into the goodwill to buy giant garfield bcs ur not allowed to shop there," she writes in white text over the adjacent video clip juxtaposed with her stuffed Garfield appreciation recording.

The particular rule that Esme must be referring to is probably this stipulation on Goodwill's website that indicates while employees are "encouraged" to shop at Goodwill stores, they aren't allowed to buy items from locations that they work at where they've visited the backroom.

The reason behind this is simple: as a means of preventing "dishonesty," if employees are setting prices for certain goods, they could mark down items that they're interested in purchasing at a very low price.

Goodwill of the Finger Lakes website reads: "We encourage our employees to shop at Goodwill! However, to prevent any dishonesty, employees cannot shop at stores when they have been in the back room where items are placed before they are priced to go on the floor."

One commenter who saw the post remarked that they received a warning prior to getting the job that speaks to the experience Esme had while working there: "the goodwill here said if I'm hired neither I nor my family are allowed to shop there bc they don't want employees stashing items for family to buy"

Someone else mentioned that they thought the workplace rule was pretty whack and said upon hearing it it influenced them to not shop at the second hand store any longer: "adding this to my list of reasons not to shop at goodwill"

It appears that different stores have different rulings, however, since one person who appeared to be a Goodwill employee themselves wrote: "Wild I work at goodwill and our rule is it has to be on the floor for at least 2 days before we can buy it,, I can assume you don’t get an employee 30 ?? Help. Half the stuff I want is gone by two days. Which ig is the point but like if you buy earlier and they find out you’ll get written up"

Another person who said that they work for the chain wrote: "So wild bc I work at a goodwill in MN and some ppl I work with shop almost daily. Like what."

While someone else wrote: "I used to work at goodwill and our only rule was you could only buy on your lunch or after shift. just not during. but that was 2017"

Another TikToker just couldn't understand why the chain was applying such stringent shopping rulings to items that they received without charge: "they got it for free, literally everytime I hear about goodwill the less it makes sense how they are still in business"