Personal Narrative: How Nike Changed My Life

Don’t do anything you'll regret, although it felt stupendous in the moment there was a generous amount of consequences. Not just any consequence, but a consequence that will be with me for almost all of my life. It’ll be utterly hard for me to get a good job, vote, or even own a gun. While the crime was happening there was a lot of happiness. You know. Making your friends happy, getting free clothes, and having that rush of adrenaline. While the crime ended, there was a lot of disappointment. It was one of those life-changing moments.

It was in the summer of 2015. I had worked at the athletic store, Nike. Nike was one of the stores that everyone knew about, no matter where you were in the world, you knew about Nike. I was an employee at Nike for almost 3 years, when I made the biggest mistake of my life. I was working up at the cash register, I worked up at the register for quite some time now so I was very familiar with the buttons and everything. My friend, Alexandra, walked in and I greeted her with a big smile and a “Hey!”. She, of course, said, “Hey!”, back. I then left the register only because we were not busy at all and there were three other cashiers working. I walked over to where my

friend Alex was shopping and we talked, she jokingly said “Hey, could you give me a discount on these items?”, while laughing. I didn’t think much of it and I said, “I don’t see why not…”. We then walked over to have her check out, and I went behind the cash register to check her out. After I was done ringing Alex up, I accidentally hit void transaction. A receipt then printed out with all of the voided items and I gave it to her, and then Alex said her thanks and walked out with maybe three-hundred dollars of free clothes. At that moment, I realized that I could do this with other people since it doesn’t look suspicious with the receipt being printed out. I did the whole, voiding transactions, with ten more people. Ten more people received items for free.

A couple months later, it was a Saturday I'll never forget, I was restocking the athletic shirts and about ten minutes in my boss, Jim, called me in for a break. Breaks usually weren't given until four hours of doing floor stock. So when Jim called me in, I thought it was kinda strange. Once I got back there, I did what I would normally do on my breaks. I put my headset and name tag on the gray plastic tall table. I went over to my blue cubed locker, and pulled out my wallet, then I pulled out a one dollar bill. I walked over to the vending machine that had so many choices, but with one dollar you can only get so much. I limited my choices and decided to go with the mini sausage bits. You really can’t eat them without a drink, so I then made my way over to the drink vending machine and chose a coca-cola. I then went with my sausage bits and coke and sat down. About ten minutes into my delicious meal, my boss, Jim, called me into the manager's office. I was confused, but nothing hit me as to why I was going back there. I walked through the big wooden door and took a seat. All of my managers were back there with me, but yet none of them said a word to me. There was a guy who had a very calming voice on the phone, he was put on speaker. As soon as I started talking to him I found out who he was, the loss prevention guy. We had a very settle conversation and it lasted about two hours. The whole conversation was about how I stole from Nike and gave away discounts to people who didn’t have the right to get one. The end of the conversation was quite upsetting, there was a sheriff waiting for me to be done with the phone call. I then talked to the bulky tall sheriff, and he really just said that I was going to have to go to court and the worst that can happen was that I was going to be sent to prison for five years with a $3000.00 fine. The sheriff mentioned that if I was 18, he would have arrested me and read my rights, without any questions asked. This wasn’t really the news I wanted to hear. My managers and the sheriff then escorted me out of Nike, in front of the whole Nike crew and all the customers. I couldn’t stop crying, I thought it was the end of the world, but it wasn't.

About two months later, I received a letter in the mail from Greene County Juvenile Court. I was shaking because I had no idea what this letter said. I then opened it, the letter said that I have a court date in a week. I prepared and made sure I knew why I did everything, I practiced what I was going to say to the judge and it calmed my nerves down. The day came faster than I thought it was going to, court day, the scariest day so far. I went in and waited for the judge, I then sat down and told the judge everything. It wasn’t as bad as I thought, other than the thought that I could be going to jail.

I went through about six court trials, to come down to the final one.

The night before, I went over everything again and again until it was almost perfect. The final court day, I wore a long black romper with some black tall heels. I woke up, ate a nice breakfast, and then got into my mother’s car. It felt like such a short time that I was in the car. I went inside to the courtroom and waited again for the judge. The trial lasted about ten minutes, it was short and sweet. I got off with 300 hours of community service, restitution of $3000 dollars, and probation for one year. This felt like the luckiest I've ever been, and it was such a relief. It was relieving knowing that I was going home to my family, that I'll be home for holidays, and that I’ll be able to go to

college.

To this day, I'm still paying off my restitution and I'm still on probation. It was a mistake that I'll be sure to never make again. I’ll never do anything that could put me in jail or prison. It was a horrible mistake, and I learned from it so much. If you’re ever thinking of doing something, think of what is going to be the consequence if you get caught, and you usually always do.