Crime I spent $24,000 on drugs with my Disney corporate credit card. The company gave me a second chance instead of firing me.

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I spent $24,000 on drugs with my Disney corporate credit card. The company gave me a second chance instead of firing me.​

• While working at Disney, I spent thousands of dollars on drugs using a corporate credit card.
• When I confessed, the company didn't fire me — it gave me a second chance.
• I later worked on healing from my addiction and mending my relationship with my family

I started my first professional internship at Disney in the summer of 2014 in my hometown of Glendale, California. I felt a sense of purpose in planning summer activities and bringing the intern community together. It was the greatest summer of my life. Little did they know I was also struggling with a meth addiction.

My traumatic experience of coming out as gay to my Armenian family brought a lonely, dark fog over my life. My workplace was a refuge from addiction and my pains. I loved being surrounded by imaginative people. Upon graduating from college, and after my second internship with Disney, I was excited to be hired as a software engineer on the PhotoPass team. It was my dream job and a haven; I knew I was lucky to have it.

As my addiction deepened, my finances didn't reflect the near-six-figure salary I earned at Disney. Most of my money was spent on drugs and on helping out my immigrant family.
I eventually reached a breaking point.

I confessed to my employer I was mishandling the corporate card​

I spent about $24,000 on Disney's corporate credit card to support my drug habit and my family. I convinced myself I'd pay it back, but I was getting in over my head.

At the beginning of 2017, I took a stranger's advice and admitted my mistake to my manager. I was terrified I'd get fired or go to jail, but Disney offered me the greatest gesture of love anyone could've shown me. The company gave me a chance to pay it back and left me with a formal warning. This was a big turning point in my life.

My family gave me a loan to pay all of it back, and for the next year, I worked to pay them back. The second chance Disney gave me also inspired me to go to rehab. But I failed six times and was starting to give up hope.

On July 17, 2018, I was stranded with no gas, no money, and 10 days left to return to work from another medical leave of absence. Addiction led me to push away all my friends and family. I feared I was about to lose the only constant left in my life: my job at Disney.

But on this day, I Googled "rehab for professionals" and called for help. An acquaintance Ubered me to a rehab facility in Tustin, California.

That rehab changed my life​

Something was different about this rehab experience. When I walked into this rehab facility, my imagination convinced me I was seeing important people from my childhood. In group therapy, the facilitator looked like the first teacher I had in America after emigrating from Armenia. Memories from my childhood flooded back when I saw her. Hearing her soothing voice teleported my mind to fourth grade. I felt like a child again. She reminded me of my innocence — of the person I was before my addiction. My chin quivered. I had somehow forgotten the fact that I was not born addicted to drugs.

In this group session, people read stories that deeply resonated with me. The stories felt like they were written just for me. I couldn't stop crying. I felt like the main character in my own Disney movie.

These people in my rehab reminded me of my humanity. Of course, Disney had nothing to do with my rehab stay. But the company's compassion in not kicking me to the curb at one of the lowest points made me believe in my ability to change for the first time.

Addiction nearly killed me and dimmed my hopes for a future. My experience in rehab allowed me to rebuild my life and work on healing my relationship with my family.

I extended the same understanding and forgiveness that I'd received to my own family​

I moved back in with my family to heal the rift in our relationship. My family was the primary source of my addiction triggers back then.

Disney showed me that compassion can be a powerful force to inspire forgiveness and accountability. I learned that without self-forgiveness and accountability, healing from addiction is impossible.

Over the past four years, my family and I have grown closer by taking mutual accountability for our actions. My parents got a chance to know and learn about their gay son, who was struggling with addiction.

Had it not been for Disney's impact on my life, I may not have healed from my addiction or my relationship with my family. I'm glad I didn't miss out on a life filled with joy, love, and kindness.

Although I no longer work for the company, I'm grateful to Disney for unlocking the power of my imagination and giving me a second chance at life. I'm also eternally grateful to my family for evolving with me throughout my main-character journey.

 

[JosephStalin]

Enough to puke legions of dogs off fleets of gutwagons. Jesus.

 

[namelesstacotruck]

Why does a software engineer have a corporate card? That doesn't make sense

This. There is only like one reason to have one issued and that would be to test payment flows. But it would have been issued to the teams manager or team lead at the least and wouldnt be granted a 26k credit limit on it.

This was almost certainly somebody in management covering their ass that they didnt monitor it like they were supposed too.

What might make sense and does happen is some companies issue a card for someone going to conference and everything goes to that card. Junkie acts like a junkie and goes crazy during thr conference while in some downtown conference area. Alternatively they had the card so they could go to Disney World to test something in person (it said they were on the themeparks Photopass team) Disney covers ass because the junkies lawyer can bring up that Disney sent them there with that card and knew they were a junkie (they would with the multiple rehabs) and its just easier for Disney to play it easy.

 

[Manul Otocolobus]

The cornerboys all have cashapp now. They take your order over snapchat and then give you a qr code to their cashapp. Ain't no dumb niggas hanging out on street corners in the open taking dirty crumped up 5s like their pops did back in the 90s.

Is CashApp really that anonymous? I can think of a dozen different way off the top of my head that they could fingerprint the phone where the payment was done.

Sounds like Disney's coddling of this junkie fag just enabled his junkie fag shenanigans for years. Disney not firing him just delayed the inevitable step of moving back in with his parents, where he should've been to begin with, because he's clearly a childish junkie fag who requires constant parental supervision.

If Disney had fired him in 2017, he, of course, would've moved in with his parents then, and spared everybody involved the years of his Disney-funded junkie bullshit.

Exactly. In many ways Disney was acting as his enabler. From a therapeutic standpoint they could be seen as liable for allowing him to continue his addiction.

I wonder if they could be civilly actionable?

This. There is only like one reason to have one issued and that would be to test payment flows.

Having worked on systems like this once upon a time, this isn't likely. Each of the major payors has a "Default" card you can use to test transaction flows that will complete as a purchase but it doesn't actually go through and is automatically rejected after 5 minutes. For places that need to test frequently and need more than one card number, they can actually issue something akin to a keygen that will generate default cards to allow for automated multi-testing easily, but, again, they are all phantoms and the transactions, while they will complete on your end for testing, will be auto-rejected within 5 minutes.

It's the same as when I was working with systems programming for a casino, we had dummy accounts and cards for testing all aspects of the system as if we were real patrons, but they were all phantom accounts.

Alternatively they had the card so they could go to Disney World to test something in person (it said they were on the themeparks Photopass team) Disney covers ass because the junkies lawyer can bring up that Disney sent them there with that card and knew they were a junkie (they would with the multiple rehabs) and its just easier for Disney to play it easy.

This I can see being completely plausible.

 

[namelesstacotruck]

Is CashApp really that anonymous? I can think of a dozen different way off the top of my head that they could fingerprint the phone where the payment was done.

Its not anonymous but it also doesnt matter.

If a cop picks you up on the street for selling with a roll of cash you are never seeing that money again even if you walk. If they pick up with a locked phone they arent taking your money because they have to get a warrant to get into your phone and street level cops cant get into an iphone without your help for drug shit. Just make sure you dont turn on biometrics and they cant do shit.

You can also get someone to move all the money as soon as you get picked up anyways. So if they do look they see a bunch of money transactions that they could go and ask the junkie who bought but no cop or da is gonna rely on junkie testimony to get a conviction, and unless your spending enough to make them think you are distributing they wont go after you anyways even if they do see you bought "something" from this person.

 

[Mr. Zed da Robot Poon Fed]

Yet thousands of folks got their jobs slashed, lol Disney.

 

[Yeeted Teet]

Here is what the link in this takes you:

I divorced the man I love after coming out as a lesbian. 2 years later, I still wonder whether I made the right decision.​

So many of the articles I see on here are nothing more than drivel thrown on the site to link to other articles on the site.

Does this person do anything that could be considered journalism or do they just publish their diary entries?

 

[Nick Gars]

Probably either by withdrawing cash or linking it to a P2P payment app.

I know this is the likely answer, but with how soft on crime our "justice system" is, especially in regards to dindus, it genuinely would not surprise me to see a drug dealer running cards through Square on an iPad. It's just so clown world that it has to of happened at least once.

 

[WonderWino]

Somehow I suspect this isn't disney being nice at all and simply the company being aware of california labor code sections 1025 - 1028 which state that employers must make reasonable accommodations for employees who ask for time off to enter rehab, which this person did and they probably expected them to sue if any issues were made over that or the theft cause it totally happened cause of the addiction. I seem to also remember something about california making it illegal to fire someone for being an addict or something to that effect awhile back

This situation is definitely not what the meth head is claiming it is though. No way any company just lets you get away with thousands of dollars of embezzlement for drugs. Still hasn't explained how anyone can rack up meth debts on a company credit card either. Its not like street dealers are walking around with card readers for convenience

 

[PhoBingas]

I'd love to know how you charge street drugs to a corporate card.

In theory you could withdraw cash advances from most ATMs with a credit card, but one would think that a) the interest on it would add up real quick and b) leave way more of a trail to be caught, because you're probably on camera at 3am using the company card at a 7/11

How do you buy meth with a credit card?

See above.

 

[Osama Bin Laden]

• While working at Disney, I spent thousands of dollars on drugs using a corporate credit card.

I started my first professional internship at Disney in the summer of 2014 in my hometown of Glendale, California. I felt a sense of purpose in planning summer activities and bringing the intern community together. It was the greatest summer of my life. Little did they know I was also struggling with a meth addiction.

My traumatic experience of coming out as gay to my Armenian family brought a lonely, dark fog over my life. My workplace was a refuge from addiction and my pains. I loved being surrounded by imaginative people. Upon graduating from college, and after my second internship with Disney, I was excited to be hired as a software engineer on the PhotoPass team. It was my dream job and a haven; I knew I was lucky to have it.

My family gave me a loan to pay all of it back, and for the next year, I worked to pay them back. The second chance Disney gave me also inspired me to go to rehab. But I failed six times and was starting to give up hope.

a true calfornia love story

 

[Xarpho's Return]

Yet thousands of folks got their jobs slashed, lol Disney.

Sadly, this sort of thing isn't unique to Disney. Every organization has the upper echelon who makes way more money but also forgiven of massive fuckups. I once worked somewhere where an HR higher-up had somehow "accidentally" leaked every SSN of their thousands of employees.

Wagie will get fired or laid off for doing practically nothing in comparison.

 

[namelesstacotruck]

Sadly, this sort of thing isn't unique to Disney. Every organization has the upper echelon who makes way more money but also forgiven of massive fuckups. I once worked somewhere where an HR higher-up had somehow "accidentally" leaked every SSN of their thousands of employees.

Wagie will get fired or laid off for doing practically nothing in comparison.

This makes sense though? Wagie has no money for lawfare and there isnt much money to recoup. Meanwhile 6 figures club has the finances to attempt lawfare and has an actual claim worth money.

It makes sense to treat the person who can fight back more cautiously.

 

[jertzog]

More governments do this with their employees than you think. Not so much the embezzlement but tolerating their employees being on drugs and "needing" rehab when caught.
The story tells us that Yidsne has racial hiring quotas that simply cannot afford to exclude non-Whites with drug problems.

 

[namelesstacotruck]

More governments do this with their employees than you think. Not so much the embezzlement but tolerating their employees being on drugs and "needing" rehab when caught.
The story tells us that Yidsne has racial hiring quotas that simply cannot afford to exclude non-Whites with drug problems.

Its more that they are hosted in California. And trying to fire a drug addict who reports a medical problem is a shit ton of problems to navigate in Cali. Especially when they claim the issue was a manifestation of their reported disability. Also remember this person paid it back pretty quickly by borrowing money from family.

If only they tried to move to a different state....

 

[Flan Handler]

Not mentioned: any indication this person was able to competently perform their job while failing rehab 7 times.

I think I figured out why Wish and The Marvels are kicking so much ass at the box office. Crackheads being coddled explains a lot.

Imagine what Walt would think if he were still here. The company was basically started due to his hate for Jews after they screwed him over on one of his first characters.

 

[Archie_Kimkicker]

Druggies should get one shot at rehab. After that is MAID.

 

[Safir]

Nigger what. Gay and Armenian? The fuck is this, a hate crime test dummy?

 

[Town Drunk]

Going to be an unpopular opinion, but good. I worked for a smaller company with the same policy. If you got busted for drugs and went to rehab, you didn't get fired. Only if you relapsed. Some druggies can't be helped, but help the ones you can.

 

[Catch The Rainbow]

Alternatively they had the card so they could go to Disney World to test something in person (it said they were on the themeparks Photopass team)

They have dummy cards for that though:

https://www.simplify.com/commerce/docs/testing/test-card-numbers

 

[namelesstacotruck]

They have dummy cards for that though:

https://www.simplify.com/commerce/docs/testing/test-card-numbers

Those cards dont work in production. You cant go and use those cards and expect them to work in a production smoke/sanity test.