After serving his country in the Army, a 92-year-old man was fired from a valley Walmart.
The World War II veterans says he has no idea why he lost his job after almost 18 years.
Action News got answers and got action!
Otto Weil was a greeter at Walmart off Craig and Martin Luther King since it opened in 1997. Last Friday, he said he was let go without warning.
"I just don't know why they fired me," said Otto. "I really don't know."
When asked why, Weil says he was offered two explanations: One day he did not greet six people and that he took four sick days in six months, when they're only allowed three.
He has been working since the second World War when his unit deployed to Germany. He moved to Las Vegas and tried his hand at retirement, but just wanted to work. He has become a kind of local celebrity from his work as a Walmart greeter.
"He was in Sturgis, South Dakota, someone was riding by on a motorcycle, yelled out 'Otto!' and he knew him from Walmart," said Otto's son Steven Weil. "Everywhere he goes!"
Steven said working into his nineties has kept his dad young.
That is where Action News comes in. We wanted to get answers for the veteran, so we went to his Walmart location. The manager could not talk to us about it and referred us to their corporate office.
Betsy Harden with Walmart's Media Relations Department said they were already investigating what happened with Otto. But then, less than two hours after we put in the first call to Walmart, they backed off of their initial decision and are giving Otto his job back.
They sent us the following statement about what happened:
“Walmart has associate policies in place to ensure our customers are taken care of. We reviewed this situation carefully and made the decision to offer Mr. Weil to continue his employment with us.”
We are still pushing them for more information about why he was fired in the first place.
Otto is really happy to be able to get back to work and his first day will be Saturday. He said they are also going to make up for wages he lost while he was unemployed.
