For years Christine Tiongson worked her way up the chain at McDonalds, gaining the trust of her bosses.
Once she became a manager at the Bombay restaurant she was given the authority to refund customers using a swipe card and over four years she used that position to embezzle $166,000.
An offer to pay back $2000 and surprisingly-supportive statements from her former and current bosses were not enough to save her from being jailed when she was sentenced at Pukekohe District Court this afternoon.
Judge Rob Ronayne jailed Tiongson for two years three months.
The court heard how the theft began because of her "major financial problems" but there was no reference to what that entailed specifically.