You have an entire conference call of people worth of witnesses to start with if you are an attorney. If the GM said something like "I'd like to be able to ask you for a check out of your own pocket to cover this, because you need to run it like it's your own business", that would be a different story.

If he said "send me a check", and the guy did it, I'm sure everyone on the conference call can infer that he was serious in his request. Whether or not he cashes it may be secondary.

The "I wasn't going to use the gun, I just had it with me" doesn't usually stand up. Maybe the GM can "plea down" with corporate. "I was never going to cash it - he just thought I was going to, Andy." Then he'll have some explaining to do as to why is was asking employees for their own money to cover possible company losses. Isn't that what bad debt is for? Doesn't bad debt still come out of commissions?

The best thing this GM could do would be to contact the manager privately first and apologize, and then admit his mistake publicly. He could probably even do some good for the morale of his group by saying "I was trying to make a point that needs to be made, and I took it a little too far". He'd be able to get the message out there that it is a serious issue all the while saving face with his people.

My guess is that he won't admit any mistake publicly until Andy and Don call him up....