It’s always “assume the worst and shoot first” with these folks, until it’s one of theirs who looks like they’re doing the crime or actually doing the crime. Speaking as someone whose mother was decidedly “shoot first and ask questions later”, until my older sister got on and started selling meth. Then it was bleeding heart sympathy like I’d never seen in my entire life. I think I got whiplash from the turn-around.
True to form, my mother was still "assume the worst and shoot first,"it was just my sister who got the special consideration.
Thanking him for his past employment and notifying him of his last day.
As that employee is now an elevated liability and workers compensation risk. Keeping them on staff is likely to incur larger costs than replacing them. Even accounting for transition costs or if the new employee is paid more.
Isn’t it basic retail policy NOT to directly confront shoplifters and instead report the theft to the police and ban them from the store? It is where I work, for the safety of employees. I don’t think it occurred to anyone for a moment that the employees would be the dangerous ones.
Recently I witnessed a lady casually walk out of liquor store with two bottles of expensive gin and the guy behind the counter just looked at me and said “Next.” Business as usual.
I’m gonna say it again…companies simply need to go back to an earlier era where expensive merchandise was stocked behind barriers and there were enough employees to handle customer demand (if that ever really existed). I believe the “locking up merchandise turns customers away” line is mostly bullcrap.
Stop promoting “convenience” — which is actually “how few employees can we hire and still keep a decent profit”?
I worked at a clothing retailer and heard of folks loading up carts full of clothes and then dashing out. Ideally loss prevention would get to them before they are outside but after a certain point they just let them go because otherwise things escalate to a certain point where its dangerous for everyone involved. Though i have heard of other companies where they will definitely get physical and even chase people outside of the store.
I really want to know what happens after big thefts, like with the current wave of “flash mobs” overwhelming a store. It’s my guess that major corporations are collecting some form of insurance after the fact, and aren’t really losing as much as they claim to once the books are balanced. I also guess it’s the small businesses that feel they have to get physical because they can’t afford the backups the major companies can.
I don’t know for sure but my guess is that stores with high rates of habitual inventory loss get less monthly budget to play with, which is supposed to “motivate” employees to put in more effort but what it can often create is a vicious cycle where people just dont have the bandwidth to pay attention, care or tidy up. So they get less and less money for not hitting certain numbers until the store gets slated for closure.
When I worked in retail, the best solution they found was to prominently post pictures of the shoplifters at the front counter so that if they returned, they would be denied entry. It doesn’t solve the initial theft but it helps reduce repeat offenders.
I was thinking about the era before before the “gig economy” started.
That norm is much easier to follow when most employers pay a living wage, housing costs are affordable, and employees aren’t stuck in a cycle of debt because they’re borrowing against their paychecks. Excessive corporate greed leading to more crime is not new. What’s worse now is they’ve figured out more ways to make money from having more cops/private security, convincing people to buy guns or tech to protect themselves, and putting people in prison. Criminalizing poverty (and putting increasing numbers of workers on a path that leads there) fits in with that plan. So, in too many places, TPTB have little incentive to change things for the good of the public.
Excessive corporate greed leading to more crime is not new. What’s worse now is they’ve figured out more ways to make money from having more cops/private security, convincing people to buy guns or tech to protect themselves, and 