Adventures in Loss Prevention

 

Gangs claiming the Men’s Room stalls as their turf.  I hoped they would keep the restrooms better stocked and cleaner than our company, but they were a disappointing housekeeper.

 I’m not an intimidating individual.  At 6’1” and then 224 pounds, I rocked thick-rimmed glasses and a white polo shirt.  I was just this average, unassuming dude—a childless freak with a dad-bod.  But somehow I was always the one called on as security to deal with shoplifters.   I’m not a fighter.  I had one good fight where I went up against four people…and lost sorely.  I still sport a scar above my eye and on my elbow.  I’m a lover of the finer things in life: wine, women, and song.  But not in that particular order.

    My store manager was informed one morning by a snitch customer about another customer in the restroom stealing merchandise and, for whatever reason, called me to assist.  We waited until the guy exited the restroom before confronting him.  Immediately the suspect began screaming.

    “Y’all are just trying to rape me!”

    The suspect’s nephew intervened and threatened us, calling us racists, and accusing us of racial profiling.

    We explained that another customer reported the situation to us and we were simply attempting to ascertain the truth of the matter.

    Meanwhile, this guy just screamed “THEY’RE TRYING TO RAPE ME!”

    His nephew said he would report the store to some veteran’s group and get the place blacklisted by all local veterans.

    While, still…all we heard was:

    “THEY’RE TRYING TO RAPE ME!”

    The alleged thief removed his shirt and ran through the store screaming.

    “THEY TOLD ME TO TAKE OFF ALL MY CLOTHES BECAUSE THEY WERE GOING TO RAPE ME!”

    He ran outside and called the police.

    Soon the police arrive to the scene of this bare-chested gentleman swinging his shirt around in the air and vehemently proclaiming “Ain’t nobody going to rape me!”

    The officer walked into the office and explained “Mr. —— tells us a very interesting story.”

    My store manager piped up “I didn’t try to rape anyone.  Josh was there to witness the whole thing.  Ask him.”

    So I’m just annoyed, having to give a statement to the officer that no alleged rape occurred and that in fact we could watch the whole scenario play-by-play on the cameras.  By strange coincidence, it was the new Grocery Manager’s first day.  She was bewildered and a little offset by the encounter, suddenly realizing what sort of place she had signed on to work for.  

    “Stuff like this happens all the time.” I reassured her.

    After that situation, I swore I would never again involve myself in intervening with alleged shoplifters.  I didn’t get paid enough to deal with that level of insanity or risk bodily harm from mentally-unstable individuals trying to score a pocket steak.

    A few days later, I doubled-down on my new-found creed.  A customer walked into the restroom to take a shit and lit up a blunt.  The stench of low-quality marijuana filled the hallway and drifted down the aisles.  The grocery manager and assistant store manager called me to the floor.

    “First off, I’m not walking in there to address the issue.  They can say and claim anything when it’s not on camera.  Secondly, I’m not afraid to say something…it’s just I really don’t care.  Let them finish their shit and their blunt and they’ll go away.  It’s not worth the trouble.”  I walked away.

    In a previous post I argued that apathy and the inability to take action were the quintessential signs of poor management.  And maybe I fit that mould too.  But I drew a line after my last encounter: if it directly affected a member of my team, I addressed it; if it affected someone else’s money or was simply an inconvenience, I ignored it.  Confronting ne’re-do-wells was best left for someone properly trained in dealing with confrontation and shows of force, particularly someone armed with a snub-nosed revolver like our security officer.  One manager was punched in the face and had to be transported to the hospital after an encounter with a shoplifter.  Another caught a guy who was carrying a semi-automatic handgun tucked in his waist.  Sometimes they pulled knives.  It just wasn’t worth it.

    I was paid to sell meat and manage a crew.  I never agreed to work as a bouncer.  Risking my life for company assets felt like an asinine and pointless endeavor when they would just replace my motionless corpse with some other witless fool before it even grew cold.

    THE MORAL: companies make a lot of money.  Just because you work there, you have to remember that it is not YOUR money that you’re protecting.  Your life is not worth any amount of another person’s dollar.  Do your job the best you can and go the fuck home.  Don’t be a company hero…