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See also farmers' produce stands that are often completely unmanned and run 100% on the honor system. People take fruit and vegetables, and put the money in th

See also farmers' produce stands that are often completely unmanned and run 100% on the honor system. People take fruit and vegetables, and put the money in the box--or if the farmer is tech-savvy enough, through their phones. And even if a few people don't pay, they still get more money from their inventory than shipping it to a wholesaler or a grocery store. (As far as I know, direct to a local gourmet restaurant pays best.) For an extra employee on the duty roster, you're probably paying minimum $7 per hour, every hour that store is open to the public--probably 16 hours a day, every day, for a big box. That's $41k per year, plus the per-employee costs for 2 or 3 people, which are probably another $60k, unless you're an employer that doesn't offer benefits (i.e. Wal-Mart). The employee would likely have to stop $200/day of petty theft. That doesn't seem impossible, but the problem is that if you pay your employee minimum wage, they don't actually care that people are stealing from their employer, because they have no actual incentive to do anything beyond what is the bare minimum requirement to avoid getting fired, which may be just catching one shoplifter per day. And then, after all, if one caught every shoplifter, every day, people would stop trying, and one might miss quota on later days. The person whose job depends on shoplifters has a perverse incentive to encourage shoplifting, just as cobra-catchers have an incentive to breed and release snakes. So the problem is more that it's too expensive to hire someone at a rate high enough to make them care about doing their job well, instead of just keeping it indefinitely while gaming the right metrics.

Melting_Harps 6y ago
> People take fruit and vegetables, and put the money in the box--or if the farmer is tech-savvy enough, through their phones. And even if a few people don't pay, they still get more money from their inventory than shipping it to a wholesaler or a grocery store. (As far as I know, direct to a local gourmet restaurant pays best.) It does. > The employee would likely have to stop $200/day of petty theft. That doesn't seem impossible, but the problem is that if you pay your employee minimum wage, they don't actually care that people are stealing from their employer, because they have no actual incentive to do anything beyond what is the bare minimum requirement to avoid getting fired, which may be just catching one shoplifter per day. > And then, after all, if one caught every shoplifter, every day, people would stop trying, and one might miss quota on later days. The person whose job depends on shoplifters has a perverse incentive to encourage shoplifting, just as cobra-catchers have an incentive to breed and release snakes. You just explained the the broken window type fallacy of LEO and Police in general. When the crime no longer exists, you create it... by force. Oddly enough, it also applies to loss prevention. > So the problem is more that it's too expensive to hire someone at a rate high enough to make them care about doing their job well, instead of just keeping it indefinitely while gaming the right metrics. Agreed. And again, it applies to more than just shoplifting prevention.
- logfromblammo 6y ago
  For those not familiar with why cobras were mentioned above: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cobra_effect https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cobra_effect Long story shortened: 1. British are ruling India 2. Concern about cobras 3. Establish dead cobra bounty 4. Cobra population crashes 5. Entrepreneurs breed cobras 6. Bounty program halted 7. Breeders release stocks 8. More cobras than before The source story is just an anecdote, but there are plenty of historically verifiable examples of the effect, not necessarily involving cobras, specifically.

Melting_Harps 6y ago

> People take fruit and vegetables, and put the money in the box--or if the farmer is tech-savvy enough, through their phones. And even if a few people don't pay, they still get more money from their inventory than shipping it to a wholesaler or a grocery store. (As far as I know, direct to a local gourmet restaurant pays best.) It does. > The employee would likely have to stop $200/day of petty theft. That doesn't seem impossible, but the problem is that if you pay your employee minimum wage, they don't actually care that people are stealing from their employer, because they have no actual incentive to do anything beyond what is the bare minimum requirement to avoid getting fired, which may be just catching one shoplifter per day. > And then, after all, if one caught every shoplifter, every day, people would stop trying, and one might miss quota on later days. The person whose job depends on shoplifters has a perverse incentive to encourage shoplifting, just as cobra-catchers have an incentive to breed and release snakes. You just explained the the broken window type fallacy of LEO and Police in general. When the crime no longer exists, you create it... by force. Oddly enough, it also applies to loss prevention. > So the problem is more that it's too expensive to hire someone at a rate high enough to make them care about doing their job well, instead of just keeping it indefinitely while gaming the right metrics. Agreed. And again, it applies to more than just shoplifting prevention.

logfromblammo 6y ago
For those not familiar with why cobras were mentioned above: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cobra_effect https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cobra_effect Long story shortened: 1. British are ruling India 2. Concern about cobras 3. Establish dead cobra bounty 4. Cobra population crashes 5. Entrepreneurs breed cobras 6. Bounty program halted 7. Breeders release stocks 8. More cobras than before The source story is just an anecdote, but there are plenty of historically verifiable examples of the effect, not necessarily involving cobras, specifically.