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> Retailers are very reluctant to deal directly with the problem, i.e. stop the people walking out. This isn't due to some kind of "woke" policy. You can't exp

by crote 3y ago

> Retailers are very reluctant to deal directly with the problem, i.e. stop the people walking out. This isn't due to some kind of "woke" policy. You can't expect minimum-wage workers to literally risk their life trying to stop a potentially-armed shoplifter. The company sure isn't going to pay their healthcare costs when they get stabbed or shot, so why would the worker care about a slightly lower profit margin?

trealira 3y ago
From what the employee said, they're reluctant to take any action at all, like hiring more staff or caging certain merchandise like beer. > Corporate ignored employees’ requests to put booze in locked cases because the liquor aisle is an area of the store that attracts some especially “sketchy” characters. It also blew them off when they warned of camera blind spots that shoplifters were aware of. “The company didn’t really seem that interested in solving the problem, they seemed more interested in, I don’t know, complaining,” he says. The cops weren’t much help, either. They’d show up hours after being called and ask whether the perpetrators were still there (they obviously weren’t) and which way they’d gone (what does it matter if it was six hours ago?). ... > “All these companies that are screaming about theft, they’re kind of complicit in it because they keep reducing staff,” says Steven Rowland, the host of The Retail Warzone podcast and a former retail store manager. “From an hourly standpoint, a lot of these folks feel like they’re not paid enough to care anyway. And then you have store managers who are bleeding out, basically, because they have a lack of payroll, they don’t have enough staff just to get their basic functions done.”
Jun8 3y ago
You're right that store workers cannot be expected to interfere. What I meant was that they are reluctant to take more draconian measures, e.g. armed guards at the store and calling police immediately.
qingcharles 3y ago
I knew someone who did 7.5 years in prison because he was the getaway driver for his female friend who stole a $5 hat from Walmart on the way out of the door and the shelf-stacker tried to be a hero and chase down the car, had to jump out of the way, hit their head on the kerb and was in a coma for months. Walmart paid the medical bills which came in at over $2m. Source: they were my cellmate in jail Edit: but I live in the hood, and twice recently I've seen shoplifters beaten to shit by retail workers in Family Dollar and Walgreens for being caught stealing...
- seanmcdirmid 3y ago
  I saw a purse snatcher get walloped by bystanders in Shanghai. The police came by and just laughed, ya, you don't want to be a purse snatcher in China.

by crote 3y ago

trealira 3y ago

From what the employee said, they're reluctant to take any action at all, like hiring more staff or caging certain merchandise like beer. > Corporate ignored employees’ requests to put booze in locked cases because the liquor aisle is an area of the store that attracts some especially “sketchy” characters. It also blew them off when they warned of camera blind spots that shoplifters were aware of. “The company didn’t really seem that interested in solving the problem, they seemed more interested in, I don’t know, complaining,” he says. The cops weren’t much help, either. They’d show up hours after being called and ask whether the perpetrators were still there (they obviously weren’t) and which way they’d gone (what does it matter if it was six hours ago?). ... > “All these companies that are screaming about theft, they’re kind of complicit in it because they keep reducing staff,” says Steven Rowland, the host of The Retail Warzone podcast and a former retail store manager. “From an hourly standpoint, a lot of these folks feel like they’re not paid enough to care anyway. And then you have store managers who are bleeding out, basically, because they have a lack of payroll, they don’t have enough staff just to get their basic functions done.”

Jun8 3y ago

You're right that store workers cannot be expected to interfere. What I meant was that they are reluctant to take more draconian measures, e.g. armed guards at the store and calling police immediately.

qingcharles 3y ago

I knew someone who did 7.5 years in prison because he was the getaway driver for his female friend who stole a $5 hat from Walmart on the way out of the door and the shelf-stacker tried to be a hero and chase down the car, had to jump out of the way, hit their head on the kerb and was in a coma for months. Walmart paid the medical bills which came in at over $2m. Source: they were my cellmate in jail Edit: but I live in the hood, and twice recently I've seen shoplifters beaten to shit by retail workers in Family Dollar and Walgreens for being caught stealing...

seanmcdirmid 3y ago
I saw a purse snatcher get walloped by bystanders in Shanghai. The police came by and just laughed, ya, you don't want to be a purse snatcher in China.