At Least Have Some Conviction

If you've decided that you're going to shoplift, and you still decide to go through with it even after a sales clerk has had an awkward conversation with you where you BOTH KNOW what you are about to do, then at least do us the service and follow through. I mean, honestly. At that point, it's a game of will and nerves: we're on to you, and you're looking for the thrill (if I'm to believe the psychologists) and I'm competitive; there are few things I hate more than being disappointed.

So when this somewhat flustered older man decided to stuff 4 bottles of wine into a paper shopping sack, my associate started up a conversation with him. My associate offered the man one of our complimentary wine bottle bags (on purpose, as a way to start a conversation.) Because if you have a conversation with someone who is showing signs of wanting to thieve, you a) have an excellent view of their face without being skulky or obvious about it; and b) you tend to remember more details about their description, in case they do slip through and get out of your establishment and you need to alert other employees about possible future endeavors.

But I digress. This slightly frumpy older man proceeded to the front of the store. My associate alerted me to what was going on, so I split for the front of the house. My favorite spot for scoping out thieves-in-action is from the other side of the registers, either near the baggers (sometimes I'll even bag for the person in question) or somewhere between the cash stands and the exit. It gives me an unobstructed view of every person involved in all transactions, without blocking egress or drawing much attention. Except, this time he saw me looking at him. He hadn't done anything wrong yet (aside from putting the wine in the bag--that's concealment in our state, and technically shoplifting--yes, that's right, it IS possible to shoplift before ever passing the point of purchase) so I found it amusing that he was already nervous. I decided to keep looking right at him. So, he pulls out his cellphone and pokes it a few times, opening and closing it, holding it up to his ear like he's listening to a voicemail or whatever--and he abandons his cart just as the person in front of him finishes up their transaction. He walks right by me and out the door. Chickenshit!

So for fun and for further info for my warning email later, I step outside and watch what car he goes to. What luck! A front spot. I don't even have to leave the sidewalk to write down his license plate # and make and model of car. And that's when he saw me writing.

Theivus Interruptus: *shouting from a distance* Do you have a problem?!?
Me: *ignore* *pretend not to hear/pretend not to know the question is directed at me*
Me: *scribble scribble*
TI: *walks up to me* Do you have a problem, Michele?
Me: Are you...talking to me?
TI: Yeah, I am. I saw you writing down my license plate number.
Me: I don't know what you're talking about.
TI: Right there--you were writing down my license number.
Me: Uh, I'm standing here getting a breath of fresh air and writing down some notes for next week's schedule. *unfolds last week's schedule and shows him*
TI: No, well, no, you were writing it down in that-- *points to note pad*
Me: What? This? *flips it open, it's full of scribbled notes from meetings and phone lists*
TI: Uh. Well. Anyway.
Me: Oh, since you're back, I wanted to ask you: are you going back in to buy that wine, or should I put it back when I'm done here?
TI: No, no I'm not going to buy it. I have to take this call, and I don't have time. That's why I walked out. This call is important.
Me: Ah. Well, you know, you could have taken the call in line. People do it all of the time.
TI: It is too loud in there! I had to leave!
Me: Oh, good point. Well, have a nice day.
TI: Since I'm here, I might as well go get the wine.
Me: Oh, great.

The exit door could not have picked the perfect time to slam shut. LOLOLOL

TI: How am I supposed to get back in?!?!!
Me: ...this is the exit door..? Here, I don't usually do this, but...*pries door open with hands* ...there. Go ahead inside.

Lord. He did end up buying that wine. I talked to the cashier afterwards to find out if he'd said anything to her. She said that she told him that if he bought two more bottles, he'd get the 10% discount. He said, "Oh, I don't have enough money for that."

Yeah, I bet you don't. Why bring money to a store you're planning on ripping off?

PS Yeah, I shouldn't have lied to the guy about writing down his plate, but man, I had just worked a 9 hour shift without a break. It would have gotten SO MESSY if he had gotten up in my face more than he already had.

TWO Posts in One Day?!?

Yes, it's hardly fair of me to skip posting for 3 months only to post more than once in a single 12 hour period.

But now that I have a semi-decent camera on my new-every-two phone, it is too hard to resist showing you what I see on a daily basis. This, my friends, is why that surly retail clerk was so surly:

Do you see the shrimp carcass? This is how people treat their surroundings at my nice, clean, cared-for, retail establishment. Nevermind that we have 14 trashcans stationed around the store. Nice, shiny, chrome bullet cans. You can't miss them. This person couldn't be bothered to walk another two feet, though. I wonder what their house looks like--do they just stash wrappers in their bookcases? I mean, assuming that people like that actually bother to read? Or maybe when they finish something, like a carton of milk, they just shove it back in the fridge even though the garbage can is right behind them.

And let's not even get into how there was nobody demo-ing shrimp in the store today. This fucker felt entitled enough to grab one of the serve-yourself steamed shrimp off of the seafood bar. Probably used their hands. Hopefully after another of the skanky masses used *their* hands and touched that particular shrimp.

I hope they get the Mexican pig flu.

Are you kidding me?

#1. As soon as we opened this morning, I was summoned to maintain visual contact with a woman in SpongeBob SquarePants scrubs who was seen stuffing bottles of vitamins into her large purse. She knew she was being watched, eventually, but instead of the two normal responses to being observed* she continued to shop in a most erratic way for 30 more minutes. Bizarre. Also, just because your pediatric nurse/dental assistant wears cute scrubs, does not mean she is not a huge but inept thief.

#2 Just before lunch, I was called to Customer Service about a customer with a "credit card fraud" issue. Customer claims to have been double billed on his credit card from lunch on Friday. It's certainly within the realm of possibility, and I was all ready to investigate further, but...he didn't bother to bring in the receipt OR the credit card statement. OK, seriously? What can I do without either of those things? At least bring in the statement--with a little time and the credit card #, we can search for the transaction and get a new copy of the receipt. But to just walk into a store and claim to be overcharged..? Maybe I ought to try that some time. "I bought tires here but I was charged an extra $300. What are you going to do about it?" That's it! That's my elusive step 2!

#3 After lunch, I was asked to observe another customer. She was witnessed stuffing two large cookies into her purse. OK, Customer Service, how will I know which woman to follow? Oh, the one assisted by an OXYGEN TANK, of course, of course. *sigh* I found her sitting in our cafe, eating a plate lunch.

Me: Hello.
O2: Why, hello. Is my cart blocking the way too much?
Me: What? No. No, it's fine. I was going to ask you something else.
O2: What, dear?
Me: Do...you have a receipt for your lunch?
O2: Why yes, I do. (shows me a valid receipt)
Me: You were seen putting cookies into your purse. They're not on the receipt...
O2: Oh, these? (pulls out a bag of two cookies) I was going to pay for them after lunch.
Me: I see. I should tell you that in this state, concealment is shoplifting. You have shoplifted.
O2: Oh, my. I had gone through the line and paid for my lunch, but then changed my mind on the cookies. I had been waiting for a table to open up, so I took one as soon as I saw it. But I was going to pay for the cookies after I ate this.
Me: But this area is beyond the registers. It's not OK to take things you haven't paid for beyond the registers. Or to hide them in your purse.
O2: Oh, OK. I will pay for them.
Me: ...
O2: What, now?
Me: *sigh* That would be ideal.
O2: ...would you pay for them for me?
Me: No.

Of course, when I related the story later to other people at work, I told them that I had pinched her oxygen tube until she agreed to pay. I have to keep up my reputation, you see.

*
1. Confront the observer by yelling that you're being falsely accused (even though nobody has said a thing.)

2. Move quickly, ditch the stuff you were trying to steal, and leave the premises without making any purchases at all.

I'm not cheating by cutting and pasting NY Times articles

I'm behind on my link-reading this week. This article was recommended by NancyF.

Few things burn my biscuits more than thinking about fiscal irresponsibility. Now, I am no financial brainiac. I have the genetic benefit that 25% Scottish blood brings. Not only did my mother and maternal grandparents set the example of frugality and thriftiness, they drilled it into my head. Scared me to death, you could say. So I am totally aware that I am not being fair when I throw up my hands and wonder WTF are people thinking when they borrow, borrow, borrow, not understanding how compound interest works, what APR means, what a good rate is, and then spend that borrowed money on frivolous things that don't (in the long run) help to create more wealth. No, it's more complicated than that. As the guy below will say better than I can, there are far more factors. Number one is the consumer culture in which we live. Number two is the despicable practice credit card companies have, of setting up tables on college campuses and signing virtual children up for credit. People talk about predatory lending and think mainly of the mortgage crisis we're in. Unfortunately, it starts with credit cards in the hands of the newly legal adult. I wish all public high schools would have compulsory personal finance classes. Just one semester could do it. Of course, I also think there should be a required class before people exercise procreation, so don't mind me. I love tests.

I like how he passes on the term for state lotteries:"the tax on the stupid." Ah, I've bought a few in my day. LOL.


June 10, 2008

Op-Ed Columnist

The Great Seduction

By DAVID BROOKS

The people who created this country built a moral structure around money. The Puritan legacy inhibited luxury and self-indulgence. Benjamin Franklin spread a practical gospel that emphasized hard work, temperance and frugality. Millions of parents, preachers, newspaper editors and teachers expounded the message. The result was quite remarkable.

The United States has been an affluent nation since its founding. But the country was, by and large, not corrupted by wealth. For centuries, it remained industrious, ambitious and frugal.

Over the past 30 years, much of that has been shredded. The social norms and institutions that encouraged frugality and spending what you earn have been undermined. The institutions that encourage debt and living for the moment have been strengthened. The country’s moral guardians are forever looking for decadence out of Hollywood and reality TV. But the most rampant decadence today is financial decadence, the trampling of decent norms about how to use and harness money.

Sixty-two scholars have signed on to a report by the Institute for American Values and other think tanks called, “For a New Thrift: Confronting the Debt Culture,” examining the results of all this. This may be damning with faint praise, but it’s one of the most important think-tank reports you’ll read this year.

The deterioration of financial mores has meant two things. First, it’s meant an explosion of debt that inhibits social mobility and ruins lives. Between 1989 and 2001, credit-card debt nearly tripled, soaring from $238 billion to $692 billion. By last year, it was up to $937 billion, the report said.

Second, the transformation has led to a stark financial polarization. On the one hand, there is what the report calls the investor class. It has tax-deferred savings plans, as well as an army of financial advisers. On the other hand, there is the lottery class, people with little access to 401(k)’s or financial planning but plenty of access to payday lenders, credit cards and lottery agents.

The loosening of financial inhibition has meant more options for the well-educated but more temptation and chaos for the most vulnerable. Social norms, the invisible threads that guide behavior, have deteriorated. Over the past years, Americans have been more socially conscious about protecting the environment and inhaling tobacco. They have become less socially conscious about money and debt.

The agents of destruction are many. State governments have played a role. They aggressively hawk their lottery products, which some people call a tax on stupidity. Twenty percent of Americans are frequent players, spending about $60 billion a year. The spending is starkly regressive. A household with income under $13,000 spends, on average, $645 a year on lottery tickets, about 9 percent of all income. Aside from the financial toll, the moral toll is comprehensive. Here is the government, the guardian of order, telling people that they don’t have to work to build for the future. They can strike it rich for nothing.

Payday lenders have also played a role. They seductively offer fast cash — at absurd interest rates — to 15 million people every month.

Credit card companies have played a role. Instead of targeting the financially astute, who pay off their debts, they’ve found that they can make money off the young and vulnerable. Fifty-six percent of students in their final year of college carry four or more credit cards.

Congress and the White House have played a role. The nation’s leaders have always had an incentive to shove costs for current promises onto the backs of future generations. It’s only now become respectable to do so.

Wall Street has played a role. Bill Gates built a socially useful product to make his fortune. But what message do the compensation packages that hedge fund managers get send across the country?

The list could go on. But the report, which is nicely summarized by Barbara Dafoe Whitehead in The American Interest (available free online), also has some recommendations. First, raise public consciousness about debt the way the anti-smoking activists did with their campaign. Second, create institutions that encourage thrift.

Foundations and churches could issue short-term loans to cut into the payday lenders’ business. Public and private programs could give the poor and middle class access to financial planners. Usury laws could be enforced and strengthened. Colleges could reduce credit card advertising on campus. KidSave accounts would encourage savings from a young age. The tax code should tax consumption, not income, and in the meantime, it should do more to encourage savings up and down the income ladder.

There are dozens of things that could be done. But the most important is to shift values. Franklin made it prestigious to embrace certain bourgeois virtues. Now it’s socially acceptable to undermine those virtues. It’s considered normal to play the debt game and imagine that decisions made today will have no consequences for the future.

Things happen in threes.

I'm posting for the third time today. I guess I should have started this blog years ago.

I'm actually only here killing time while the count out person finishes up today's books. Nothing much happened at work tonight--a few people made some receipt-less returns. What made them uneventful is: they brought things back that clearly were faulty in manufacture. One lady did try to return $40 worth of vitamins, but she is one of our habitual returners and she knows the rules--any return worth more than $20 requires a receipt. We offered to trade them out, but she wanted cash. OK, come back when you find the receipt.

We did find a $7 candy bar that was half eaten and abandoned on the shelves. This is one of my biggest pet peeves. Our store is CRAWLING with clearly labeled employees, and our company is famous for being very liberal with the sampling. I mean, hello, $7 candy bars! Who wants to risk putting that kind of money down for something they may not even like? So we offer to open anything and nearly everything (clever alcoholics with $50 bottle addictions, I'm looking at you) to be nice. Isn't that nice? I'm not going to lie to you--giving out free samples of crazy things saves us a lot of minor headaches. So yeah, anyway. The $7 candy bar. If that person had only ASKED to try it, we could have done it in a sanitary way and used the rest of the bar to let OTHER people try it too. Instead, they greedily stole half for themselves with their dirty, dirty mitts and now the other half ended up in the trash. Wasteful bastard.