What Do You Think Today?

[Kizza]

That all sounds very much like a funny time Sky. Awkward as Av suggested, but room for hilarity nonetheless.

If she looks like Jennifer Connolly well.....

[Skyweir]

Im with you Kizza .. and she is gorgeous, not Connely gorgeous .. more like Sarah Alexander gorgeous ..

Felt sorry for Glen tho .. it was looking more likely that I was going to get lucky than him, Monday night ... but meh we are setting up another quasi blind date lol

[peter]

Two kids (around sixteen or so) are making a practice of coming into the shop, walking around and stuffing their pockets, then walking out. They have been banned, but they just laugh when they are told so and keep coming back. They know that a good proportion of the staff either don't know, don't care or don't even notice what they are doing. They know that there is absolutely nothing we can do to stop them and that the police are way too short staffed, underfunded and preoccupied with more significant crime to be interested in their petty thieving - and so it goes on. What (of course) they do not realize, is where their mindset is taking them in this world - and short of a complete descent into anarchy in which they can rise as kings - it is no good place. Not learning the normal restraints that serve as protection from our worst inclinations, these kids have no means of changing course until truly terrible things force them to do so or they succumb under the crushing heel of life inflicted at its most brutal.

[Avatar]

Seriously? Would have thought the nanny state could muster a better response than that...

--A

[Skyweir]

Yeah ditto .. restrain them call the police and just wait. Sure theres more important things to do than shop lifting .. but for a patrol officer it is still bread and butter. Still have to be dealt with.

[peter]

Yeah ditto .. restrain them call the police and just wait. Sure theres more important things to do than shop lifting .. but for a patrol officer it is still bread and butter. Still have to be dealt with.

Impossible. We are so short staffed that aside from the fact that you are essentially alone on the shop floor and serving a queue of people, you can never be 100 percent sure that they have actually stolen until you verify it by CCTV later. To restrain them at this juncture would not only be impractical, but boarder line illegal. No theft has been committed until they leave the premises. Even if you could do this (and I assure you, you can't) and were to phone the police, it is highly likely that you would wait up to an hour for them to arrive and no charge would be brought anyway. This is simply one of the many frustrations we have to endure at the small end of modern day retail sales.

[Sorus]

Yeah, it's pretty much the same here. I used to do retail LP, and it's only gotten worse. Here it's not so much kids, but more adults stealing anything they can grab to trade for drugs. Under $900 it's a misdemeanor and the police don't care. You aren't allowed to touch them and they know it. Just last week some tweaker punched one of my coworkers, kicked down a glass door, and threatened to come back with a gun because he was asked to leave after being caught stealing. There's video and the police did get involved, but they'll never catch him and even if they do he'll be back on the street within 48 hours. Aforementioned coworker has vanished - I'm not part of the gossip circle, so I don't know if he quit over the incident or if he was fired for pushing the guy (after being backed against a wall and punched two or three times), but either way, it sucks. I've been threatened twice this month - one guy had a box cutter and the other had what I'm guessing was bear mace.

Maybe the level of crazy is just extra high right now. I was walking to the train station yesterday morning - 4am, bad neighborhood, dark street, no one around - when I realized there was a car following me. Two men. Followed me about halfway down the block. This is the kind of neighborhood where if I had been murdered, the response would be what did I expect walking alone at that hour? The car stops. My mental state at that point was somewhere along the lines of being determined to take at least one of them with me. Guy rolls down the window and says, "Hey, be careful. There's a really big raccoon out there."

And they drive off. Not sure if there really was a raccoon or if they were axe murderers who decided I didn't look like an easy target. Great way to start the day. I am so over this city.

[Skyweir]

Yes Pete, I hear your frustration. And I get it .. department stores restrain shop lifters, and call police. They are usually asked to accompany a security officer, if there is one. Ive attended heaps of shop lifting incidents .. and indeed they could say that their liberty was deprived illegally but Ive never encountered one case that went to court claiming that and won. Not a case of larceny thrown out due to a claim of that kind.

Most know theyve been caught red handed, if indeed they have.

Yes the State must prove that there was an intention to permanently deprive in an offence of larceny .. but again that can be generally be gain through confession.

If youre in your own its pretty much moot anyway. But if you do have them on CCTV, and if you know anything about them .. that should be enuff. I am truly surprised that your police wouldnt respond to a call out at all. An hour isnt such a long time after the fact .. and they have to log the call out.

Its not a serious crime here either unless its over AUD2000 .. it may even be more now.

And yet we still respond to shop lifting calls .. even for a snickers bar. In fact a senior sergeant was charged with the theft of a snickers bar. He had some serious issues in his home life and I think he was acting out. Lovely guy.

We had a team that were investigated for skimming products off the top after attending a break in. First at the scene, they help them selves to a little product, call the owner to attend and the owner would indicate their losses, that included what theyd skimmed. The sergeant in charge was partnered with a rookie from my course. Internal Investigations were all over them. The sergeant took his duty revolver into the bathroom and blew his brains out. The other dude lost his job .. and was mopping floors in a nearby mall when I saw him.

They wouldnt have skimmed more than a couple of hundred dollars.

If its a 24hr 7 11 ... you could call after 11pm .. night shifts are always a little quieter. And simply report the theft with the CCTV footage.

Surely there are work arounds .. that or I guess see it as an acceptable loss. Not much else you can do. And as you dont have security personnel, you wont have the benefit of their mandates powers, which are usually regulated. So yeah .. as youre a little older, not very wise for you to have to intervene anyway.

[Sorus]

They wouldnt have skimmed more than a couple of hundred dollars.

Seen that side too, with less dramatic aftermath. The majority of people I fired for internal theft stole about $10-$20 worth of whatever, and it was never something they needed. Yeah, I get that it's a crap job with crap pay, but a regular paycheck is better than being unemployed with a criminal record.

[peter]

Don't get me wrong Sky - the police will respond. They simply don't have the resources to attend immediately and prosecute on every call of minor shoplifting - and we for our part cannot adequately staff or surveil to deal with it either. Like seagulls learning they can snatch chips from holidaymakers hands with impunity, these kids have learned the presence of this gap and exploit it. Problem is they often think that the same gap exists in higher level crime - and indeed often it does - so they push their luck until one day they stumble over the line into the place where it no longer holds. One thing though - interestingly, I've just realised that what makes this particular case different is not so much the theft - that's simply petty crime of the type I encounter daily - it's that this is accompanied by a brazenness, an amusement, a 'can't be bothered even to hide it'ness that moves it from the realm of theft of sweets into that of antisocial behaviour. These boys are cocking a shook at the very values that maintain our societies - and doing it deliberately for entertainment; it is this that renders this particular case different. I don't think they even care about the sweets - this is about the entertainment that the act gives them.

[Skyweir]

You are absolutely right Peter ... and that fact is indeed a disturbing trend. And you are relatively powerless to change that. I guess you could engage them in conversation .. but in a positive sense. Smile and say hi .. maybe if they learn about you and your life ethics.. who knows they might be motivated to take their criminal inclinations elsewhere ... or make better choices

But perhaps not if they show any signs of aggressiveness

As to prosecutions .. they are never overnight remedies sadly. Some take years, some take many months.

[peter]

This makes my blood boil.

A bloke came into the shop the other day; he told me that one of the delivery drivers that works for another arm of the same company I am employed by had just delivered a large and very heavy package to his house. Clearly way too heavy for the man to lift on his own, he had nevertheless been sent out with no co-worker and thus had no choice but to struggle with the delivery on his own. My company makes a big thing of making us all attend Heavy Lifting courses, in which we are instructed that we are never to attempt to lift anything beyond our ability, and given detailed instructions on keeping our backs straight, bending our knees and the like. At one such course I asked what the upper legal limit of what we are expected to lift was and was told "there is no set upper limit because people have different levels of strength".

Fair enough, I can accept that. But what I cannot accept is this cynical practice that is widespread now, of setting strictures up as to how jobs must be performed - and then giving people jobs that cannot possibly be done by keeping within those strictures. This allows for the rules on health and safety to be breached with impunity because the onus for not keeping within those rules can always be thrown back on the worker themselves. Thus, if my co-employee screws his back fighting to carry 90 lb packages to people's homes - it's his own fault. "We have him the training - he should have followed the rules." Never mind the fact that you organised the job in such a way that those rules could not be followed!

This practice is widespread now. My son in law delivers for another company. The rules say that they must not exceed 11 hours of driving in a day (with a break in the middle). They are given drop routes that cannot be completed within this time, but are penalised heavily if they return to the depot with parcels on board. If they do all the deliveries and don't get caught exceeding the time constraint nothing is said - but if they do, then the reprisal falls on the driver for exceeding the legal limit.

In these situations the very legislation that is supposed to protect both worker and public actually has exactly the opposite effect. They allow the companies to hide behind a screen of 'doing things right' while still pushing workers beyond the limits of what can realistically be safely achieved. A similar situation occured when the much vaunted Humfrey Davey Safety Lamp was introduced; far from reducing the number of deaths in mines due to asphyxiation and explosion, it actually caused them to increase. The reason - the workers were now simply expected to go into areas previously considered off limits due to the danger known to exist in them, because they had the lamps to protect them. The cynical bastards are still using the same tricks today.

[Sorus]

At one such course I asked what the upper legal limit of what we are expected to lift was and was told "there is no set upper limit because people have different levels of strength".

My job description states that one is expected to be able to lift and carry up to 70lbs. It does not specify that one is expected to be able to lift and carry 70lbs up a 15-foot ladder, then lift it above your head to put it on a shelf. But it's technically correct.

Same thing happens here regarding drivers. Our main driver is constantly talking about quitting over the way they treat him - he says he could go to UPS or whatnot and make more money with better treatment, and he's probably right, but everybody exploits their workers. Some are just worse than others. I hope he doesn't quit - he's punctual and safety-conscious and not a creep, and many of his predecessors have failed in all of those areas.

[peter]

The practice is widespread across the company I work for; in the shop we are never supposed to go outside without a high visibility jacket - but for those whose jobs have cause to demand that they go out to the bins sometimes dozens of times a day, the putting on and off of a jacket every time for a thirty second trip is simply unfeasable. But if you got hit by a car in the carpark be sure that the not wearing of a coat would play big in the consideration of the matter of compensation. The company not only covers it's own back under a pretence of concern for the employee, but abuses them roundly by putting them in danger of injury at the same time!

[Sorus]

My company is amazingly not as bad as it was 5-6 years ago. They went through a phase where speed was the only thing that mattered. Safety? Pft. Cut ALL the corners. I think the DM was trying to fill in his OSHA violation bingo card. There was a trainer who followed me around for two weeks chanting a mantra of if you're not hurting yourself, you aren't working hard enough. First week, I spent most of it thinking seriously, dude? Second week sent me down a path of self-destruction that it took me a year to break out of, and I still catch it influencing me from time to time. Wrecked my ambition and whatnot and damaged at least one friendship.

These days I try to think of it as a sociological experiment, and to that end, it is fascinating.

[peter]

I think if I went down that route of thinking Sorus, pretty soon the whole of the Creation would be sitting inside it!

[Avatar]

It does Peter, it does.

As for the jacket...simple...wear it at all times including in the store.

--A

[Sorus]

Probably isn't dress code to wear it inside. Another thing that my company has relaxed significantly in the last couple of years. They even allow jeans, which used to be permitted as a 'treat' once or twice per year.

There were 4-5 years where the building had no heat or AC. (Since fixed.) The dress code didn't take that into account, and in winter it was actually colder inside than outside. I have anemia, and that level of cold hurt to the point where it was interfering with my ability to work. I had to beg to be allowed to wear a jacket inside, and after finally getting approval, I spent too much money on something I wouldn't normally have bought, and got the OK from my boss before I removed the tags. Wore it for a week before the DM (he of OSHA violation fame) visited, took one look, and went NOPE.

Sociological experiment. A smarter person would have quit by now.

[Skyweir]

Totally agree with that Pete .. quit .. and get the fuck out of there .. it is this sort of negligent and wilful disregard for employee safety let alone wellbeing makes my blood boil.

Id wear it inspire of being told not to .. especially if it affected my health not to ... fuck that for a joke


Grrrr .. blood boiling as I write .. ugh theres no excuse for causing suffering.

And Sorus .. exemplary attitude .. but fuck that for a joke too. Thats an outrageously unacceptable mantra to recite to staff. And totally fucked up way to disregard due diligence requirements

You both should walk out and get better fucking jobs .. trust me when I say you will find jobs .. people like you are not going to be satisfied twiddling your thumbs on welfare or whatever you have in your respective countries. Also you are both too smart not to have any savings at all to get you through to your next jobs.

Get the fuck out of there and get a job youd find satisfying and that has greater regard for its staff... and its a fucking low bar to raise. Jesus, Mary and Joseph this shit IS shit and intolerable in the extreme

[peter]

Absolutely; we wear a 'uniform' of black company polo shirt, black trousers and shoes (black). It doesn't include high vis over jackets and company policy must be obeyed........



(Meanwhile, in the larger social experiment know as the world.....)

Algorithms sometimes get it wrong. Slap in the middle of the Daily Express web report on the shocking disruption at Gatwick airport yesterday caused by the deliberate flying of drones around the runways - the entire airport was brought to a standstill for 24 hours and hundreds of thousands of people's Christmas flight plans disrupted - was a large advert selling, you guessed it ...... Drones!