I hate people, I blame myself

[Pezzle]

Just wanted to share that a 500 dollar set of golf clubs got lifted under my nose at work. I've been kicking myself for days. I hate this man. I should've seen something suspicious about the clubs being shiny and metallic but labelled as women's irons. There's a certain amount of trust in a mom n' pop style store... but the glinting of the heads as he walked out the door sent up a red flag. He came in when I was helping multiple people with hockey equipment, and I was the only employee in the store. I didn't even see him switch the clubs.

It's all my fault my dad lost 500 dollars. I should've spoken up. I should've inspected each and every club like it was an antique. Now he's stolen from us. Now I'm paranoid, I'm angry at myself and him, and so disappointed.

I just hate people. Why would you go to a store that barely scrapes by on a 1,000 / sales day income and steal their callaways? Why would you deliver such a crushing blow to a store that barely treads water and can barely afford to pay 7 employees including the owners? Jerk.

[Dark Psion]

At least it's worth the effort of stealing $500 of golf clubs.

Someone at my store stole a sponge.



Yes, a sponge you use to clean things.

Oh and someone stole a circular saw blade, if he walked out with that in his pants, I'm impressed!

[Pezzle]

O_O

At the craft store I work at, people steal those little sponges... and $0.60 items for kids birthday parties. Glue... scrapbooking scissors. But a saw blade? That's a new un'

[Hyena Dandy]

*patpat* Its okay. You messed up. Hindsight is 20/20. You'll just be more careful in the future. We can't all catch everything. You were overworked.

Besides, think of the satisfaction if you he comes back in and you get to throw him out.

[jjllbb]

i hope he comes back one day so you can kick his @$$!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[LillFilly]

Sorry that happened. I'm hard on myself too. It hurts when you give someone the slightest bit of trust and they prove they were never worth it. You've learned for next time.

[OfficeSlug]

You have ANY paperwork on him -- credit card slips? checks?

Is he a regular customer?

[MilitantLibrarian]

Condolences

I too tend to trust until given some reason not to, however I'm fairly fortunate in that some people here make it so obvious that they're up to no good. Witness the guy who walks out with one of the library's daily newspapers which has been security tagged, and for once the system works and the alarm goes off. Our counter, which I'm mostly glad of is too high to easily jump, so I am forced to shout after him, he merely waves the paper at me and shout back, "I pay my taxes". The next time he came in I declined to give him a paper, so he complains to my manager. What's extra fine about this is that my manager has just learned to view the CCTV footage on our multiple camera systems and decides that this is a good time to check it out, so there's me and the "customer" in the manager's office, I've already explained about the theft incident and the customer has flatly denied it, so manager pulls up the previous day's film of the desk area, and there's this scutter (we're no longer allowed to call them scumbags as I used to, so I had to invent a word) flagrently waving the paper, clear enough that you almost read the back page headline. Customer has the grace to blush slightly and requests to drop the allegation against me, fortunately manager is not as spineless as usual, and says not only will the charge be dropped, but we will have to seriously consider informing the police. Customer does not know when to give up and again tries the "I pay my taxes" line. manager points out that tens of thousands of other pay their taxes in this borough and some of them may want to read the paper in the future, this argument tips the balance and manager calls for a PCSO (police support officer) to attend. PCSO warns offender and makes it clear that any further transgressions may be dealt with more harshly. Nowdays whenever customer attend library he always looks sheepish on entering our department. Maybe he has learned a lesson (I live in hope)

[Polenicus]

Don't beat up on yourself too much, you did everything you reasonably could in the moment. Hindsight is 20/20, and while NOW it seems obvious that shiny clubs = No women's clubs, you're demanding an AWFUL lot out of a distracted, busy you thinking about other things, and probably also mindful that if you stopped the guy and they WERE the correct clubs, you'd get the mother of all SCs on your hands.

It doesn't matter how vigilant you are, it doesn't matter how tight your security is... stuff gets stolen. And people who steal usually don't think about what it does to other people. We once had a local kid who lived near the college where I worked security who'd get hopped up on something, break into one of our cafeterias, demolish the security grate, and steal... beef jerky and sandwiches. The amount of damage he did to this cafeteria, requiring them to replace the security gate something like THREE TIMES in the space of two months, would have bought him all the beef jerky and sandwiches he wanted for a YEAR. This was a little private bistro on campus, and they couldn't really afford this.

If it makes you feel better, though, in my experience ANYONE can get away with a crime once. But... virtually no one ever stops at once. Because to decide to steal something your figuring of the cost/benefits of getting the item vs getting caught and potentially going to jail, criminal record, etc. has to be seriously broken. So our crook gets his shiny golf clubs, and gets away scott free... whee! He are teh master criminal! So, naturally, since it worked once, why wouldn't it work again? And so I suspect he'll repeat the behaviour, until he gets caught, and goes down.

And then it's pretty much downhill from there.

[tamezin]

Someone at my store stole a sponge...
Yes, a sponge you use to clean things.

My daughter used to work at a local hardware store as a stock girl, she told me someone stole a key from a lock package. Not the lock, just the key. ???? ???? At least you can do something with a sponge.

[Dips]

I understand. It's pretty awful knowing that someone took advantage of you and got away with it.

Now that you've beaten yourself up a little you'll be fine.

There's no doubt in my mind that you'll put a stop to it if anyone ever tries that again with you.

[MilitantLibrarian]

My daughter used to work at a local hardware store as a stock girl, she told me someone stole a key from a lock package. Not the lock, just the key. ???? ???? At least you can do something with a sponge.

I've seen stuff which appears to have been stolen from packages in a £1 shop, everything's £1 ( I guess about a buck fifty) and these guys take half the stuff from a pack, rendering it unsaleable, bizarrely it's often something like a single eraser from a pack. Maybe they didn't like the others and didn't want to pay a whole pound for four erasers they didn't like or something ?

Also in a video/computer game store I noticed some young boys put a package from a shelf into their bag. I informed the staff who said that because they didn't witness it, they couldn't stop them. I suggested that they at least keep an eye on them for the rest of their visit. If (young) people get away with it due to lack of store guidelines on theft, it will just escalate.

[Shalom]

I've seen stuff which appears to have been stolen from packages in a £1 shop, everything's £1 ( I guess about a buck fifty) and these guys take half the stuff from a pack, rendering it unsaleable, bizarrely it's often something like a single eraser from a pack. Maybe they didn't like the others and didn't want to pay a whole pound for four erasers they didn't like or something ?.

Never saw my front end manager so ped off as the day he showed me that someone had stolen one Tum out of a roll of Tums. "Steal the whole damn roll, why don't you?" he was ranting.

(Not that one regular strength Tums is gonna do a whole hell of a lot for your heartburn, usual dose is two to four.)

[Pezzle]

Actually I have his name, phone number and address. However, we have no concrete proof to present as evidence that he stole the clubs (no security cameras). Just my word against his, and the fact that I fucked up. So we're kind of stuck.

[d962831]

Also in a video/computer game store I noticed some young boys put a package from a shelf into their bag. I informed the staff who said that because they didn't witness it, they couldn't stop them. I suggested that they at least keep an eye on them for the rest of their visit. If (young) people get away with it due to lack of store guidelines on theft, it will just escalate.

I'm not sure if this is the case where you live, but here where I live the store has the right to request to see the contents of someone's bag. Although, purses are exempt from that, which is understandable if it's a small purse, not so much with the huge purses though.