"Please, help yourself...."

[blas]

Do any of you work in an area that just so happens to be way too easy for customers to have access to behind your counters and reach stuff that should only be grabbed by employees?

Case in point, the gas station. I used this story on a different thread about customers not reading signs. My manager had re-did the cigarette/snuff display, and it just so happened that the snuff was now just to the left of one of the doors. So customers who chewed now saw an opportunity to "help" me by walking in, going behind the counter and grabbing their own snuff. I'd be so busy I wouldn't even see them do it, and when it was their turn, they'd toss the tin of snuff at me, most of the time already opened with a dip taken out. I saw red, I swear.

My manager eventually caught someone doing that. Why she never considered how moving the snuff would create a high shoplifting risk of snuff and cigarettes....I don't know. When she witnessed this, she said something like "Oh HELL no!" and immediately put up a sign that said "Employees only!" but of course, customers always become ignorant and illiterate in a store setting. They'd still do it, and when I'd make a point to be rude to them for doing it (when I'd actually witness someone walk in, go behind the counter and grab a tin), they'd plead their case "I was just trying to help and save you a trip!".....I don't need any help, thank you.

From then on, whenever dumbass customers would sneak behind the counter and do that, I'd always imagine how much I desperately wanted to get a chain baracade to go on the edge of the counter. Unfortunately, that wouldn't work, because if I wanted to go outside or do my chores, it'd be a PITA to unhook it. It would have been a good detourant, though. Watching customers try to undo the chain to get behind the counter......lol.

[BookstoreEscapee]

The bookstore has display shelves going the whole length of the cashwrap, and occasionally people will come behind to look at the stuff at the far end, usually up to 2 or 3 bays in. The tills at that end are almost always empty (and if they're in use there would be an employee down there) but really, please, just ask and I will be happy to grab you a copy of whatever it is you want to see. Store1 has their gift wrap table in the far corner at the end of the cashwrap and sometimes people will just help themselves to wrapping paper. Which we are not supposed to just give away.

[SuperB]

Do any of you work in an area that just so happens to be way too easy for customers to have access to behind your counters and reach stuff that should only be grabbed by employees?

Oh yeah. Before we remodeled the counter the end was close to the cigarette rack which is behind the register on the wall. One night I was working alone and two guys came in, I thought, together. One was standing at the edge of the counter (where you enter) looking at cigarettes. The other was at the register. I don't consider myself paranoid but I am cautious and aware. As the register drawer opened the other guy moved in to grab the cigarettes he wanted. It wasn't obvious, I think I just tensed up, but I did expect a smash and grab.

It's much more difficult now. Now I just get wandering little kids.

[Celesi]

When my store was closing, we had customers who didn't believe we were out of handle bags, and would come behind the counter, hunting for them. And they usually didn't(or pretended not to) understand English when I would shoo them out.

Though the thing that pissed me off more was coworker's sisters/daughters/cousins coming in and watching us ring. It's like, no. It's called liability, and you're causing it.

[karma_gypsy]

Actually, people grabbing things from behind the counter is one of my biggest pet peeves.

We have guitars (acoustic & electric) set behind a glass counter. One stand (of three total), which hold about six (acoustic) guitars, is set rather close to the counter. To explain it better, the stands are round, three guitars on top and three on the bottom, kinda like a tree. Anyways I used to move the one stand away from the counter, but one of the employees keeps moving it back. Well the guitar closest to the counter is a $600, very nice, Ovation. Customers seem to think it's o.k. to reach over the counter and grab the guitar. They have no intentions of buying it, none whatsoever, they just feel like having something to play. Needless to say, it's a little more difficult to put it back then it is to take it out (which kinda freaks me out). I've gotten into the habit of telling people not to grab the guitars off the stands (if they are just "simply looking" - usually those are the ones who are grabbers and don't ask if they can look at it). My manager is against having a bunch of signs around (what good do they do anyway?). So we have to deal with it . . .



Another is the CDs (yes, there's more than one place to keep an on in the store). The CDs are under glass in a shallow case with an open back. People think it's o.k. to just lean over the case and grab a CD (usually the ones in the back of the case are the easiest to grab) out of the case. Usually right when I'm standing there! Listen, since I'm already helping you, you could just ask for me to get it, instead of leaning . . . on . . . the glass . . . (you know how a lot of places don't like it when people lean on the glass).


Sorry for the possible threadjack . . . but honestly, if it's behind the counter and there isn't a magical sign saying "Please Help Yourself" then don't touch it! It's behind the counter for a reason!!

[HALFHUMANHALFZOMBIE]

Yes...

People reach over and take the items out of the bags when they are not on the counter and sitting in a bag where the other bags are stacked. Their arm hits the keyboard keys when they do that. Taking up personal space. If you want to work as a cashier where I work then beware of bag grabbers who get in your space!!!

[Kara]

When I was at Circuit City, they rearranged all the games so that the dwindling selection of Playstation games extending along the wire racks all the way behind the counter (before shuffling everything, they kept the Strategy Guides there, but they weren't big sellers so no one paid them much attention). This was stupid for so many reasons.

The magnetic panel under the counter that deactivates the security stickers was there. That wasn't so bad because you could hear it beep if you were tied up with another customer on the other end of the department or getting something out of the back (we actually had 2 registers, but management was too retarded to keep more than 1 person at a time in the department with the second-highest theft in the store. First was CD's, and they only had 1 person there, too. An old man, of all things).

The thingy (ok, ok, I'm a techie chick, but I don't know what everything is called) that opened the lockboxes for the games and DVD's was on the side of the register that faced the Playstation games, and thus, the customer.

The key to unlock the spider wraps (those wire wraps around expensive things like video cards and hard drives) was in the drawer under the register.

Eventually, the regional vice president got tired of all the high-profile games walking out the door so he ordered that all stores get a locked cabinet to keep them in. For example, when Madden 03 came out this guy walked in and grabbed like 20 of them of the cardboard display in the front of the store with everyone watching and bolted out the door. The manager's policy was that as soon as someone was out the door, they were "gone" and we should have stopped them before they left the store. Uh, hello? It's not technically stealing until they leave the store! Anyway, back on subject, the key to unlock the case was also in the drawer under the register.

The key to unlock the door to the warehouse was also in said drawer.

Management didn't want us to keep any of the loose keys on us in case someone accidentally went home with them. And they didn't trust us because they were didn't trust us. They believed most theft was internal, because they didn't think it was possible for so much stuff to get stolen. But they didn't want us standing behind the register, they wanted us either walking the department looking for customers to assist, or getting stuff from the back to fill in holes on the shelves.

[mrsjfreak]

That sounds like this one jackass I have as a customer where I work. He always comes in and buys nothing but the new 5 hour energy bottles. And only ONE at a time. We usually keep them at the cash wrap but if I'm busy with another customer and he comes in and sees that we don't have any out, he marches up to the display on the floor, snatches a box, opens it, and rudely drops the rest on the counter at the cash wrap. I've asked him repeatedly NOT to, but he still does. And I get yelled at by my RSD for it when she happens to come in