People will claim that a lot of stuff sets off the sensor gate in retail stores, but I had a few that were pretty crazy when I worked at Hollywood.
"What are you talking about? I am wearing a suit for Christ's sake! A suit! Do you think that a man wearing a suit would have to steal a DVD?" Um... Yeah? 'Cause by the looks of you and your demeanor I would hazard to guess you stole the suit too.
This lady walks around the whole store for about twenty minutes and is carrying a swaddled baby with her the whole time. She never lets us help her with anything and avoids eye contact. She walks through the sensor gates to leave and it goes off. One trick that we used to use was if we saw them eyeing a particular title we would ask if they needed us to find it for them. So when this lady tells us that she didn't have anything on her but her baby, my smart-ass associate asks her "Oh. Well did you need us to help you find a copy of Men in Black 2 for your baby? I'm sure she'd love that one!" The lady says she wanted to check that out and she goes over to the shelf where the movie was being kept, comes up to the front about a minute later and says she changed her mind about wanting to rent a movie. She walks out the door and the alarm doesn't sound, but we went over to the "M" section and there was a fat stack of about fifteen movies that she put away!
"What set off the alarm? This set off the alarm!" *pulls back his jacket to show a gun* "You got a problem with that kid?" Poor kid just says, "No, sir! Have a nice night, sir!" and has to call the cops. The guy got away with about $500 in merch. A few months later the same guy comes into the store with his girlfriend and my shift leader recognizes him when he walks in, so he runs to the back and calls the cops. A few minutes later the cops show up and surround the whole building and literally tell him to "Come out with his hands up" because apparently he had several warrants out for his arrest. Justice for the win!
The town where my Hollywood Video was located was basically the white trash central of the Bay Area. This morbidly obese, white lady comes in one afternoon with a huge saddlebag--literally a saddlebag--and is sauntering through the store. She is in the store for almost forty minutes and she pretty much ignores us the whole time she's there. Apparently the whole time she had been stuffing movies in her bag and when the alarm goes off as she walks through the gate she pretends that she doesn't hear us and keeps waddling out the door to her car. She was stupid enough to park right up front, so I wrote down her plate number and called the cops. The cops come and get a report and usually that's the last you hear about it, because, ya know, who gives a fuck about some stolen movies? Surprisingly, I get a call about an hour later saying "Ma'am we have apprehended your suspect and she wants to come down to the store and apologize." I was basically floored at this point because this had never happened. So he drives this lady down to the store in the cop car and they come into the shop and I notice that she is empty handed. I ask where the movies are and he says (no joke) "Well, ma'am, apparently the suspect sold the videos after leaving the store and used it to purchase some low-quality methamphetamines. We have the drugs but I'm afraid that all we can offer you is her apology and the opportunity to press charges." Super awkward!
One time this hella skinny black dude comes in and he is wearing an incredibly baggy sweatshirt and pants. He is super nice and asking us all how we are doing and being quite pleasant to try to break the "quiet thief stereotype." And after browsing our new movie selection the shelves are practically empty and he goes to leave the store a lot chunkier than he came in! Of course the alarm goes off and I make a stupid decision. I run out the door after him. It had been a pretty rough month at work and at home. I had just broken up with my boyfriend and I had been promoted to store manager but wasn't getting any respect from my employees. I don't know what I was thinking when I ran after him, but one thing was for sure--this guy was very surprised! I was a chunky white girl with glasses and pigtails and I ran after this guy with a ton of adrenaline coursing through my veins. I caught up to him behind 7-11 and we were both in shock. I didn't really know what to say, and this guy started to placate me as soon as he figured that out. "Damn little lady, just calm yourself. Just a misunderstanding. Calm yourself." And I could hear him mutter under his breath, "Crazy-ass white bitch." I was in panic mode and all I could do was scream "Give me the movies, dammit!" He gave me a raised eyebrow and said "Okay, okay. Gimmie a minute here." He starts pulling all these movies out from under his clothes, some from places that I wouldn't have even thought to hide a movie. Soon enough there is a huge pile of movies on the ground that came up to about my waist. I am still huffing and puffing from being out of breath and when he says he's done I remember trying to be tough and I yell "I see Scooby Doo in your sock! Give me Scooby Doo!" And this super confused guy bends down, gives me the Scooby Doo DVD and runs down the street because his getaway vehicle finally pulled up. "Yeah!" I shout after him and pick up the giant stack of movies. We were really busy inside when all of this went down, so everyone else was helping customers when I went out after this guy. I still don't know what made me go after him and I know that there was a chance that I could have been shot or stabbed or something horrible like that, but coming back into the store with all that recovered product to cheering customers and awestruck employees is something that I will never forget. [KIDS PLEASE DON'T EVER TRY THAT AT A JOB EVER! EVER!]
These are just some of the ones that I can remember that were total outside theft situations. I have lots more involving employees, but that's a whole other post!
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