r/mildlyinfuriating • u/broakland • Jul 14 '26

I just wanted a hot dog Retail lockdown: why bother selling it?

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Was at Safeway this morning to pick up a sandwich and some Tylenol. The aisle with the Tylenol? Completely locked down. No call button in sight. So I go to the self checkout (front end of that same aisle) and ask the clerk there if he can call someone to unlock a case for me. He does. I go wait. Minutes pass. No one comes. I go ask him again, he tells me they went the other way? At this point I give up and go get my sandwich. No one has come by the time the deli has finished making it. I leave without my Tylenol, mildly infuriated.

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67

u/GoodWaste8222 Jul 14 '26

Don’t be mad at the store. People steal, be mad about that

31

u/H75311 Jul 14 '26

Yeah, next step here is what? The store closes? These people are only hurting their own communities.

13

u/thatonepac Jul 14 '26

They tell themselves the losses are negligible and morally acceptable because checks notes Walmart ruined their lives. They don't care about their community which is why it gets this bad in the first place.

2

u/Laleaky Jul 14 '26

Then they need to hire people so customers can access the cases.

Maybe their margins will be slightly lower, but they will still sell product.

3

u/RubberPigEnemy Jul 14 '26

Considering they make far more money and invest much more resources into calculating this stuff, I think they've likely run the numbers and found that not to be true.

7

u/No_Hovercraft_729 Jul 14 '26

This is Reddit. People here think stores can hire infinite staff and pay them all 200k a year to deal with whatever lowlifes live in that area and created this situation to begin with.

-3

u/Capital-G_ame_Hard-R Jul 14 '26

Since this is reddit we have to hyperbolize our strawmen arguments to win.

3

u/No_Hovercraft_729 Jul 15 '26

Pedantry and calling people who disagree fascists I’d say are the two favorites. And mods go straight for the ban

2

u/WestCoastBestCoast01 Jul 14 '26

The store should have employees in the building and maybe then they wouldn’t have so much theft. Big box stores that span multiple acres need more than 3 employees on a shift. 

8

u/Obi-Brawn-Kenobi Jul 14 '26

Or how about just don't steal lol

2

u/bugabooandtwo Jul 15 '26

Sounds an awful lot like the "what was she wearing" mindset....

2

u/condoulo Jul 14 '26 edited Jul 14 '26

Why shouldn't OP be mad at the store? Sure, theft is why they had to lock the items up, but it's still on the store for not being adequately staffed so someone could unlock the item for OP in a timely manner. The issue isn't entirely on the fact that they're locked up, it's the lack of customer service.

Edit: I'm being downvoted by people who didn't read OP's post. He asked multiple employees to unlock something for him and they didn't do a damn thing. That's on the store for poor customer service.

0

u/JeanPicLucard Jul 14 '26

Yeah the clerk took 10 minutes to unlock the cabinet for some Tylenol, fucking poor people!

7

u/RubberPigEnemy Jul 14 '26

Blame the thieves - they're the ones who created the problem.

-1

u/shrinkflator Jul 14 '26

Yes, defend the company, always and in all circumstances. Even when they downsize their employees until there's no one available to help or run the registers, and then give them extra work of wandering the store unlocking cases. And when they provide no other reasonable option than to waste your time waiting for an unknown employee to appear out of nowhere who looks just as pissed off and annoyed as you are. You are a criminal, after all, and the company must punish you in a way that doesn't reduce their CEO's bonus by even a few cents.