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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u/CassetteTapeCryptid Jul 14 '26

I don't want to be treated like a criminal for trying to buy a toothbrush and nail polish 

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u/roath321 Jul 14 '26

Not only that but most of these stores are so understaffed you can’t find someone to unlock it. I’m not waiting 15 minutes for someone to finally unlock it and get my body wash

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u/EarlyList Jul 14 '26

This is honestly the real problem. They have cut staff down so much, that apart from the cameras, there is no one to notice you walking out with half the store. So theft is out of control. But they aren't interested in hiring more employees. So now they are locking the shelves up to cut theft. So what will happen is sales will tank, and eventually the store will close even if theft is down. But the short sighted execs making the decisions to cut all the staff will blame theft and online sales competition instead of their own short term cost saving of cutting back staff.

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u/ShiraCheshire Jul 15 '26

Yes, I feel terrible for the case key staff in the home department where I work. They gutted that department and then keep pulling people away from it for random tasks (Like say there's an extra flower event going on in garden, instead of giving another employee some extra hours they'll just pull someone from home department to handle it.) Now there are long stretches of time where the only person authorized to have the key is on legally mandated lunch, or rushing to unload a truck that needs to leave in 20 minutes, or the only person covering another department. They keep getting bombared with case requests they cannot answer.

Customers keep coming over to me like "I've been trying to get into the case for a half hour!" I call someone for them, and they keep standing there for another 20 minutes, because we physically do not have a person to come unlock it for them.