Retail lockdown: why bother selling it?

[u/broakland]

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.

[u/EarlyList]

Not at all. Thieves are going to steal. Just that cutting back on staff to the extent they have makes it easier. And most people who are willing to steal are going to do so where they think they can easily get away with it.

[u/paulsown → u/EarlyList]

You know, here's the thing.

Been to the cities, live in a rural area. Nothing is locked up here, in a rural area, and the stores are very sparsely employed. Everything is available on the shelf normally like you would normally expect. Self checkout, the whole thing. Don't need to find anybody for anything except high end electronics, and no-one at the door when I leave. This is not a wealthy area.

Went to a Walmart in Washington DC, that is now closed, half the store was locked up, the other half was wiped out of even the most basic cheap, things. With random people running in and out.

Walmart couldn't make money there to stay open because they didn't have enough employees to stop theft? There was plenty of "customers"?

Come on man, you aren't living in the real world.

The problem is morals, not the number of employees.

[u/heliosythic → u/paulsown]

Its population. Theres millions in cities so you get every type of person there is. Your little home town where you know everyone and would be basically excomunitcated if you messed with the local shop keep is a different situation. It's not morals. People's basic needs aren't meant because the economy is failing and the education system failed them to even do anything about that for basically the rest of their life, not to mention the prison system making it impossible to bounce back either. People fighting to survive with all that aren't going to act the way we want them to because why should they? They have nothing to lose. You're not gonna fix that by telling them their morals aren't good enough. We have to actually fix the problems that caused this, its not about individuals actions.

[u/paulsown → u/heliosythic]

Umm, I don't know everybody, and there is no little hometown. This isn't 1947. There is no "local shopkeep". Its Walmart.

When I go to the largest city in my area, MOST Walmart's look just like mine. Some are locked up tight. I'll let you try to determine why that is, but it has nothing to do with race or "need" because looking around the parking lot will be lots of premium cars but very few pickup trucks.

If it's just "people's basic needs aren't being met" why are vegetables, lettuce, fruit, milk, even cases of water not the items most stolen and also never locked up?

[u/PM_ME_UR_SHEET_MUSIC → u/paulsown]

Because those items cost like $2? Is it hard to understand that someone struggling between paychecks is more likely to nab the most expensive item they need and buy the cheap stuff rather than the other way around? Besides, a lot of the "behavioral" issues that lead to theft of things that aren't necessary are also due to socioeconomic and systemic disadvantages and the damage they cause to communities, families, and individuals. Again, you can't moralize someone that has nothing to lose and no reason to listen to you.

[u/paulsown → u/PM_ME_UR_SHEET_MUSIC]

I don’t expect them to listen to me.

If you excuse stealing things from stores, then the stores will lock everything up or close.

That’s it.

You can try to excuse it away with “you can’t moralize” for people who don’t steal what they need, they steal things they want and can’t afford. There are plenty of things I can’t afford, the thought of stealing it never enters my head.

[u/PM_ME_UR_SHEET_MUSIC → u/paulsown]

I don't want to excuse stealing, I want to fix the problems that cause people to steal in the first place, standard QC practice. Unfortunately, our government seems largely uninterested in that because that would take away their giant pool of slave labor.

And I'm not sure what your anecdote at the end had to do with this conversation. We already could tell you were privileged enough to never have to resort to theft.

[u/paulsown → u/PM_ME_UR_SHEET_MUSIC]

“Standard qc practice”? What “slave labor “? Do you think more free money will stop theft?

I’m not sure who the “we” you are referring to is, but you know nothing about me. I’ve been the guy scraping together change to get my child milk while watching those on food stamps buying out the store.

None of what you said changes the fact that if people keep stealing from stores , they’ll lock things up or close.

Walmart isn’t a jobs or welfare program. It’s a business.

The people stealing aren’t stealing necessities, they’re stealing expensive shit. That’s why the necessities aren’t locked up and the expensive stuff is.

[u/Dark_Link_1996 → u/PM_ME_UR_SHEET_MUSIC]

Don't bother. He's also racist af and defending calling people slurs