On 8/2/2013 10:42 PM, DerbyDad03 wrote:
Frank wrote:
On 8/2/2013 3:48 PM, wrote:
On Friday, August 2, 2013 7:36:40 AM UTC-4, Stormin Mormon wrote:
The once or twice I've been in womens clothing stores for repairs, they
have made effort to count the number of items that go in to the fitting
rooms. Still, they appear to lose a lot of items due to theft. That's a
real shame, that peoples morality is going down hill like that.

Shoplifting has been going on as long as there have been shops.

In fact it's probably not as prevalent now as it has been in the past
because of surveillance and electronic security devices.

The key is not spending more on security than you lose in theft. If you
spend $50,000 a year to prevent the loss of $38,000 of product, you may
as well let them take the stuff.

You can take the moral indignation high road but sometimes the moral
indignation high road leads to bankruptcy.


Before I retired, the company was employing more and more contract
workers at the lab site I was at. Real PITA. Even though they increased
security, theft losses doubled. Night janitors were a real problem and
even though they had to walk through the gate and open their lunch boxes,
stuff disappeared. I'm told of spotting tracks in the snow on either
side of the fence where stuff was tossed over.
I was waiting for a lock to be put on a lab balance (also contractors)
and forgot to lock it up and it was stolen. Cost me a half day with the
paperwork and investigation. Contract electricians, millwrights and
painters caused me lots of grief but I guess the company thought it was worth it.

I used to work with a HVAC maintenance guy who wore one of those blue denim
shop jackets with big pockets, every day, rain or shine, hot or cold. His
reason:

On the days he wanted to take small items from the "open parts bins" (nuts,
bolts, etc.) it wouldn't look weird if he suddenly wore a jacket. If he
wore the jacket everyday, no one would suspect him of stealing like they
would if he showed up wearing it on a random 90 degree day.

Think about that. He wasn't planning on stealing stuff everyday, but he was
dressing so that he could do so whenever he wanted to without raising
suspicion. What a strange way to go through life.


There is an old story most likely apocryphal about a factory worker who
rolled a wheelbarrow filled with sand out the gate every day he worked
at the factory. The guard always stopped him and dug through the sand
slinging the sand every where but never found anything hidden in the
sand. On the factory workers last day on the job, he exited the gate
without his customary wheelbarrow. Upon seeing this, the guard stopped
him and said, "I know you were stealing something all these years, so
tell me before I go nuts." The factory worker answered, "wheelbarrows".
^_^