The one major downside to working in asset protection or loss prevention is, you lose the urge to go shopping. You just don’t want to do it. On your day off, the last thing you want to do is go to a mall where people are shopping. My girlfriend does not even ask me to go shopping with her anymore. She says it’s too frustrating. She’s trying on clothes and I’m pointing out who’s stealing. It drives her nuts.
Also, I hate those little women’s stores, you know the ones that have two salesgirls working, and the store is three thousand square feet. They have these fake cameras and all these signs about prosecuting thieves. Yeah right. Who’s watching those cameras?
It had happened to me so many times with my girlfriend I could not take it anymore. We were in one of those stores and there was only one salesgirl, I guess the other was on her break. My girlfriend was in the fitting room and these two large black women were trying to get the salesgirl to go into the stock room to look for merchandise they knew the store did not have.
I could not take it anymore; I just blurted out that the store did not have the merchandise because the shipment would not arrive until the next weekend. I pulled out my badge and called the salesgirl by her name, which freaked her out (it was on her name tag), informed her that I had been sent to watch the store because of the losses. The two black women, as well as a couple of white women, saw that badge and headed straight out the door.
The sales clerk started to sweat because she really thought I had been sent by their corporate office, which told me she probably was ripping the store off too. My girlfriend came out, noticed the store was empty, and, immediately said, “What did you do?”
That was my last shopping trip with her. As for me, if the store I work for does not have it, I’ll order it online.