BuzzerBeater Forums

Wait. Is it your job, to follow people around who might shoplift?

Or is it your job to fold clothes, put them on display, and ring out customers?

Troy and Shikago are right dude.
Not your job description.
Edit: my job is to assist therapeutic strategies for the kids where I am at. Not to make diagnosis, or recommend medicine changes, or say "(therapist), (client) is not making any strides for the better, this s--- needs to change".

He didn't follow them around or call the cops. From what I see, he noticed something that could potentially be a shoplifter, and notified management of it, and in his own words, went back to his register. The reason there are managers in the first place is to properly handle situations like this - and if how this was posted is how it went down, I'd have a lot more fault for the manager calling the police needlessly than for the employee notifying management of a potential concern.

So, trying on clothes is potentially shoplifting now? I mean, I can see the logic, I know what size I am and don't try things on... but that poses a serious problem for a lot of people.

Sure the manager could of handled differently... but if the guy is wearing the shirt, and in the store for a half hour... odds are near 0% he's a shoplifter. In a half hour, PLENTY of camera's have seen you, so its not like you can be an in and out guy, which is the point of shoplifting.

If I were the customer, I would file a complaint too, course, as a customer, the complaint would have been against the store/manager, and not some retail jockey employee. I would not even notice the retail employee unless they were following me, or made a comment that struck a chord on me where I would check their name tag and remember it.

I think there is more to the story than we are being told. But yes, I feel his complaint, valid. But as someone else said. Complaints against you, usually mean your doing your job right.

So, trying on clothes is potentially shoplifting now? I mean, I can see the logic, I know what size I am and don't try things on... but that poses a serious problem for a lot of people.

Sure the manager could of handled differently... but if the guy is wearing the shirt, and in the store for a half hour... odds are near 0% he's a shoplifter. In a half hour, PLENTY of camera's have seen you, so its not like you can be an in and out guy, which is the point of shoplifting.

If I were the customer, I would file a complaint too, course, as a customer, the complaint would have been against the store/manager, and not some retail jockey employee. I would not even notice the retail employee unless they were following me, or made a comment that struck a chord on me where I would check their name tag and remember it.

I think there is more to the story than we are being told. But yes, I feel his complaint, valid. But as someone else said. Complaints against you, usually mean your doing your job right.

Trying on clothes isn't a sign of shoplifting. Heck, wearing them out of the changing booths might not be. But remember the original poster didn't say he'd alerted the manager after a half hour - he saw the person walking in the unpurchased clothes (quite possibly shortly after the customer exited the booth) and told the manager at that point.

Almost all of my retail experience was in grocery stores and I've personally been out of that for over a decade, so I'm not sure what the standards are for situations like this. I can say that if this is what happened, I'd have a huge problem with the manager, and if I had been the person who filed the complaint it would have gone to a higher level than the establishment itself (unless it's a single outlet, at which case I would have wanted to speak to a manager of a different shift). I agree that there could very well be more that we're not being told, but at this point I think I'd rather just focus on giving advice to the original poster and if the manager chooses to come on here to give the other side of the story, I'll adjust accordingly. ;)

I worked at a clothing store at a mall for a short time in college, it sucked. Anyway, shoplifting was extremely common, especially the items that someone can stuff in your pocket or purse like perfumes. I think there was a study that showed that most people don't go into a store with the intention to shoplift, they just do it because the opportunity arises and they think they can get away with it. Mall there are no security, department stores they have the "loss prevention" people so regular employees don't worry about it, I assume he is describing a mall situation.

The employees at our store were taught to make a "recovery statement" when they suspected someone planning to shoplift an item. Recovery statement is when you walk up to the person, lets say they have grabbed a shirt and appear on their way out the door, and you say something like "Hey just a reminder if you get 2 shirts you get bla bla." The idea is to let the person know that you are aware that they have the item, so there is a chance that he or she will put it back or whatever because they know u know. But yea they told us never to call the police, they would rather have people steal a few items a day then have police show up at the store and get a bad reputation, so idk what this manager was thinking.

My question would be... how could the customer file a complaint against you when you never approached nor confronted the customer face-to-face (based on your explanation of the situation). If you didn't directly approach the customer, then the complaint couldn't possibly apply solely towards you. Sounds like someone passed the buck.