To catch a pervert...

Despite upper management’s obsession about it, shoplifting at the store is pretty rare. I’ve only experienced it once and there has only been a handful of other incidents that have occurred when my coworkers were working. This doesn’t mean we’re catching everyone who steals from the store, but considering the diligence we’re expected to watch people with, customer theft should be one of the lowest items of concern for the owner. Employee theft is much more common and I’d estimate anything stolen is ten to twenty times more likely to have been stolen by someone who receives a paycheck from the store.

Having said this, we are a target for college hazing rituals.

Some of them are pretty tame. One group of guys came in with a fraternity pledge and took photos of him picking out a video and attempting to punch the 350 pound Bill (who couldn't understand why the photo was so funny). A small group of young women once came in and each had to purchase a vibrator. They were all beet-red and the chattiest of the group explained to me that they all had to return to the sorority house with something from the store.

Other times, it’s incredibly annoying. This week, two guys came in during a particularly busy Friday night. They looked suspicious and I spent the entire time staring them down. When the line of customers was three people deep, one of them grabbed a vibrator off a display close to the door and ran out, setting off our incredibly loud security system. A group of his friends were already in the car, but couldn’t get junker started before I grabbed the thief.

If you really want to know how tough someone is, you need to see how they react when they get caught breaking the law. The would-be thief was close to tears when he explained that this was part of his requirements to join the frat and that his future brothers in the car had made him shoplift as a part of joining the frat.

Baring a full-on robbery at gunpoint, we’re instructed to avoid calling the police at all costs. In situations like this, we’re supposed to make the thief pay for what they tried to steal and tell them they'll be arrested if they ever come back to the store.

Unfortunately the young thief in this incident didn't have enough cash to buy the vibrator (he had expensive taste). I told his “friends” that one of them could pay for the vibrator or I could call the cops. After a few tense seconds, one of the frat boys came out of the car and said he’d pay. The best part of this story is that there was still a line to check out and everyone in the store had seen the guy run out of the store after he set off the alarm. The two of them had to stand and wait for everyone else to finish checking out, and then we slowly ran the card while Bill lectured the guy about how lucky he was that we weren't calling the cops.

I don’t know if this hoodlum pledge made it into the fraternity, but part of me hopes that he withdrew his application. If not, he most certainly has a terrible frat nickname related to the shoplifting incident. 

Never cry at a porn store.