Supermarket anger

[fbhjr]

Because we had done the video taping yesterday, I didn’t get the shopping done. So, today I went to the market that is very close to where we live.

They have this system where you check out a scanner when you go into the store, scan your groceries as you take them off the shelf and put them right into a bag in your cart.
For me, that saves a lot of time as I just scan the scanner at the self serve register and it loads it all in for me.
Once in a while it calls for help and someone has to come and do a spot check of things to make sure I didn’t take things and not scan them, but that only happens a few times a year.

Today was pretty normal. I pushed my cart through the store scanning things and putting them in bags.
As I went down the frozen foods aisle a woman wearing a store uniform came up to me and said something about my bags.
They aren’t from that store, they’re bright red and from the Chinese take out we often get. (You’ve seen the cookies….)

"Oh, they’re from that place over in Westboro," I said, showing the icon on one.
"No, what’s in that one," she said, pointing to the one on top.
"Oh, that’s a blueberry pie," I said. "There is a display of them in your bakery section, that’s where I go it."
I pointed back to the bakery section, thinking she wanted to get herself a pie.

"No," she said. "You didn’t scan that when you put it in your bag."
"Yes, I did," I responded. "I scan everything and listen for the beep it makes when it adds it."
"No! You didn’t scan that, you just put it in your bag."
"I did scan it."
"No! You did not!"
I held out the scanner that displays the last 5 or so things scanned on the top.
"Look for yourself," I told her.

She looked at it. I had only scanned 2 or 3 things since then, so it must have been there.
"Oh," she said, and stood there frowning at me.
"I am prepared to listen to your apology," I said.
"What?"
"You stopped my shopping to accuse me of stealing something from this store. I have shown you proof you were wrong about that. I am waiting for you to give me an apology for that."
"Oh," she said again and turned to walk away.
"Ma’am, you don’t understand," I said, raising my voice. I’m sure everyone around us could hear. "You falsely accused me of being a thief. If you don’t apologize now, we are both going to your manager so I can put in a formal complaint about you."
"Oh…sorry," she mumbled and continued to walk away.

I’m and old, fat, rich white guy. This person had an accent that makes me think they weren’t born in the area as I was.
So, part of me is worried I’m acting as an entitled rich guy in this.

But, they came up to me with this. They didn’t tell their manager to check my stuff. This wasn’t a random audit that the computer flagged to double check my order.
40 years ago when I worked at a supermarket, the procedure I was told was you tell your manager if you see something like this. If I had confronted a customer like this my manager would have fired me on the spot, quite probably even if I was right.

You can think whatever you like about the customers, but if you go up to one and accuse them of stealing, you have to apologize if you’re wrong.

When I was young, I used to get accused of shoplifting all the time. I never did. And, it always made me angry when I was accused of it.

And, I get angry if I see people trying to steal things too. Back when I worked at a supermarket, there are times I went to my manager and said "That guy put a bag of cookies under his jacket!"
One time I was helping an older woman carry her groceries to the car and a store security person stopped us because she had been seen putting stuff in her purse.
I understand it happens.

The first thing I checked when the receipt printed was that pie was on there. It was easy as they list things by department and bakery is first.

I didn’t get mad when she accused me of it. I showed her it wasn’t true and expected her to say "sorry, I must have missed it" or something like that. I would have been annoyed, but that’s it.
But, not apologizing for getting this wrong really makes me angry.

That pie was less than 3% of the groceries I bought today. (OK, 2.53792%.. You know I did the math, right?)
I’m not saying if you buy a lot you get to steal stuff. You don’t.
And, maybe she thought I had stolen a lot more from that cart than just a pie.
But, of all the times I’ve been picked for a random check, I have never been found to have anything not scanned in my things. Because, I don’t steal things. If the scanner doesn’t work right, which is often true, I check and make sure it is working before I put an item in the bag.
Two weeks ago the scanner jammed so badly I had to take it to the service desk and get a new one. And, got flagged for an inspection on check out on top of it.

But, if you have a customer who has a cart filled to the top and is standing in another department scanning things before putting them in their bags, you should be really sure they’re stealing before you accuse them.
And, if you’re wrong, you should apologize.