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Comment by chris11 | Hacker News Reader

> From experience inside a major retail chain at the national level, this is the story of retail theft in general.

I thought it was common at some places, like Target, to track but not report shoplifting until it qualified for a felony. Then once the shoplifter had stolen enough to be charged for a felony they were prosecuted.

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Years ago, I worked for a regional discount retail chain, in the Loss Prevention department (my job was installing cameras and other low-voltage systems). The focus of LP there (and probably at most retail places) was internal theft. They would try to discourage shoplifting, but employees stealing represented much bigger losses.

I remember hearing one of the guys reviewing video tape saying that they were tallying up a bunch of thefts (in this case, the subject was a cashier, and he was pretending to ring up items for his friends and family, but not really scanning it). The kid was 17, going to turn 18 in a couple weeks. The guy reviewing the tape joked about how the tally would be $1000 shortly after his birthday, when he would be an adult: "Happy birthday, you're under arrest for grand larceny".

It was sickening. I enjoyed my job, and I didn't mind if criminals were caught and prosecuted, but the attitude that led to jokes like that didn't sit well with me.

> employees stealing represented much bigger losses

This is why the Walmart "greeters" have their backs to the door and insist on evaluating your property after purchase to sniff out rogue cashiers helping a friend slip by with unpaid goods.

To parent comment and yours, I think it's that the work vs results only merited pursuing it if it were a higher charge. There were enough organized theft rings that it kept loss prevention busy, without doing reams of paperwork for misdemeanor theft.

And yes, internal theft is a huge issue. Because retail salaries usually don't compare favorably with the kickback you could get out of running a return scam, etc.

As to the kid and the joke, I'd like to think it's black humor. You can only wade in the squalor of people repeatedly and constantly making shitty moral decisions for so long before you start seeing all people like that. And at that point, all you can do is joke.

I mean, what, best case you alert the kid you're onto him. And then what? Better than even odds he tries again anyway.

> It was sickening. I enjoyed my job, and I didn't mind if criminals were caught and prosecuted, but the attitude that led to jokes like that didn't sit well with me.

Sounds more like dark humor. If one had a job like that for too long, watching people get off scott free much of the time, I’m sure more than a little bit of dark humor would develop.

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