This shoplifting joke is thanks to the replacement of humans with these terrible self(aka unpaid) scan machines.
Stuff gets put in as bananas, and then weighed. You pay $.29/lb for whatever. And this works beautifully for high price stuff like steaks and the like.
Not that I advocate physical theft, but it's definitely a thing. And it's a thing where more people are being screwed. I sure as hell don't get a "you scan it" discount, officially.
https://losspreventionmedia.com/the-banana-trick-and-other-a...
And there's plenty other 'tricks' aka shoplifting that can be done to little risk, primarily due to companies fucking customers over by making us unpaid employees.
Excuse me while I cry an alligator tear for them
Edit: tough crowd, I see. You all don't get it. Shoplifting has increased by like 600% because companies are getting rid of cashiers. It's corporate greed is what's allowing shoplifting with the thin veneer of 'legitimacy' to happen. (Legitimacy of 'i scanned it but oh well, wrong barcode/plu.)
And I find it funny, because corporate greed is triggering revenge shoplifting, for customers being forced to be unpaid employees. And the u-scan-its are basically idiot jackpot machines with anyone with low ethics.
As a nice bonus, when you open the selection menu, it has the item you want shown up front so you don't have to search for it most of the time.
Do you consider yourself a forced unpaid employee when you go through the checkout screen on Amazon?
This entire thread is depressing.
Go read: https://xkcd.com/488/
Now as for shoplifting, I did not advocate it. I said I found it funny that shoplifting is being multiplied in direct proportion to the greed of the companies (getting rid of cashiers and putting in you-scan devices). Corporate greed is *enabling* customer greed.
When I worked "shit jobs" (read: box stores at 9$/hr), I didn't give one shit if I saw someone steal. My job was to stock shit. I wasn't in LP nor did I want to be. And if someone was stealing, not my goods, not my problem. And not worth bodily injury.
I didn't encourage it, but nor did I attempt to stop it. And then there's classes of shoplifting that I would completely look the other way (baby formula, diapers, baby food, etc). If you're that bad off attempting to steal that, I never saw even if I'm right there.
And yeah, it IS depressing when we talk about humans doing stuff to survive. And this is predominantly about petty theft for food. But talking about how big business intentionally rose all prices for the pandemic: well, business is just business. And the poor pay even more.
https://www.oxfam.org/en/press-releases/pandemic-profits-com...
Ethics (and laws) for thee, but for me.
I don't think grocery stores are very sad about it either: they probably ran some cost-benefit analysis and decided that the friction from increased shoplifting cost X, the salary savings are Y and Y > X.
(1) Value gained
Assuming you steal things that aren't of high value, let's say you steal a bag full of groceries at the supermarket, every day, worth $50. Do this for a year, and you'll have stolen < $20k of goods.
Assuming an annual salary of $100k, if you slack off 75% of your working hours, you'd gain a "windfall" of ~$75k.
Conclusion - the payoff for slacking off is much higher.
(2) Risks and adverse outcomes
Shoplifting is a crime in most jurisdictions. If you get caught, you'll have to deal with law enforcement, even if you don't get prosecuted in the end. That's generally quite unpleasant. If you are prosecuted and found guilty, it tends to make your life quite a bit harder given that many employers are opinionated about hiring people with a criminal record. Not to mention fines or even prison.
If you slack off at work, the worst thing that can happen is a confrontation with your manager, your coworkers look at you funny, and you get fired from the job. This is almost strictly worse than the adverse outcome for shoplifting because if you get convicted of shoplifting there's a good chance you'd lose your job anyway.
Conclusion - the risks and adverse outcomes of shoplifting is much worse.
So in summary, it can be rational to slack off at work but not shoplift for purely selfish reasons.
Does it follow that stealing is only wrong when you steal not enough?
> Shoplifting is a crime in most jurisdictions.
In most jurisdictions where you earn 6 figures slacking off 75% of your time, actually, it either officially or practically isn't. And if you look as clean and upstanding citizen, the chances of you getting off as "this is just a misunderstanding" are very close to 100%.
Corporations complain about shrinkage so much. Shrinkage includes lost items. Shoplifting, and most of all employees stealing. As you noted.
Employees steal more than shoplifters. They are exploited and mentally alienated and isolated with the strict way corporations handle low level employees. Some see they are cogs and the moral system is fugazi.
All workers and lower class will always have more in relation to one another than the capitalist owners or police there to protect capital, property, power.
“Why don’t you shoplift”? I won’t go over what I do in a thread where it can be used against me.
OTOH the American system has stolen from me. I pay my taxes so I expect a balance of the government helping me too not just corporations. Unfortunately I never received any help from the state while others in my situation with more privilege were at least able to get the meager $15K a year from disability so I wouldn’t have had to be r-worded etc for a place to sleep where at least my laptop won’t get stolen (while the state didn’t provide any help). I was a child when I was abandoned by the state.
At the same time, liberal countries enable and help businesses all the time. Look toward austerity and tax breaks since the 80s thru to Biden and Dems not undoing Trump’s cuts.
Have you hears of ethics?