Stop Stealing My Toys

Hey, Zob remembered that he had a blog.

I will freely admit that creepy Internet stalkers tend to be a major turn-off for me. Please, creepy Internet stalkers, please try to find some other way to pass the time. Like toilet-training your cats or declawing your children. (What's bizarre is that, even though it's been about eight years, I won't have to update my profile page. Strange how some things never change.)

What hasn't changed in the interim: I'm still working retail; I still have an uncomfortably large number of cats (for our purposes, "uncomfortably large" is a whole number between zero and four); I still have way too many toys and yet always seem to find a reason to buy more (in my defense, I have sold off a very small number of expensive collectibles, but I estimate they comprised less than one percent of The Collection with a capital "C," and I'll give you three guesses what I bought with the proceeds [hint: made of plastic with an average of 20 points of articulation]).

What has changed: I've remarried and have two more kids. My son, Freakshow, is five-and-a-half and my daughter, Booger-Face, is almost 12 months old. (Note: those are not their real names.) I'm also the supervisor over the toy department at work, which is a source of enormous satisfaction and frustration for me.

I found myself struck with an overwhelming urge to write something and disperse it into the ether. My desire to share my words with the whole of the Internet is probably woefully misgudied, since I'll likely never reach my target audience (i.e., the random customers with whom I am rather upset right now). I have read that the act of writing can be remarkably cathartic, however, and there's also the distant hope that by pure serendipity, my words may have unforseen results and end up reaching someone I've never met in person and likely never will. This is my roundabout way of saying, yes, I realize that the people I am about to address will never see this.

First, some background information. Yes, as a manager of the toy department, it's my job to play with toys all day. That goes without saying. I am also charged with numerous ancillary responsibilities, which include "zoning" the department (that's shop talk for cleaning up after people who seem to think it's okay to leave merchandise all over the floor), ordering product, managing prices, and maintaining the inventory. That last one is of particular significance since the inventory can be affected by myriad different factors——boxes that come to the store with the wrong label, damaged product being processed incorrectly, audits to the stockroom, and theft can all affect the numbers in the store's computer system. Accurate numbers are vital because the store's computer will order new product, or ask for product to be brought from the stockroom to the salesfloor, based on whether it thinks we've run out of merchandise on the shelf. (As an aside, I do not for an instant genuinely believe that the computer is genuinely capable of sentient thought. I anthromomorphize because it amuses me to do so, and prevents me from having to explain more retail jargon like "pick lists" or "shelf caps." Also, the store computer's name is probably HAL.)

So what I am getting at is that it's a difficult process to get the computer inventory to match up what we actually have in the store. In theory, the number we have sitting in the backroom plus the number sitting on the shelf should add up to the total count that's reflected in the computer inventory. Sadly, this is not always the case with one hundred percent frequency. What happens instead is any number of possibilities. There are mystery cases of inventory floating around in the backroom, not being tracked by the computer. The product that actually is sitting in the stockroom bins is labeled wrong, so the freight monkeys have told the computer that there is only a case of twelve action figures when there are in fact 24 or 48. Retail theft also affects the inventory, because shoplifters very rarely bother to let me know, "Hey, I just pocketed a dozen of your bike repair kits, packaging and all, so you'll need to zero out your counts."

It is this subject that prompted me to write today, since the rampant theft is driving me bananas. Two items, in particular, seem to suffer from being targeted right now. One of them is the MegaBloks brand blind-packed mini-figures from Halo, based on the popular video game. The other is a toy line called Zerbos, which comes packaged in opaque vending machine style capsules and contains tiny figurines from popular licenses like Power Rangers and Marvel Comics. I routinely find dozens of packages from both toy assortments every week, and I think perhaps the appeal is that they are small (which makes them easy to conceal) and easy to open (the Halo toys come in a baggie, so if you can open a bag of Doritos then you've got it figured out). The Zerbos are of particular concern to me since they retail at a whopping ninety-seven cents. People, if you can't even afford to pay a dollar (the lowest functional increment of our currency without delving into pocket change), then what the heck are you doing in my store in the first place?!

I have decided to inactivate the Halo toys at my store, which will effectively block the computer (or anyone else) from ordering further shipments of this product. What this means is that because of one or two people who seem to have an oblique entitlement complex and believe that they should get things for free (on the condition that the package is easy to open, of course), nobody else who shops at my store will have the opportunity to purchase this product. This will probably not be a life-shattering revelation for anyone on the face of the planet (does anyone really need a one-inch-tall representation of Master Chief that can interact with LEGO sets?) but it bothers me that I've been forced to resort to extreme measures. Far more of these things are being stolen than are actually being sold at the cash registers, though, and part of my job also entails managing "shrink" (anything that results in losses to the store).

The only other thing I want to address right now is people hiding merchandise in my department. Some customers seem to think that they have their own personal no-down-payment layaway, which just happens to be located on the bottom shelf in the middle of the toy cars aisle right behind the Disney/Pixar remote-controlled Lightning McQueens. The other day I found a stash of Hot Wheels cars that I suppose some potential customer thought they might come back for later. Hot Wheels cars, incidentally, retail for $0.97. Again, if you can't afford to buy this stuff, then don't even come into my store. Seriously. (What people perhaps do not realize is that if I can't find something on the shelf, then I'm going to assume it's sold. Our store is going through inventory tomorrow and there's stuff that's up and disappeared completely. Hiding merchandise is technically theft by deception. If the RGIS people can't find it, then it's going to get zeroed out in our system.)

People justify retail theft in any number of ways. They say it's not really hurting anyone; that doing so is "sticking it to the man" by ripping off the Big Box Retailers; that it's only a miniscule dollar amount so it's not "really" stealing. (I reserve a special hatred for people who take only one mechanical pencil out of a package of twelve. Really, just grow some balls and take the whole dozen.) What I would like y'all to do is stop and think about what's going to happen when the plain-clothes loss prevention associates pull you aside and have you arrested. Ask yourself if the merchandise you're taking is really worth a steep fine and possible jail time. Also, after you take it back out of your pants pocket, put the damn product back on the shelf. I'm tired of cleaning up after you.