Supermarket question

[hopewrites]

Bewitched cashier will take the rap for mission cash whether its their fault or not

 

[Jo Zebedee]

depends if it happens over a range of cashiers on different days...

 

[Hex]

I'm afraid my witch isn't a very nice person.

 

[Mouse]

Edit: structured what, Mouse?

Cabling. You know, as in 'cables.' Yes, my job is that dull.

(You wouldn't believe how many people think 'cabling' is pronounced 'cabbling')

Sorry, back to supermarkets... Mum also wears a badge that says exactly how long she's been working there.

 

[Hex]

She does have a name badge, doesn't she?

If so: do you get name badges with your full name -- e.g. Jane Smith or could you get one saying Ms Smith? or is it up to you?

 

[Mouse]

Yep. Mum's just says Jane (that is her name!) and under it, I think it has the date she started working there, rather than the number of years. Also has her job role on it.

 

[Hex]

Brilliant brilliant. Thank you.

 

[Ursa major]

Why does nobody ever want to know about structured cabling, eh? Eh?

It sounds to me that whenever it appears in a story, the author panics and does a rewrite. (So the issue is ducked....)


Regarding supermarket stock, I expect quite a lot of stuff is simply walked out of the door. I myself have done it, by mistake: a pack of six rashers of thick-cut unsmoked back bacon. I'd left it in the shopping trolley while scanning** the other items, out of sight below my surplus transparent bags***. As I had quite a lot of shopping, I put the paid-for items back in the trolley and wheeled them to my car. Which is where I found the bacon. (Being the sort of person I am, I went back and paid for the bacon.)

The store is a Tesco Extra - one of the big ones that sells clothes and allows you to collect items bought at tesco.com - so I find it hard to believe that small amounts of goods could be traced unless a special look out (done live or by going through the recordings) was made.

Oh, and I often pop in there and find that they don't have what I'm looking for - it's probably been nicked - so I walk straight out again. No-one has ever stopped me.


** - I almost always use the self-service tills.

*** - The ones you can get in the fruit and veg section. (I tend to put refrigerated items in these bags.)

 

[TheDustyZebra]

She would definitely want to just walk it out the door invisibly, rather than doing something involving having it scanned and not paying -- the register will be balanced at least daily, no matter what store it is. If the money is not right when the till is balanced, it will be noticed.

Anything that just walks out the door will take longer to be noticed (on the order of a week, minimum, I would guess) and much longer to have anything done about it. If they do an "empty shelf audit" as it's called here, that's probably weekly -- that's when they check the holes on the shelf to see if there is more stock of those items in the back or on order, and place orders for things they are out of -- they will notice a discrepancy in what is on hand versus what the computer thinks is on hand; this is assuming that the inventory is computerized. A few weeks of that, and they will be paying attention to the fact that this item is going missing frequently, but it's still hard to determine how.

Regardless of all that, the customers are not likely to ever know -- stores will not let loss problems become public, as it's bad for business.

 

[David Evil Overlord]

Probably better to slip out invisibly - but would witchy invisibility fool those scanner alarm thingies that go off when alarmed goods walk out of the store?

Perhaps your invisible witch should learn from her first mistake, and from then on follow someone else out of the store. The followed person gets blamed for the alarm/searched/found to be innocent/sues the manager, while witchy thief slips past unnoticed...

 

[mtzGr]

She could get away very easily by walking out as if the groceries had been paid for; there is very little, if any, security in most of the bigger supermarkets. If she were to bring in her own bags to put the groceries in, disguise herself when it suited her, and rotate between a number of different supermarkets so as to not raise suspicion at any of them, she'd be able to keep it up for quite sometime before the supermarket would be able to identify her, or take any real action.

Maybe she has a close call (or a number of them where shes got to run), or even gets caught by the police after the whole thing is routine and she becomes complacent, or however it is you were wanting to tie this in to the story.

Probably better to slip out invisibly - but would witchy invisibility fool those scanner alarm thingies that go off when alarmed goods walk out of the store?

Supermarkets don't magnetize their goods (at least in the U.S.), so walking out with groceries would not set off the alarm. The most security I've seen is a security guard at an independent supermarket.

 

[Hex]

Mmm. See, my witchy witch has been doing this for ages (although I am slightly worried that there's only one supermarket in the town she's in) and when the story starts -- ages, maybe years, after she started -- she's just about to have her first encounter with being caught.

The idea is she's not especially smart or careful but she can do magic and of course no one actually believes magic is real so she gets away with murder (not literally).

I suppose if she had been caught in the past she could have changed the memories of the people who caught her.

Thank you for this -- it's been really helpful.

 

[MemoryTale]

Ah. Then I may have to rethink some of the details.

This is brilliant. Thank you!

Um... anyone know the colour of shirt Tesco checkout people wear (blue or check blue/ white?)

Edit: structured what, Mouse?

Having worked as a cleaner in Tesco, I'd think a good way of your witchy thief getting away with it is to beweitch the janitor. The janitor either records the barcodes of broken goods and hands it in to be wasted, or produces an unbroken item to be scanned and wasted in place of the broken one. It's so commonplace no questions are asked.

Well, £60 in one night would raise eyebrows, but your witch could always go in six times a week and nick a tenner's worth of stuff this way.

 

[Brev]

OK -- to tweak my question a little -- would you regard it as utterly implausible that a branch of Tesco's could be losing sixty odd pounds worth of groceries a week and that no one had noticed -- or that there hadn't been a massive fuss that was obvious to the customers, anyway?

Edited to say: she's not going to be caught in any of the ways listed. So the groceries are just vanishing.

I worked for a couple of Supermarkets while I put myself though Uni, and shoplifting/shrinkage was always a concern. But, I don't think any branch would necessarily miss specific items unless they were regularly completing an audit or a stock-take.
The 'types' of shoplifters who get spotted/caught are the obvious ones. I remember one case where an elderly couple visited the store every Saturday morning and spent about two hours shuffling round the shop gathering up their weekly supplies. Because they had been coming for so long, and were so regular in their routine they knew many of the staff by name, and would often ask for assistance. And yes, they were stealing the whole time, sneaking stuff under his mobility scooter and into her wheeled bag. By the time they were caught they had been regulars for years, taking thousands of pounds worth of stock, but no one ever noticed because to look at them, well...
They were also clever in that they always bought some stuff, so nobody had any reason to be suspicious. If your Witch is a store regular, but never seen to be paying for things she might be caught out quicker.

 

[Boneman]

Was it on here, the article about supermarkets turning us all into a bunch of thieves? (As though we didn't have free-will...) because they were making is easier and easier for us to nick stuff? Apparently you pick up two items at the self-check out in one hand, scan the cheapest, and place both items simultaneously in your bag. Voila, one free item. Apparently, the 'help' who hovers always assumes it's the machine's fault if it says 'call for assistance' and just swipes his override card.

I guess you could get £60 a week out if you're choosing luxury/expensive items. I'd go for magic - have her walk backwards witha trolley full that's been invisibleised... or summat.

 

[Montero]

BTW Some supermarkets do have a no trolley beyond this point line -with bollards - and the wheels lock if you try to take the trolley beyond that point.
So there is usually a clutter of wheel-locked trolleys waiting for someone to come and unlock them and take them back closer to the store. Possibility for something else to go wrong for her.

If she is totally invisible then wandering in with her own trolley bag (no squeaky wheels or steering problems) and dropping stuff in as she goes would be an answer.
Could also have the situation of the prat thing of dropping something soft in first, pulverising it, and there is a trail of stuff along the floor ending in invisibility....

Not that trolley bags are exactly cool - but they are so much better than carrier bags cutting into your hands if you don't have a car.

 

[David Evil Overlord]

Not that trolley bags are exactly cool - but they are so much better than carrier bags cutting into your hands if you don't have a car.

That's the real reason for her invisibility -- the shame of being seen with the oh, so uncool trolley bag.

 

[AnyaKimlin]

That's the real reason for her invisibility -- the shame of being seen with the oh, so uncool trolley bag.

But ... um ... shopping trolleys are so now, so in ... DEO you are a tad out of touch, pal.

 

[hopewrites]

I've seen some pretty cool trolly bags. All done up with giant fake flowers and old bike horns and bits of vintage bows, pushed by equally (or more) eccentric looking little old ladies. you know the kind. with strange birds for hats and rainbow striped stockings that show through their mostly tulle skirts.

sometimes with flower-boxes planted on the sides. the kind that are meant for windows.

 

[David Evil Overlord]

I've seen some pretty cool trolly bags. All done up with giant fake flowers and old bike horns and bits of vintage bows, pushed by equally (or more) eccentric looking little old ladies. you know the kind. with strange birds for hats and rainbow striped stockings that show through their mostly tulle skirts.

sometimes with flower-boxes planted on the sides. the kind that are meant for windows.

I thought shoplifting witches tried NOT to attract attention with bright colours and flower boxes and bike horns and rainbows and stuff...