A life of crime...

With jobs that I have held in the past, I have seen some interesting things. When I first moved here and was working for a convenience store, one of the news stations decided to do a in-depth report about gas drive-offs. Dealing with them is not fun if you are the person that is working when it happens. Depending on the company, they may make you pay for the lost gas purchases. I had been written up by my manager for having alot of them. All I can say is that if a bus is in the first row of gas pumps and you can't see behind it, how is that my fault?!?!

The best part about the newscast was not the fact that they were filming actual customers driving off without paying for their gas, but the fact that the police chief actually made a statement that they don't really care about drive-offs. Yes! Thank you so much. You have just told everyone watching that it's okay to drive off without paying for your gas!

I think that my favorite drive-off story is this couple who were successful one of my last days at the store while I was in Wisconsin. They totally did this intentionally as they had put mud on their liscense plate to block off the last number. They parked at the farthest gas pump that was closest to the parking lot exit. He pumps the gas and she comes inside to make other purchases. I asked if she had gas, not shocked when she said no. I figured that he'd come in to get that. Not unheard of and pretty common when I think about it. So she walks out the door and trys to go into stealth mode. Yeah. Pretty obvious when almost the entire store front is windows and she slowly walks to the left of the doors while watching what we are doing inside. As I am pretty much by myself, it's hard to leave the register to catch her. Got the plate for what I could see that wasn't covered by mud. She gets to the car and they drive off. Yeah. Gotta give them credit for pulling it off. I did report it to the police, but it was one of those..."well, we'll send them a letter and they have 30 days to respond to the letter." What the crap? A letter really works.

The other store I worked at in Wisconsin was just a blast. It seemed to be the Friday/Saturday night hang out for the local high school kids. There was a short order restaurant in this store and they would hang out in the restaurant and make a huge mess and then just leave. One night, two of the ususal mess makers decided that they would steal some beer. We sold the liter bottles as well as the 12-packs. The liters were their intended target. The person in the restaurant comes running up to the register and tells me that there is a kid back by the beer door with his pants down. I, of course am flabbergasted by this as I couldn't beleive that someone would actually do that. I had her hang out by me so that we could catch the little culprit. I did, but things went wrong. He came up to the register and you could so tell that he put the bottle in his pants. There is no way that the bulge I saw was real. Give me a break. So I have him sit down in the restaurant. I loved the look that I got for him being caught. His friend left. He tells me that he has to get something and before I know it he is out the door. The next thing I see is this guy in a white shirt running down the sidewalk. Unfortunately, I couldn't catch him, however, I did manage to tell him that he couldn't come back the next time that he came in. No more public exposure priveledges for you!

One more shoplifting story before I go...

So once I moved here, I worked at the same chain of stores in a very scary area. I have to say that the store I was at was the only in it's area that didn't get held up. It was a pretty common occurance. It was also in a lower-income neighborhood. I would get upset as some of the parents would send their 4 year olds over to the store to get them their king size candy bar and a liter of pop. Okay, did I mention the fact that the child has to cross a very, very busy street? So this particular child would wander in the store. Never really thought much about it, but once I realized what he might have been doing, I watched him like a hawk. He and one of his little friends decided to shop lift. I caught them as they were about to go out the door. Held them captive behind the register until the police showed up. They had a large bag of cheetos and some other stuff that they had shoved in their jackets. As I am waiting for the officer to show up, this older woman sees them and asks me what they did. I told her exactly what they did. She shocked me by asking me if she could give them each a dollar. What the crap? I asked her why she wanted to pay them for shoplifting. Her response was that they didn't know what they did. I argued with her about that for about 5 minutes. I eventually gave up and they each earned a dollar for stealing. Hmmm...the message that I got was "look...people will give you money if you steal. It's okay." I was so mad. So the little theives were standing there and laughing and having a fun time. I got mad and told them that they had better be quiet or I'd take the money away from them. The best part of this was that once the officer did arrive, he recognized one of them and told me that he's had problems with him before. A 4 YEAR OLD!!! The only thing I could do was tell them that they were no longer allowed in the store. The did get a ride in the police car home though.

Until next time...