Loss Prevention

As a teenage driver, I had to get a job to pay for the gas and maintenance of my car, as well as provide myself with some spending money. My first post-driver's-license job was at an amusement park.  Unfortunately, that job ended when fall progressed to colder days.

My second post-driver’s-license job was a temporary Christmas stocker at a toy store. I did a good enough job that they kept me on after the Christmas season and I transitioned from stocker to cashier, then eventually to head cashier and assistant manager. 

This was way before the days of cameras and item inventory tracking during the sale. The high-tech loss-prevention techniques included an annual inventory of all the stock and a security seal on the supply truck.

I need to describe our sales. Sure, we had box games and even expensive electronic games when they came out, which first happened while I was employed there. However, most of the sales came from stuffed animals, helium balloons and items from the peg wall (inexpensive toys meant to be an impulsive buy - think tabloid magazines at the grocery store checkout lane). It was not uncommon for a cashier to use more than one roll of paper tape in their cash register per shift, with mostly dollar-type transactions.

Anyway, we had a cashier that management suspected of shenanigans, but they couldn’t catch her taking money from the till. We were all required to count out our cash register drawer at the end of our shift and balance it to what the tape said should be in the drawer. In fact, and this may have been illegal in some circumstances, if the drawer was short, we were required to make up the difference.

It was finally figured out that the cashier would enter the price of the item in the register and hit the clear button, open the register, and put the money in the drawer. Then, at the right moment, open the drawer and pull out all the non-recorded cash. This meant she had to keep a running total of the non-recorded transactions so her drawer would balance at the end of her shift. Remember, there were a lot of dollar-type transactions, and those were the least likely to be scrutinized.  She was let go, but they couldn’t prove the theft to prosecute her.

“And he called the people to him again and said to them, “Hear me, all of you, and understand: There is nothing outside a person that by going into him can defile him, but the things that come out of a person are what defile him.” And when he had entered the house and left the people, his disciples asked him about the parable. And he said to them, “Then are you also without understanding? Do you not see that whatever goes into a person from outside cannot defile him, since it enters not his heart but his stomach, and is expelled?” (Thus he declared all foods clean.) And he said, “What comes out of a person is what defiles him. For from within, out of the heart of man, come evil thoughts, sexual immorality, theft, murder, adultery, coveting, wickedness, deceit, sensuality, envy, slander, pride, foolishness. All these evil things come from within, and they defile a person.”” - Mark 7:14-15, 17-23 ESV

I remember, at the time it was explained to me, being amazed that someone could accumulate all those small transactions in her head and take that exact amount of money out of the register while making sure she wasn’t caught. I wondered why someone blessed with that ability would use it to steal rather than apply it legitimately.

“Either make the tree good and its fruit good, or make the tree bad and its fruit bad, for the tree is known by its fruit. You brood of vipers! How can you speak good, when you are evil? For out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks. The good person out of his good treasure brings forth good, and the evil person out of his evil treasure brings forth evil. I tell you, on the day of judgment people will give account for every careless word they speak, for by your words you will be justified, and by your words you will be condemned.” -Matthew 12:33-37

Free will.

PostScript – Almost every retailer these days keeps track of their inventory and sales. The tactics I described would be almost impossible today. However, with new capabilities come new problems, which is why self-checkout lanes are an inventory shrinkage problem for retailers.