Nov 4, 2021, 2:50 PM
Damn. That was hella entertaining!
Oh, Humanity
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@aria said in Oh, Humanity:
Once you're about 40 miles outside of the city, the quality goes sharply downhill. And the further you go, the more repulsive they become.
Just like bagels and the metropolitan NYC area.
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@roz said in Oh, Humanity:
@aria i've put ranch on cheesesteak in the past and i have no regrets
I mean, you also eat at Sheetz, so.
https://whatiswrongwith.me/Mia
There were never any good old days. They are today. They are tomorrow. It's a stupid thing we say, cursing tomorrow with sorrow. -- Gogol Bordello -
@aria said in Oh, Humanity:
@roz said in Oh, Humanity:
@aria i've put ranch on cheesesteak in the past and i have no regrets
I mean, you also eat at Sheetz, so.
gtf out of here with your wawa bullshit
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@roz said in Oh, Humanity:
@aria said in Oh, Humanity:
@roz said in Oh, Humanity:
@aria i've put ranch on cheesesteak in the past and i have no regrets
I mean, you also eat at Sheetz, so.
gtf out of here with your wawa bullshit
Hey now, don't be bangin' on my Wawa!
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@ominous said in Oh, Humanity:
Why did the woman do that? Was there a reason or was it the standard reason one encounters when dealing with many homeless individuals - some moon logic that only the homeless individual can make sense of?
I'm assuming she was having some sort of mental health crisis, or she was on something, or both, I dunno. I certainly never got an explanation, but I kind of prefer it that way.
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@too-old-for-this said in Oh, Humanity:
@roz said in Oh, Humanity:
@aria said in Oh, Humanity:
@roz said in Oh, Humanity:
@aria i've put ranch on cheesesteak in the past and i have no regrets
I mean, you also eat at Sheetz, so.
gtf out of here with your wawa bullshit
Hey now, don't be bangin' on my Wawa!
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@testament Look here, flyover state....
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Alright. Third and final tale of being on the Retail Front Lines...
At one point, I was an assistant manager at a pet food and supply store in the Piedmont District of Oakland.
Now, first off, for folks not from the Bay Area...whatever you might think of Oakland, it's more than likely wrong. Hey, I was guilty of a lot of misconceptions as well when I first moved there. Anyways, The Piedmont is in the Oakland Hills, and is home to lots of local celebrities, as well as TV and Movie actors. Not going to go into the list, but we did serve several clients you probably would have heard of. Bottom line: it's a very rich area.
Anyways, Thanksgiving week rolled around. We did a healthy business. Normally, we did a weekly cash drop on Thursdays, keeping the week's profits in the office safe. But, banks are closed on Thanksgiving, which is Thursday. So, the plan was to drop the cash on Friday instead. I was in charge of the short shift we had on Thanksgiving Day, it was a half-day for us, did the sroe closing, locked the money in the safe, locked the office, set the alarm, locked up the store, and headed home for Turkey Day dinner. As you do.
I wasn't scheduled for Friday, so I was kind of surprised to be getting a phone call from work, before the store was open. It was the store manager, and she was in a panic. "I need you down here, fast. We had break in last night!"
I get myself to the store. Talk with the manager. Assure her that I set the alarm last night. Then, I get walked through the scene while we were waiting for Oakland PD to arrive...
The store was in a strip mall, with mostly display windows for walls. To one side of the main structure were the double doors leading to our storage/recieving area. What the thieves had done was break one of the display windows near the bottom. Then, they had to push out of the way about 400 lbs of dry cat food bags that were on the rack in front of the window. Okay... They're in. They went through the double swing doors leading to the storage area, and have the Office directly on their left. It's locked. But, the door had a security window in it. They look around for a hammer or something to knock out the window. They settle on using a 40 oz can of dog food as an improvised hammer. Access to the office gained. There's the safe in the corner. The several hundred pound, iron safe with the combination they don't know. But! That doesn't deter them. No, they bring one of our freight dollys into the office, load the safe on the dolly, wheel it out through the loading doors, and drive off with the safe. All told, I think there was @$14,000 in cash from the week, plus things like gift certificates (we hadn't switched to swipe cards yet).
Now, here's were things take a turn into WTF-land...
OPD finally shows up. They call in an investigation unit, take statement, all the basics. It's confirmed with the alarm company that I did, in fact, set the alarm last night. Which is strange, because the stirp mall has an on-site security patrol presence at night. Now. OPD also has another break-in at the strip mall to investigate from last night; the upscale bistro there was broken in and the register was taken with about $3000 in cash. The intruders also helped themselves to the Bistro's wine selection drinking and smashing more in damages than the cash loss. The security guards, who were about 50 yards down the hill in their car in a depressed parking area, so they had no direct LOS to the mall, claimed they never got an alert or observed anything happening. AFIAK, they were never charged in connection with the robbery, so they were just sleeping on the job.
Our company's security chief arrives with what security recordings from the store floor they had of the intruders (company was a local chain with headquarters in the Bay Area; everything was extremely localized). I talk with him and the OPD detectives assigned to the incident. We get a clearer picture of how the thieves gained access. This goes on for a couple hours. At one point, the detectives get a call. California Highway Patrol had found the safe.
On one of the nearby freeways. At the bottom of an overpass. Busted open and emptied.
Camera footage from the overpass was pulled. They got an image of the truck and license plate. The footage also showed the truck stopping on the overpass, and the thieves pushing the safe out to send it crashing to the road below. Truck leaves. Returns a few minutes later to the same spot. Thieves get out, push the safe that they had retrieved because it hadn't broken open with that fall, back over the overpass again. Second time's the charm for them.
I am still in awe of the sheer determination showed by these morons in regards to that robbery. In addition to the absolute metric farkton of luck they had in puling it off and not getting caught in the act.
But we're not done yet, boys and girls...
Remember I had mentioned that there were gift certificates in the safe? Well, the gift certificate were actually write-in voucher receipts, where the manager would write in the name and amount on the top copy, and there would be a yellow carbon copy underneath. These receipts all had 'serial numbers' at the bottom edge. So, we knew that a range of gift certificates had been taken; 10001-10100, for example.
A few months after the robbery, someone came into the store with a gift certificate with a number in the range that was stolen.
Yeah. People be that brazen.
I was on duty, called it into our Security officer. Nothing could be done besides refuse the GC as 'invalid'. There was some protest, but I remained firm and they gae up rather quickly when they realized the jig was up for them.
And, I'm spent with my Retail Hell stories.
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Damn. That was hella entertaining!
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So, back when I worked in retail, I was often the only one in my store (Posters, pictures, canvas reproductions, framing, etc etc). And I would often be alone there for HOURS. No way to take an actual break, etc.
But I did get to know the mall walkers. There was one little duo (sometimes trio). Charlie and Dave (and sometimes Dave's wife, when she was up to it.) They would wave hello and say good morning every day. I would sometimes be at the front of the store to make sure everything looked right, and they'd stop and chit chat a couple minutes. Just absolute SWEETHEART people.
Charlie, one day, was solo (Dave and his wife whose name I could swear was Flora, but...it's been a long time - were on vacation), was taking his time, because he told me he was going to do extra laps so he could have a 'fat man's lunch'. A guy kept walking back and forth in front of my store, and I was working at the counter, doing I don't remember what. Guy finally comes in, and is just.. browsing. Fine, happens all the time. We had a LOT of posters and pictures, etc.
He leaves when someone else comes in, and later comes back. At this point, we're reaching creep meter making the back of my neck itch. Charlie, gods love him, swings on in, casual as could be. "Hey, sweetheart, your aunt called about dinner tonight. Your mom and I didn't know if you'd be there, or if you were bringing Matt." Bliiiiiiink. Flash a bright smile. "Oh, sure, Dad. I'll pick up Matt after work, and we'll head over. Should I bring anything?"
He lingers another couple minutes, and looks at the dude dead-on. Dude made TRACKS. We proceed to cover our mouths to try and smother the laughter. THEN? He brought me take out from the place he went for 'Fat Man's Lunch' (Place gives very generous portions), so I can eat without worrying about closing the gate and all that crap, and my boss doesn't have a stroke.
Charlie also, a couple months later, found out it was my birthday, and waited for me to get out at 2, to ask me if he could take me for lunch. Yes. We went to the place he went for Fat Man's Lunch. It was delicious.
So many good mornings at that job involved Charlie and Dave.
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And Charlie actually had met the boyfriend at the time, whose name was Matt. So.. yeah. Man was on point.
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@carma Charlie was also hysterical. I told him I was getting ready to quit. And he asked me if he could give me his messenger name. When AIM finally died, I was sad. Because we hadn't been able to exchange anything in a while. So.. no more Charlie in my life. But I still think of him often.
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@carma I honestly have forgotten it, by now. He had been offline for quite some time (and to be frank, the youngest he could be now is mid 80s)