Can we talk?

Honesty

  Working in retail can disillusion a person. Thievery is rampant. Customers and employees alike believe it is okay to take what isn't theirs and what they won't pay for. Evidence is all around us, empty wrappers, old clothes in packages where new ones used to be. You can study the tapes--every store has them--you see regular customers walking out while the clerks are distracted or putting clothes on their kids. And why do people walk into stores wearing backpacks or carrying totes, refusing to deposit them with the front desk?

    Who pays for the stolen merchandise? You do. It's added into every price hike as part of the overhead.

    Last week, two women waited until all the clerks were busy and walked out the front door of my store with two display TVs, no remotes or paperwork of course. A few days earlier a mother and grown son separately returned electronic accessories, exactly alike, with no receipts. Why would anyone who is not an electronics geek buy 3 or 4 of the same part at $30 each and then return them unopened? And have another family member return a similar number of similar or same product unopened? They knew the policy is even exchange without a receipt. If you guessed the merchandise was stolen, you are probably correct. What did they get in exchange? More electronic parts, supposedly the correct parts? No, two carts full of toys. They stole merchandise, brought it back on a different shift or day, redeemed it for their children's Christmas presents. I feel sorry for the kids being brought up by a conniving, dishonest father and grandmother. They could have been refused, but how would the store lose the most money--the mark-up on electronics which is small, or the mark-up on toys? If the electronics cost more wholesale, then they lost less taking the accessories back.

      Internally, we have an employee with some rank pilfering cash, a little here, a little there, making others look guilty. This really burns me. It's not enough to be dishonest, to steal, but to set up other people, to lie, to be deceptive, to not care which innocent person may lose a job or reputation, that's unforgivable. That's a dangerous, destructive person. Honest people have a hard time figuring this stuff out, how they do it, how they hide it. We aren't trained to think that way. It's unfathomable to us that they can let someone else take the blame and not feel guilty about it.

    It's hard to say "peace and good-will" in light of this, but I remind myself that the majority of people are honest. If 90% or more of people are honest, then we have to emphasize that. We can't let the dishonest ones destroy everything, our spirits, our trusting nature, our sense of well-being. Teach your children and grand-children to be honest, to do right, to be just. Continue to do those things yourself. But be alert, and don't let the wrong ones hurt you or your family. Maybe being a peacemaker means to be a little wary and vigilant about upholding community values.