The real problem is when there’s no employees available to open the cabinet. I’m sorry, Home Depot, but I’m not going to run around the store trying to find someone only to have them call someone else just so I can get a $50 roll of copper wire.
Not to mention that in some locations there’s so few employees, you’ll end up walking a mile before someone says, “I’ll have someone meet you there.” Then no one shows up.
I went to Seattle for a tech conference. The supermarkets are crazy depressing. There was like 5 staff members, a Spanish lady with a cast on her leg, two kids under 20, a really big guy at the bakery isle, and a 25 yo woman who was stocking and managing a cash register.
There was also a bunch of weirdos outside and not a security guard in sight.
Then a mile or two away are million dollar housesn and billion dollar tech companies.
Especially in huge stores like Home Depot. Good luck finding anyone within 50 yards.
Except when they accost you to do that stupid fucking survey and just dive right in without your consent. Boy, they find you then… When deciding between Lowe’s and Home Depot, I lean toward going to Lowe’s simply because of that bullshit.
My daughter loves Five Below. Last time I went there, they forced me to rate my shopping experience between 1 and 10 in order to finish checking out. I did 5 because fuck their statistics.
The third-party sales people trying to scam you into a new AC are the best. My go-to is “Sorry, you’d have to ask my landlord.” I haven’t had a landlord in years.
Once at a store the person wearing a DirectTV shirt said “what do you use for TV service?” I just said “we have lots of DVDs we don’t watch” he didn’t even try to continue the sales pitch
Seeing the nonsense Lowes and Home Depot pulls makes me happy to live within Menard’s territory. Similar prices and stock but less corporate BS
And they always look so put out by the request too. Like they don’t want to help but do it begrudgingly. Who wants to go through all that
I just had to do this at lowes for a measily 15ft of Romex and again for a breaker.
It’s ridiculous. I had the same issue for a 50ft roll of 14 gauge romex. Not even the good 10/3 stuff. This was bottom-of-the-barrel 14/2. I was then able to walk over and grab a $100 cable tester and a box of CAT6 right off the shelf.
I guess crackheads aren’t stealing cable testers or ethernet cable.
What’s Romex? I have no idea what this conversation is about but I’d love to know lol
“Romex” is a brand name for a type of non-metallic (NM) insulated wire. It’s pretty much the standard for 95% of the wire that’s run in a typical house in North America, and kind of looks like a big flat extension cable. There’s an external plastic sheath that holds all the wires together (that’s the non-metallic part, as opposed to say, running it in metal conduit), and then each wire inside is also insulated, aside from the ground conductor. When you see something like 12/2 or 10/3, that’s the wire gauge (12 or 10 gauge) and then the number of current carrying conductors on the inside (2 or 3, plus a ground).
Romex is that whitish electrical cable you sometimes see in unfinished basements, goes from the breaker box to junction boxes. White cable, nailed to the studs with that white plastic tab with a nail on each side, goes to a blue or metal box with outlets in it.
The copper in that is pretty thick so nowadays a lot of places lock up the wires so people don’t try to make off with a bunch of it
I’m not a professional electrician, but I believe the color of the cable is standardized, too. The white cable you refer to is 14-gauge, which is standard for a 15-amp household outlet. 12-gauge is yellow, and 10-gauge is orange.
I’m happy to be corrected if I’m wrong, though.
I wanted a $4.88 cent license plate bulb from wal mart. It took me 25 minutes.
Canadian Tire are the champions of this
If I have to wait for an employee to unlock an item, I’m just buying it somewhere else, whether it’s online or another brick and mortar that doesn’t make me beg to spend money there. Same with stores that have passcode locks on their bathroom doors. I’m not asking a retail worker for permission to pee.
I’m not asking a retail worker for permission to pee.
Will someone please tell the Europeans having to have cash to piss or shit is a crime against humanity?
I wish our gvnts understood that. Plus I’m in a wheelchair so I can never enter those fucking doors things even if I want to pay
In my travels across Europe most countries give a massive middle finger to the disabled. I hear the argument in preserving old building and architecture but you’re essentially walling off an entire sedition of ppl from living normally. As an American living in Germany I’d have a tough time choosing between German cheap Healthcare vs American handicap friendly infrastructure if I was disabled
Though problem with the US is if your disability prevents you from driving your fucked.
If you’re in a larger city driving isn’t necessary, the problem is paying for living in a larger city near the public transport stops.
Yeah good luck on the 8k per year US disability benefits
In rural areas there are organizations that pick up the disabled and elderly that’s covered by the medicare (or Medicad I can never remember the difference). There are limits but it’s something
Bro, when I was in Norway I had to pay like $3 equivalent to piss! What the actual fuck. Greece it’s like €1.
Holy shit. I don’t think I ever recall paying more than 0.20€. Granted it has been over a decade since I have paid at a public restroom.
My only real issue is with health and beauty being locked up. I’m currently transitioning (MtF) and have found myself buying a lot online for this very reason. If it’s behind a glass wall, it can stay there.
I never really thought about how that sort of thing would make things harder for trans people and I’m very sorry that’s yet another hurdle you and others have to jump through just to be yourselves.
That sucks. Some locations everything is locked up, other ones are better. I usually stick to the “nice” mall or go to a standalone store instead. Just in case you didn’t know, places like Sephora and Ulta allow you to return whatever. If you hate it or it bothers your skin, just return it. They will also give you samples, for some things at least, to take home if you ask. Such as foundation or something. They have these little tiny generic containers they can fill. Target used to be pretty good for skincare, but I haven’t been in one for a long time.
I don’t think it’s that necessarily. To me it’s things like that: i needed a toaster, and didn’t want to go on Amazon or whatever. I went to a real store and looked at toasters. I found one that fits my needs. The guy who worked there said they fon’t have that one here, but can order it. Neat, that’s just like me ordering it, bun inconvenient and more expensive.
Same thing happened when i needed a new food processor. They didn’t have the one i wanted, so i took the expedition model they had (yeah i’m an idiot). At home i realised that some parts were missing. So back to the store. They had to order a new one after talking to 3 people, and then pick it up again. So instead of ordering it for cheaper and picking it up from my porch, i wasted like 2 hours to take 3 trips to pay extra. And brick and mortar stores are dying? That’s crazy
Here in the UK there are a number of bigger chain shops that are effectively running their websites as a kind of Amazon, and it’s really frustrating.
Needed a specific chainring for my bike, so went to Halfords website. They had what I wanted, but not in stock. Meaning, when I bought it, they then ordered it from their supplier to collect a few days later.
I needed a cheap tool for a single job from B&Q. Looked on their website, saw they had one for £3, drove up there to get it. But that one is online only, and the cheapest they keep in store is £6.
It’s like the shittiest bits of in store and online all mashed together, and it sucks.
Every time i go to a store and something like that happens i wanna yell: AREN’T YOU WORRIED? YOU ARE THE FIRST ONES WHO GET REPLACED BY A COMPUTER. I hate amazon with a passion, but once i got a empty carton (because someone stole it) it took me one phonecall and 0 proof or anything and they just send it again. I haven’t used their customer support often, but if i did it was super good, compared to when i have to go to the store. Where is the original recipe? Oh it’s opened? This is not how it was packaged originally and so on.
Whoda thunk it?! And it’s especially dumb because iirc studies have shown that shoplifting rates haven’t changed much if at all in a long time
I just bought my own key for those cabinets because even if I order something from my local Walmart for delivery or pickup that is in one of these, they will say it’s sold out even if they have a full shelf of shit.
You’re claiming they all use the exact same key and also no one sees you on a security camera and kicks you out…? Also they just refuse to sell you things they have but lie about…?
You ever work at Walmart? Nobody actively monitors the cameras and the cabinets all use a T-shaped barrel key. Usually only a single employee carries the keys and with the time constraints set by OGP (the team that fills pickup and delivery orders), nobody wants to waste time looking for that person.
Never worked retail. All this is surprising to me, especially that they’re consistently refusing to sell you in-stock items
Having worked in a closely related industry, fast food, none of this is surprising.
When I worked FF I definitely told people the Ice Cream/Shake machine was broken/off/down for cleaning all the time when it was busy because I couldn’t be bothered to deal with it (it’s annoying AF to make shakes and it ALWAYS broke your workflow when you were getting to a good speed)
I’ve also told people we were out of something just because it required me to go to the back because we ran out of what was stocked in front
So yea, if I worked retail and I had to find someone with a key to fulfill a pickup order and I had the ability to simply mark it as out of stock…yea I think you know what action I’d take.
That’s what happens when they pay you the bare minimum. Minimum pay, minimum effort.
You just validated so many suspicions that I’ve had.
That is what you call a shit worker. I’ve worked retail and service and was did go in the back when I said I would. I would go dig for the stupid $2 item because customer satisfaction.
Allow me to introduce you to the wild world of common keys: This Key is Your Key, This Key is My Key
Wowww. very interesting/insane watch. Thanks for that!
Always a good watch. Deviants got a lot of good videos.
They’re shitty wafer locks, you can rake them open in 2 seconds with a random key.
Lol, so “security through no-one-would-expect-this-stupidity”
I think you could get an additional charge for having “lockpicking” tools in some states, so instead of a minor shoplifting charge, it could get enhanced to a felony.
I always heard it proved intent. Lock picks are not illegal, but if you bring them to a robbery you’ve clearly planned ahead
Half of those “cameras” are likely fake…
I’m wondering if big corporations like Target etc underestimated the impact of tech illiterate warming up to online shopping due to COVID. People poring over old data and thinking that most people would simply deal with the inconvenience, but it turns out most people are more comfortable just using Amazon now than 5 years ago
Projections won’t swing more than a few quarters ahead. Long term thinking yields short term losses, and the US stock market is a heroin addict begging at the methadone clinic for the briefest reprieve from its anguish. Long term is irrelevant and the neighbor’s window is open just enough to get the hit that the clinic denied.
These clowns will do anything but staff the store…
THEN CRIME REHEEEEE
So they hire security… so now we have 2 cashiers and 4 security guards. Clown fucking management.
What should they do?
Walmart locks up light bulbs and fuses for cars. I was standing around mashing the obviously broken button for 20 minutes before I left, drove 10 minutes further away from home to orielleys, where I had my light bulb within 5 minutes. From then on, I order online or I pay the premium at an auto parts store if I need it ASAP.
The stores that lock up their products are also the stores that don’t enough employees to unlock the cases. The problem isn’t shoplifting the problem is under-staffing.
It’s hard to shoplift in a store that is fully staffed.
Maybe a 10 pack of razor blades shouldn’t cost 30 dollars. Then they wouldn’t have to lock them up.
If something is locked behind plexiglass at a store, I simply won’t buy it. The few times I have because I was desperate for it and didn’t want/couldn’t wait for the online shipping, I always had to stand there in the aisle awkwardly waiting for an overworked employee who probably wasn’t getting paid enough to come unlock it for me. Feels bad and just makes me want to buy online every time rather than waste a trip to CVS or Home Depot or wherever they’re locking shit up now.
Axios - News Source Context (Click to view Full Report)
Information for Axios:
MBFC: Left-Center - Credibility: High - Factual Reporting: High - United States of America
Wikipedia about this sourceSearch topics on Ground.News
https://www.axios.com/2024/08/11/retail-theft-cvs-walgreens-locked-cabinet
Edit: Oh, do the thieves not like the comment? Too bad. Stop stealing. No, you’re not fucking ‘The Man’, you’re fucking all over the hard-working and overworked retail workers and their stores. So fuck you.
Yup, incoming more salty responses from illogical dipshits with their mental gymnastics.
Here’s an idea - stop planting your stores in places where crime is prominent. Threaten towns that if they don’t clean their crime act, they won’t get a store that’ll be convenient for people living there.
Pulling back on self-checkout too? Self-Checkout can actually still be of use, if it was more modernized and monitored. Also, if people adequately did their jobs too.
Other than theft, people are online shopping for other reasons. Maybe they don’t want to spend too much on gas going to a location an hour or longer away, find out that the shit they want isn’t available so they’ve gotta now go around town just picking store after store until they get even a quarter of what they want.
Maybe people don’t want to put up with all of the shitstains that manage to collect enough braincells to get up and go out, with their wailing stupid kids and their need to obstruct anyway they can while they motion around like fucking zombies.
they won’t get a store that’ll be convenient for people living there
They won’t have a big box store come in, starve out all of the small businesses, and force their town into indentured servitude where everyone has to work there, they’re not paid a living wage, and they can only afford to shop at the big box store, further increasing the problem in a vicious cycle?
The horror, I tell you.
How often do more ethical businesses swoop in to rent out the spaces formerly occupied by indentured servitude corporations? If these businesses aren’t replaced by something, what will the people formerly working there do for an income?
Lemme tell you the amount of plaza chains and stuff that are built around and near big-box stores. Do you just live in a town where it’s just one big box store? Please…
The ignorance of your comment.
Your ignorance is showing. A hell of a lot of people do live in towns where the only options are a big box store, or equally shitty dollar stores.
I don’t know what you all wrote, but the first couple paragraphs just scream asshole.
I think whatever responses you don’t like are more in reaction to your tone.
Dude, I live in Indiana. We’re not exactly a crime hub. You can go into Walmarts in towns with a population of 1200 and two cops because it’s all they need and you will still find shit like shaving products and cosmetics hidden behind glass.
Dude, I live in Indiana. We’re not exactly a crime hub.
*excluding Indianapolis
Although, to be honest, the areas that I visited seemed perfectly fine.
Sure, there are some actual high crime parts of the state, but I’m thinking towns like Spencer (Pop 2,466).
Here’s an idea - stop planting your stores in places where crime is prominent
But how will Americans survive without shopping?
Doesn’t everyone everywhere need to shop unless they’re subsistence farmers that weave their own clothes?
Don’t forget the nudist hunter/gatherers.
