Almost a Good Start to March

March was almost kicked off with a bang. But, as my recent luck would have it, it fell through and did nothing but piss me off after my first shift of the month.

The day plugged along with the liveliness of a typical Tuesday morning, with the exception of one group of hispanic guys perusing the Electronics Department to perk me up temporarily. After following these guys for about thirty minutes, I determined they would not be helping my apprehension stats, and were only in the store to buy something...of all things.

With only an hour left in my shift, I noticed a white guy hanging around the Jewelry counter. After a few minutes of studying his actions, I saw the Jewelry employee helping him with purchasing a ring. As I did most of my last hours, I was hanging around the front desk watching people as they arrived at the store, and watching others leaving. I noticed subconsciously, the ring buyer made his way outside with his small bag in hand. I walked outside to do a weather check, since we were expecting rain, and saw the same guy walking back across the sidewalk toward the front entrance again.

I stepped inside and walked to the Jewelry counter to alert the employee.

"The next guy walking through the door...is this your customer from a few minutes ago?" I asked leaning over the glass counter. We both glanced over toward the door as the white guy wearing a black hooded sweatshirt and baggie jeans entered.

She nodded to me and we noticed he wasn't coming back to the Jewelry counter as I had expected. He turned and walked toward the center of the store. For a moment I thought it was strange he had returned, but then again, I have left stores before I was actually done getting everything I wanted. I didn't think of him again, and returned to the front desk.

I started looking for the Assistant Store Manager to let her know I was about to leave the store for the day. I found her in the pantry pulling expired merchandise from the shelves. Like usual, we entered into a conversation about the problems with store policy and leadership, when the employee from the front desk paged me. Every employee knows, if there is an urgent problem, as in a shoplifter or suspicious person in the store, they are not to use my name, they use the number "300." This particular page was my name. This meant it was nothing too importnat, and I could take my time getting back to them. Within thirty seconds, a second page went out...

"300 call 366, 300 call 366."

I was only a few steps away from the front desk and I hustled up looking for a signal from the employee watching for me. He picked up the phone and dialed 366, holding the receiver out for me as I approached the counter.

"Hello, whats up?" I said quickly as the phone picked up on the other end. I knew by the extension number that I was calling the Layaway Register, but I had no idea why, or who.

"Umm..I am having a problem with my register..." the female voice I recognized as the second Assistant Manager, but I could tell something was wrong. Not to mention, I have nothing to do with fixing registers.

"Do you need me back there, yes or no?"

"Yes." the voice replied. I hung up immediately and started for the back of the store. I made it into the next department when I heard the Service Desk employee call out to me. I turned and looked back as he once again held the phone receiver out for me to get. I jogged back and grabbed the phone from his hand.

Before I could get any words out...

"You have a white guy in black hoodie, just came out of the bathroom, he was opening packages in the bathroom, he's walking through the pantry right now..." the assistant manager rattled off.

I hung up the phone, repeated what I had heard to the guy working the desk, and together we positioned ourselves for a stop near the exit. As soon as I turned to look toward the pantry, there he was walking toward me. And as shocking as it may be, it was the ring buyer from earlier. I turned away from him and walked slowly toward the door, and soon he passed me and stepped into the vestibule. My partner from the Service Desk had already made it outside and I could see him approaching.

I walked up behind the hooded guy and called out to him before he made it through the second exit...

"Excuse me buddy... hang on one second?" He turned back to see who was talking, but never stoppede walking out the door.

"Can you stop for a second so I can talk to ya?" I asked.

He turned and looked at me very confused.

"I work here at the store, I just want to ask you something..." I tried several approaches to get him to atleast slow down. Again, he looked back at me, but kept walking away from me...

"Is that a no? Can't you just stop for one minute so I can talk to ya?" He turned back and said, "What do you want, I have to go," and never stopped walking.

"If you stop and talk to me I will explain..."

"Look, I just bought something in here and you are about to mess things up for me with my girlfriend..." he stopped long enough to get the words out and for his girlfriend to appear from out of nowhere and walk up behind me.


"I know what you bought and it has nothing to do with that, I am not saying anything about that if you just give me a minute..." He finally stopped halfway across the front of the store.

"What were you doing in the bathroom, I know you were opening stuff in there..." he interrupted my talking and again started walking away. "Were you opening what you bought from earlier?" I offered that to him and as soon as the words left my lips, I wanted them all back.

"Yes! Thats what I was doing in there...now can I go?" That was too easy for him. I should have never given him an out. With a slight doubt of whether he really stole something, I decided to let him go. Maybe he really was in there taking the ring out of the package and getting ready to give it to her. Not watching where he went when he returned to the store, I couldnt be sure. As I walked back into the store, I saw the assistant manager running toward the front desk carrying movies in her hand.

"These were in the toilet!" she said holding them out to me. She handed me the empty packages for three DVD movies. It was then I decided I was right the first time, he was stealing something and concealing it in the bathroom.

"Hey hang on a second!" I yelled again as I walked out the door again. The two stopped and turned to see what I wanted. I looked at the girlfriend who honestly looked confused about all of the drama. "Can I borrow him for one second?"

She stepped back and the guy walked back to me, surprisingly.

"How about the movies, you telling me you didn't take movies into the bathroom with you?"

"I don't lknow anything about that..." he said as he turned back around and kept walking away from me again.

"Its either cooperate with me, or you have to explain it all to the police when they pull up next to ya...I really don't want to get them involved." Honestly, I wanted nothing more than a police officer to pull up about now, but I thought I could use that to slow this guy down. Somehow it seemed he knew our hands off policy, and he did nothng but just keep walking away from me, and I couldnt do a damned thing about it.

As the couple turned the corner at the end of the building I called the Police Department. Within minutes, police cars flew past in the direction the couple was last seen walking. Moments later, a police car pulled up outside the front door of the store.

"You wanna take a ride?" the officer asked me, meaning they had located someone for me to identify as the actor. I jumped into the back of the car and we drove back behind the store. In the parking lot adjacent to ours, two other police cars were stopped and two people stood in front of the cars. As we pulled up slowly, I looked closely at the face of the guy standing with his black hood up over his head. Unfortunately, it wasn't him.

I returned to my store, with all of the employees waiting to hear the good news, but none was coming. Not yet any way.

Tomorrow, I will review the video, and provide the police department with a good photo of him. Then, if they run into him, there will be an apprehension. If not, that girl will get a new ring, and a few movies on us.

But I must think, when all is said and done, does she really want a ring from a guy who steals movies from a retail store? I hope someday I will meet them again in court, and find out.