It’s that old DIVX mindset ( a competing lower quality DVD system that nearly took out Circuit City due to their stunning hubris) is alive and well. In short treating your customer’s as thieves is not going to be a winning strategy where we have the choice. More on that in a moment.
I’ve written on this, before since it’s been one of the most annoying dissonances I have between being in the USA where the idea of freedom is more appreciated than , holy fuck! we didn’t mean you to actuallyuse it!!! and often I decline the offer to have my purchases made in line of sight from the checkout to the door re examined..
Here’s another fun account http://www.michaelrighi.com/ from one guy that is the new “man bites dog” e.g “cops arrest the person being victimized”
Me: “Is there a problem?”
Joe: “I need to examine your bag and receipt before letting you leave this parking lot.”
Me: “I paid for the contents in this bag. Are you accusing me of stealing?”
Joe: “I’m not accusing you of anything, but I’m allowed by law to look through your bag when you leave.”
Me: “Which law states that? Name the law that gives you the right to examine my bag when I leave a Circuit City.”
Except that the law doesn’t. He calls the police to have the store staff allow them to leave , legally, and is arrested for failing to obey what looks like another , I don’t want to say illegal request since the cop can ask him to do anything, request to produce a driving licence etc.. when he’s not driving. but you don’t need to. That’s what the law seems to state, doesn’t matter for all practical purposes the law = $45k a year law enforcers ( not peace officers ) at the application end.
In short the fiction that we’re better than the “commies” unt “nazis” because you don’t need papers to move around is just that fictional. Have you tried to even get in to a social security office these days? With a kid, which they search, you they search plus you can’t have your phone, mp3 player, drinks, food or other items your baby may need to be amused. This hostility towards “customers” isn’t unrelated to the people that , after years of training at school to be good citizens, are willing to jump through any hoop demanded by those with a badge, be it federal, state or now a nametag asking you to inquire about their 0% for 18 months offer.
Either design the stores so that there’s no way out or , and since you really hate us going over to a Soviet model may be better, just let us check boxes on forms we fill out on the way round your store, we pay for it, you hand it over.
There’s nothing but display this way you’ll see that most of your shrinkage is from your staff, and your staff’s friends.
Onto the larger point the depressingly large number of people decrying his actions.Why ? Other than point them out to be the complacent slugs they are what harm is he causing? Less than the good I suspect that will come out of this.
Ok on the customer choice part. CC is a bad example you can get around it, easily the town that sends their cops out to arrest the law abiding (least seems that way to me) a much bigger question and one that most people don’t want to examine. It’s just SOOOO much easier , and reassuring to their ability to sleep, to blame it not on the activist than to come to the conclusion of just how little freedom they really have.
Secondly I don’t for a second believe that those additional officers will ever see the street and the money will go to something shiny that no one uses.
Bosses of the 2012 Olympics were plunged into a fresh row last night after spending £400,000 on a controversial new logo for the London Games..
