Psycho LP people

[0588kid]

Did you guys have to deal with psycho LP people. Man, we did. I remember how at close we'd run through the store cleaning up and we'd find all these open packages from the shoplifters. LP said that most "shrinkage" was from employees. It may be that chain-wide there was some truth to this, but in terms of the daily shoplifting, it seems quite impossible that more than 50% of it was being done by the associates. But the crazy thing is, when this announcement came down, they basically stopped watching the shoplifters and started watching the employees!

It got really insulting after a while to be working and then look behind you and see the LP person half-hiding behind a rack, looking at you with this accusatory "I know I almost caught you" stare. Meanwhile the same amount of empty packages is found night after night. This was one of my least favorite aspects of working for Ames. Every intelligent person knew that most of those packages where NOT in fact the work of employees. The response to all logic on this matter was to repeat, over and over again, "Most shrinkage is from employee theft."

I even know a kid, a poor dumb critter, who got framed by an LP person who apparently needed to score. She was picking on this kid all day, watching him through mirrors and stuff with this look on her face like "I'm gonna nail you, you jerk!" (This is a kid that everyone else liked... he did not have any bad apples in our store.) Eventually she accused him of opening a pack of batteries and a pack of film and putting them in a camera and taking a picture of himself. Ummmm... okay. They hauled the poor kid into the office and I was there for the whole thing. The LP told him that he "stole" batteries and film.  The manager was VERY skeptical... basically we could tell that this never happened. There was no open camera, no open film, no open batteries. The LP person was really ticked off when the manager asked for evidence. She stormed out and about 30 mins later came back with an open pack of batteries (nothing else). She had obviously opened them herself. The camera and film was never found.

The poor kid was fired on the spot and that was that. I was about 25 feet away from him when he supposedly did this and you may be assured, it never happened. The LP person just needed an employee hit and she picked the dumbest associate so he wouldn't defend himself well.

I had a lot of respect for the manager, who always allowed the kid in the store to say hi, while the LP fumed that he should be banned from the store.

To this day, it is so comical to me that they actually thought that the associates were walking out with $200+ of merch a day... so idiotic.

Any other psycho LP stories?

[Ames#1171]

One day I was covering a lunch up front in the Snack Bar, and I was on the phone talking to the lady in Lay Away, and this guy walked out the door with a cart full of stuff, and before I could turn around the LP lady had grabbed my arm and pulled me out the door to chase this guy down.  I was yelling at her, telling her she was crazy, we're going to get shot but she didn't stop chasing the guy.  He jumped in his car and sped away pulling the cart beside his car, and finally let the cart go.  She turned to me and said "See I knew we'd get the stuff back."  I couldn't believe her, we could have gotten killed, all for Ames merchandise.  And to talk about the "Most shrinkage is from employees", it got so rediculous at our store the the LP lady (If I remember correctly, her name was Monica) had camera's put everywhere in the store, because she thought everyone was stealing.  Right after the cameras went up in the upstairs lay away stockroom, they caught one of the boys who worked on the floor, and the "Shoe Girl' having sex up there, and they were fired on the spot when the tapes were reviewed.

[powersbt]

Any idea how many times the tapes were reviewed before they had enough evidence to terminate them?? =)

Originally posted by Ames#1171
One day I was covering a lunch up front in the Snack Bar, and I was on the phone talking to the lady in Lay Away, and this guy walked out the door with a cart full of stuff, and before I could turn around the LP lady had grabbed my arm and pulled me out the door to chase this guy down.  I was yelling at her, telling her she was crazy, we're going to get shot but she didn't stop chasing the guy.  He jumped in his car and sped away pulling the cart beside his car, and finally let the cart go.  She turned to me and said "See I knew we'd get the stuff back."  I couldn't believe her, we could have gotten killed, all for Ames merchandise.  And to talk about the "Most shrinkage is from employees", it got so rediculous at our store the the LP lady (If I remember correctly, her name was Monica) had camera's put everywhere in the store, because she thought everyone was stealing.  Right after the cameras went up in the upstairs lay away stockroom, they caught one of the boys who worked on the floor, and the "Shoe Girl' having sex up there, and they were fired on the spot when the tapes were reviewed.

[0588kid]

It actually made no sense to have LP people other than management. I don't know what an LP made in a year, but it seemed like it was probably (on average) more than the positive impact against shrinkage. For example, whether or not there was an LP, there was about the same shoplifting evidence at the end of the day. Basically, they weren't "paying for themselves."

I remember at one point we had TWO LP people working in our store. There is no way that could be anything but a money drain. I assume that the LP folks were making at least 2-4x what a floor associate would: that means you could put TWO TO FOUR more associates on the floor to help people (and cut down on shrink). That would have made a lot more sense to me... but what do I know? None of my businesses have gone Chapter 11.

[Ames#1171]

Originally posted by powersbt
Any idea how many times the tapes were reviewed before they had enough evidence to terminate them?? =)

Originally posted by Ames#1171
One day I was covering a lunch up front in the Snack Bar, and I was on the phone talking to the lady in Lay Away, and this guy walked out the door with a cart full of stuff, and before I could turn around the LP lady had grabbed my arm and pulled me out the door to chase this guy down.  I was yelling at her, telling her she was crazy, we're going to get shot but she didn't stop chasing the guy.  He jumped in his car and sped away pulling the cart beside his car, and finally let the cart go.  She turned to me and said "See I knew we'd get the stuff back."  I couldn't believe her, we could have gotten killed, all for Ames merchandise.  And to talk about the "Most shrinkage is from employees", it got so rediculous at our store the the LP lady (If I remember correctly, her name was Monica) had camera's put everywhere in the store, because she thought everyone was stealing.  Right after the cameras went up in the upstairs lay away stockroom, they caught one of the boys who worked on the floor, and the "Shoe Girl' having sex up there, and they were fired on the spot when the tapes were reviewed.

That's a good question, we joked about that for a long time afterwards. :insane: I can't even imaging the looks an their faces :o when they were called in to the office and showed the tape, and then fired.

[D_mancurrier]

I was asked on the last day of business from an Ames store to empty my pockets. Funny thing was a lawn chair, office furniture, and varous forms of underwear where the only thing left!

[dmx10101]

I am a LP officer at Kohls and a couple times a week we do bag checks when all the employees are leaving at closing to make sure no one has stuffed anything in them. We also watch the employees especially cashier on our CCTV system, because there are alot of dis-honest associates who are ripping companies off.

[Anonymous]

I remember our LP guy used to catch people stealing and bring them back to his office to search them or something. Is that even legal anymore? It seemed like a pretty sweet and easy job until the one day you tried to stop a crazy person. Nowadays, I thought they can't do anything.

[dhuf12]

I worked LP at Ames for 6 years, not only is it a deterrent against theft but it saves a company money on insurance when you have an LP department. One year in Warren Ohio I caught 70 shoplifters and 4 employess, word does get around town with the career criminals.