A "Buttload" of Complaining

Loss Prevention. I'm pretty sure I mentioned before that it in itself is a blog (or two or three). This doesn't really have to do with Loss Prevention in the manner of preventing theft or witnessing it or the like; this is more about the aftermath [not my favorite word, by the way; that would be "criteria"] and what we do to acknowledge the fact that theft occurred. We managers do this through the noble and prestigious act of filling out what we call an "Incident Report." It's pretty basic and self-explanatory, but you have sections you fill out including who you are, the date that the event occurred, whether or not it was witnessed, an estimated value of loss, a description of the items taken, the evidence found, and the details about the event. We managers fill these out all the time because theft occurs at a rate that no one would imagine if they didn't work retail or if they didn't commit theft crimes themselves. When all team members clock in for their shifts, they are informed of daily sales goals, current promotions, contests, and new incident reports. If you read an incident report notifying of some defeated sensors found, it'd be nothing new. It happens so frequently, in fact, that explaining to the employees what happened becomes boring and "I've heard that before"-ish. A few of us have tried clever ways to spice up these boring incident reports while still conveying the message that theft is present and not acceptable.

So one day, Ashley found some sensors and decided to go on a sensor-egg-hunt [not Easter, by the way]. She found a whole bunch of sensors and I ended up doing an Incident Report at the end of the night to document the last bit she found. Here's the basics:

Date of Incident: 06/28/2008
Type of Incident: Shoplift Incident
Was this Witnessed?: No
Value: $92.97
Known Items Taken: 2 JR Jewelry items and other items taken unknown; assumed to be a pair of JR sale shorts, YM sale denim, YM sale shorts.
Evidence Found: Sensor Tags
Details: Ashley did a sensor sweep throughout the store and found a buttload of items! We really need to take advantage of the "stop. drop. sell" idea. This proves we are not doing it. Let's change it up!

So that's my version of "spicing it up" while conveying the basic message. I got a couple Brand Reps to laugh about it but they still understand that we need to employ the "Stop. Drop. Sell!" idea in our shifts at all times [why didn't I capitalize it in the Incident Report? The world may never know]. Apparently, this isn't good enough. Today we got an e-mail message from our Regional Loss Prevention Manager saying:

Miranda,

A "buttload of items" isn't descriptive enough. I go through AT LEAST 100 incident reports a day and it helps when they are written correctly and accurately. I take these incident reports and compile the information into a data base used by corporate to establish shoplifting trends. Please be more specific. How many sensors were found? Where were they found? Assign a value of $28.00 to each sensor. So if you found 10 sensors, that's $280.00 dollars lost.

Thank you,

Nick

cc - Heidi

So, apparently my assigning the $6.50 to each JR Jewelry item ($13.00), $29.99 to the JR sale shorts ($42.99), $19.99 to the sensor found in the YM sale denim ($62.98), and $29.99 to the YM sale shorts ($92.97) isn't good enough. Does this not explain the fact that the 3 items found that were "unknown" were defeated sensors and that the things they were "assumed to be" were where they were found? This takes care of basically 90% of his complaint. The "buttload of items" explains that there was a LOT of items found! It is a humourous [doesn't quite look right with the European "u" but I'll leave it anyway] approach to an undesired situation. "There's always a silver lining," no? [Who was the first person to say that?? And do I put a period on the outside of this closing bracket? I'm not sure, because I don't think I'm supposed to have a bracketed group of sentences in its own.]. So anyway, back to the subject in question, where did Mr. Nick get this $28.00 value amount for a mysterious sensor? Is this supposed to be an all-known fact for all managers at Pacific Sunwear? Because neither my store manager nor myself knew this. I laughed when I read this because A.) it's ridiculous, B.) much like my high school detention for mooning in Power Walking while moving fast paced alongside the local highway, this is a hilarious reason for "counseling," and C.) I sent out an Incident Report yesterday that--if he doesn't approve of my "buttload"-filled details--Nick will thoroughly enjoy. Said Incident Report is as follows:

Date of Incident: 07/02/2008
Type of Incident: Shoplift Incident
Was this Witnessed?: No
Value: $79.50
Known Items Taken: Items taken unknown; assumed to be 2 YM Tees priced at $20 each and a YM Reg. Price woven priced at $39.50
Evidence Found: Sensor Tags
Details: While straightening throughout the day, MT found sense sores -- that's a sore for our senses! We need to be aware of the gondo "fortresses of theft" and break down these walls! Eyes open people!!

Let's see what he has to say to that one. Time to hemp my life away!