What do you guys think? ***EDIT*** w/ my opinion

***EDIT***

I have to say that this morning, in the midst of chaos so overwhelming that I find myself unable to make even the simplest judgement calls – I am proud.

Why am I proud? I am proud because it seems to me that those who noted both publicly and privately on this entry are capable of well thought out, logical conclusions. And whilst I hope the general populace has this skill, day in and day out I am reminded that those that have this ability are in the minority rather than the majority.

So thanks to all of you for renewing my faith in people.

There are many of you I don’t agree completely with, though I agree with all of you to one extent or another. So as I promised, here is my reaction to this article:

First let me say that my attitude towards this event may be changed had it not been for the opening sentence: Brian, a security guy at the Bridgehampton, N.Y. Kmart, definitely picked on the wrong shopper when he busted Laura Landro, a Wall Street Journal reporter, for shoplifting.

Before I even read any further, my reaction was "How can you pick on the wrong person for shoplifting? Shoplifting is shoplifting regardless of how special your trite little job may make you feel."

So what if Wall Street Journal reporter Laura "IthinkIamsoimportantthatnooneshouldholdmeaccountable" Landro writes an article in the paper about how well Kmart follows it’s store policies. First of all, you shop at Kmart honey. Kmart is for us po’ broke folks that have meaningless jobs and can’t afford Williams Sonoma and Pottery Barn. But evidently, you are special and important. Why must you shop at the same stores we do? Hm…maybe you are not as important as you thought.

Secondly, I think Kmart should be calling you sometime soon and offering you a job in their Public Relations department. Being in Marketing myself and working a great deal with public relations, I love LOVE free publicity, especially for something my organization has done well!!! Because when I read an article about how that mean ol’ nasty Brian busted you for doing something inappropriate and making sure that I, the consumer is protected from future price increases on my flip-flops, it makes me  Kmart even more. That means that my neighborhood discount store is protecting my best interests. If I had found out they had treated the Queen, I mean the reporter any different than they would have treated me, I would have vowed never to set foot in the store again.

Sure, we can argue about the fact that she had already spent $800 so was she really trying to pull one over on Kmart? Who knows? I mean truly, WHO KNOWS. So we can’t opperate under the assumption that either she was OR she wasn’t. Which is why policies were created in the first place. And laws for that matter. What if I was a long time customer of Target and I spent thousands of dollars there over the years but when my baby was sick, I stole her some medicine? Is that okay? So then everyone that has a sweet little sick baby gets to steal because we feel bad?

NO.

Follow the GD rules people! Even if you are the most (and by most I mean least) important person at the Wall Street Journal.

Did anyone stop and question why if Miss. Landro had just spent &800 at Kmart (first of all, is that even possible? What the hell does Kmart have for $800?) so why was she back for more??? Do you mean to tell me she got EVERYTHING off her list besides one tiny little pair of flip-flops? :sigh:

Perhaps the initial $800 stint was an investment. Perhaps she did that so that no one could possibly think she was shop lifting while she boosted thousands more off the store.

In any event, all of that is speculation and we can’t hold her to that either – which is why we default to store policy or in more extreme cases, the law.

But let’s look at the logical flip side here. The logical flip side is that Dateline NBC sent an undercover reporter into Kmart attempting to "shoplift" or manipulate items to pay reduce costs to see how security would respond. And say that undercover person had just spent $800. If they let that person go after trying to steal flip-flops, it would have aired on a Dateline special and the public would have been outraged that Kmart was letting people off the hook. Or perhaps the sent a person with *real* importance rather than self percieved – like a public officer or something. Should s/he been treated differently?

But let me boil it down to the very foundation of what I believe has actually happened here: Linda Wall Street Hustler goes to K-FART with an elaborate plan to get more bang for her buck. And well guess what, on the tiny little flip-flop debacle, she gets caught (no one found out about the TV switcheroo). So in order to save her own very important face, she creates a trite little article about how Kmart abused her and didn’t let her get away with something YOU or I wouldn’t have gotten away with. Why does she do this??? She does this because shortly following, articles will hit the paper about how Linda Hustler was caught shoplifting. And if she gets her article out first, she can act innocent. She was protecting her own image.

Funny thing happened though, folks. The additional articles never came. Because no one felt compared to write an article about whatshername shoplifting, just like they wouldn’t had it been you or I.

Could they have asked her just to pay the difference and let sleeping dogs lie? Sure. But let us not forget, Brian’s purpose for existance at Kmart is to control such manors and enforce existing policies. It is not as though Brian was busy passing out free blankets to homeless babies and was pulled away from his much more important task to deal with this VIP. It’s his job. And had he handled it any differently, ESPECIALLY with such a HIGH PROFILE shopper (ha ha) he could have lost his job, whereupon he would have been forced to become a Kmart shopper himself.

Sure there are more important demons to battle in the world. There are murderers and rapists and hardened criminals like myself that need to be caught. But thank God, we are not counting on Brian to do that. Let’s trust that job with the armed forces, the police, the firefighters and the other trained professionals. Laura did not take up space in the jails. She did not cost us a trillion dollars to send through the court system over something so petty. And for God’s sake she was not DETAINED for over an hour. She could have been detained if she left and the police caught up with her. THEY will show her what detained is.

So the bottom line is this: it appeared as though she was doing something wrong. Kmart followed their policy making no special allowences for her VIP status. They got a bunch of free publicity out of the deal. If you want to steal things by changing boxes, do so in private. If you want to change boxes because of an error, take them to the checkout with you and have them make the change. Now we all know why Kmarts prices are so low – because they have an excellent loss-prevention program. The rules were made for all of us, not just those of us that are unimportant.

And finally, EVERYONE knows Old Navy has cheaper flip-flops anyway and that Targe

t is way better than Kmart.

****end edit****

Read the story below and then let me know your response publicly or privately. I immediately had a reaction to this but since my reactions seem to be extreme, I wanted to hear what you guys thought. I will share mine after I get a few responses.

Kmart Justice
September 24th, 2007

Brian, a security guy at the Bridgehampton, N.Y. Kmart, definitely picked on the wrong shopper when he busted Laura Landro, a Wall Street Journal reporter, for shoplifting. Laura recounts the incident in excruciating detail in the newspaper (9/20/07), especially the part about how Kmart “tried, convicted and punished” her on the spot, completely ignoring that she and two family members had just spent a total of about $800 at their store and that they were hassling her over a total of $8.00. Brian, the security guy, told Laura, the newspaper reporter, that he saw her do the deed, adding, “people like you come in here all the time and do this.” What Laura had done, albeit unintentionally, is known by retailers as “ticket switching.”

What happened was, Laura was rummaging through some flip-flops and found a loose pair in just the right size but without a tag or a box. She found what appeared to be the correct box — marked size 9 — removed the “tiny toddler-sized shoes in it” and replaced them with her flip-flops. She thought someone had put the children’s shoes in there by mistake. What she didn’t notice was the price on the box was just $16.50 — $8.00 less than the price of the flip-flops. Laura went through the checkout without incident, since Kmart’s policy is to catch its customers in the act. But Brian tapped Laura on the shoulder the moment she set foot outside the store, and led her “to a windowless security room in the back of the store.”

Brian detained Laura “for an hour,” accusing her “of deliberately switching a more expensive item into a cheaper box.” Unmoved by her explanation, Brian told Laura “to expect a civil notice of a fine by mail,” and warned her “never to return to the store again.” No problem, Brian! But Laura was amazed to find, after talking to various experts, that Kmart “had acted reasonably and within its rights.” She didn’t even get sympathy from Sears Holdings, parent of Kmart, whose spokesperson said “the store’s security appears to have done its job correctly.” That job would include confiscating the $24.50 pair of flip-flops and crediting the $16.50 plus tax Laura had paid for them. Kmart apparently was okay with the other $800 Laura and her family had just spent at their store; they just weren’t going to let her have those flip-flops. ~ Tim Manners, editor

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