Earlier this week I was writing a blog post that I lost because the power in my computer somehow went out, mainly because I pulled the plug out of the wall. The post was about how I should write a book with all of the stories about working in the bookstore. Now, the post I was writing earlier in the week was about how things like being called by a former employee to bail them out of jail would only happen to me. Public drunkenness is generally a necessity for college students so I wasn't surprised, although this was very inconvenient.
However, yesterday this blog post changed and pretty much wrote itself. This is exactly why I need to write about about all the crazy things not only in my mind but what is happening in the bookstore. I am serious when I say that it would be a BESTSELLER!
Last night, I was part of a drug bust, one of the largest in the county where my bookstore resides so far this year. I walked out onto the sales floor and got the eyes from a fellow manager, the signal that there was a shoplifter that we needed to keep an eye on. Nametags were thrown off, and cell phones were pulled out. Applications were passed out with notes written on them to other people involved in the surveillance. As you can tell we have done this many times before. We had managers at the top of the stairs, employees acting like customers, and the ever so friendly, yet intimidating employees offering assistance. The phones at the desk were off the hook dialed into managers cell phones so we could hear the conversations. We are like a well oiled machine. All the while I hear the mission impossible theme song in my head.
I walk past the "customer" observing his behavior as I walk into the back room. He has his black backpack in front of him and he is unzipping it. I quickly return from the back room to see the perp sliding an Engineering book into his opened backpack. Another manager approaches the desk as I do and asks for an application for employment. I gladly tell her I can get one and walk to the back office. I scramble for a blank application and write on it in large red letter, "we got him, he slid the the book in the bag when I was walking out of the back." She thanks me for the application, and begins to walk up the stairs. She then passes the application discretely off to the manager at the top of the stairs who hangs up her cell that is dialed into the main desk and calls the cops.
After the cops are called we keep a close eye on him to make sure he doesn't catch on and bolt. As we are watching him he begins to make a run for it up the stairs. He thinks that I am a customer standing on the first landing and as he runs by I tackle him. Almost on cue the first wave of eventually 9 cops come running down the steps and take over.
The cops ask us questions and we explain why we were tracking this man. We write down our statements and check the cameras to see if we have any recorded visual confirmation. As we are doing this the police run his record and search him. During the search they discover 25 bags of heroin on him.
Score a drug bust for the bookstore, that is something I have never had! And like I said with stories like this I am sure it would be a bestseller!
For those of you who wonder if we practice the procedures for catching a shoplifter, the answer is no we don't we just have so many that we have got it down to a science.
And here is the kicker... Our hiring manager comes out of her office looking for her 10:45 interview, we ask who it was, and guess what, it was the name of the shoplifter/druggie!!!
God I love my job!
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