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I hate this lady, but a few weeks ago she made our day a little brighter. Here's the story of the French Lady.
A bit of background:
This woman is a regular at our booth. She speaks both francais and english, (More the former) and is steeped in vice. Whenever she shows up the booth goes into surveillance mode for she steals.
Her modus Operandi usually involves magazines. She likes to stand at the mag section at the far end of the booth and read the tabloids. When she's finished with one or is interested with one she puts it on the extras stack on the floor. Sometimes this stack is large and weighty, sometimes it's small. It depends on the mags we received in the last shipment.
Then she goes to buy some scratches, (Usually short changes us) and walks over to the stack she made earlier and takes it.
She's clever in her klepto ways. She only goes after the mag stack if it's busy so we can't watch her. Generally when she buys her tickets one of us runs around the booth and puts the mags she stacked back in their places. This usually dissuades her. Not always, but usually. We haven't caught her in the act but seeing as she makes the pile and then the pile disappears it's not hard to put 2 and 2 together.
The day started as normal, lots of customers and lots of those little irritating scratches being sold. French lady starts her routine, checking the newly placed mags and stacking them. We do notice that the stack she made this time was growing in number and considerable expense. (She chose Time, Rolling stones, a lot of the costly ones.) So, after she heads to the counter to purchase some asbestos-lined paper of monetary promises I go to the mag section and restock from her stack.
Then she notices me.
She begins to huff, her face filling with red. She doesn't say a word, but buys her scratches and moves off to her favorite table. She's never done that before. Clearly she's having a bad day and I'm making it worse.
10 minutes later, we glance back and we see her at the mag section again, this time making a smaller pile. She comes back and stands in line.
As we work the customers my co-worker gets an idea and moves to the mag section. A few seconds later she comes back with the stack and puts it on the milk crates in the back where we sit on breaks.
French lady comes, goes and moves to the mags to take her bundle, but Lo! It's not there! She moves around the booth, looking like a confused kitten who was promised a non-existent treat. Her confusion turns to apparent rage as she discovers her prize out of reach on the milk crates in the center of the booth.
The big bad wolf could not do a better huff and puff. She starts mouthing under her breath and stomps away, scratching furiously at her ticket.
A good hour passes before the French lady makes another appearance, once again at the mag section. This time however we barely caught her as she was hiding behind the mens section (A 5 foot tall display that blocks our view from customers in the back.) She was ducking behind it whenever we turned to look. Duck, snatch, duck, snatch. She makes a pile of tabloids in the men's section and moves up to the front with her winning scratch. The line has grown a fair chunk since we were glancing back so often and there are quite the number of people between her and us.
Thankfully for us. My co-worker goes to the back and grabs her new stack, this time bringing it up to the counter, a smile on her face. We move the line, french lady comes up with her ticket and immediately her face contorts into a look of confusion.
I glance over from where I'm scanning her ticket and my co-worker is ringing in the mag stack.
The french lady doesn't say a word. In fact, she buys the stack! No complaints!
Amazing.
She leaves about $30 poorer and glaring at us over her shoulder. We're smiling, thankful that for once she purchased something instead of stealing it.
The French lady has come around a few times since then, and still makes the stack but it's much smaller in size and upon casual observation looks like someone was lazy and didn't want to put the mags back. She's probably stolen mags again. We can't keep a complete eye on her, especially now that she chooses to strike when one of us takes our bathroom break but we do remember the 1-up that we got on her.
One of these days we're going to catch her in the act and then she'll be banned. I hope. Oh, i do hope.
A bit of background:
This woman is a regular at our booth. She speaks both francais and english, (More the former) and is steeped in vice. Whenever she shows up the booth goes into surveillance mode for she steals.
Her modus Operandi usually involves magazines. She likes to stand at the mag section at the far end of the booth and read the tabloids. When she's finished with one or is interested with one she puts it on the extras stack on the floor. Sometimes this stack is large and weighty, sometimes it's small. It depends on the mags we received in the last shipment.
Then she goes to buy some scratches, (Usually short changes us) and walks over to the stack she made earlier and takes it.
She's clever in her klepto ways. She only goes after the mag stack if it's busy so we can't watch her. Generally when she buys her tickets one of us runs around the booth and puts the mags she stacked back in their places. This usually dissuades her. Not always, but usually. We haven't caught her in the act but seeing as she makes the pile and then the pile disappears it's not hard to put 2 and 2 together.
The day started as normal, lots of customers and lots of those little irritating scratches being sold. French lady starts her routine, checking the newly placed mags and stacking them. We do notice that the stack she made this time was growing in number and considerable expense. (She chose Time, Rolling stones, a lot of the costly ones.) So, after she heads to the counter to purchase some asbestos-lined paper of monetary promises I go to the mag section and restock from her stack.
Then she notices me.
She begins to huff, her face filling with red. She doesn't say a word, but buys her scratches and moves off to her favorite table. She's never done that before. Clearly she's having a bad day and I'm making it worse.
10 minutes later, we glance back and we see her at the mag section again, this time making a smaller pile. She comes back and stands in line.
As we work the customers my co-worker gets an idea and moves to the mag section. A few seconds later she comes back with the stack and puts it on the milk crates in the back where we sit on breaks.
French lady comes, goes and moves to the mags to take her bundle, but Lo! It's not there! She moves around the booth, looking like a confused kitten who was promised a non-existent treat. Her confusion turns to apparent rage as she discovers her prize out of reach on the milk crates in the center of the booth.
The big bad wolf could not do a better huff and puff. She starts mouthing under her breath and stomps away, scratching furiously at her ticket.
A good hour passes before the French lady makes another appearance, once again at the mag section. This time however we barely caught her as she was hiding behind the mens section (A 5 foot tall display that blocks our view from customers in the back.) She was ducking behind it whenever we turned to look. Duck, snatch, duck, snatch. She makes a pile of tabloids in the men's section and moves up to the front with her winning scratch. The line has grown a fair chunk since we were glancing back so often and there are quite the number of people between her and us.
Thankfully for us. My co-worker goes to the back and grabs her new stack, this time bringing it up to the counter, a smile on her face. We move the line, french lady comes up with her ticket and immediately her face contorts into a look of confusion.
I glance over from where I'm scanning her ticket and my co-worker is ringing in the mag stack.
The french lady doesn't say a word. In fact, she buys the stack! No complaints!
Amazing.
She leaves about $30 poorer and glaring at us over her shoulder. We're smiling, thankful that for once she purchased something instead of stealing it.
The French lady has come around a few times since then, and still makes the stack but it's much smaller in size and upon casual observation looks like someone was lazy and didn't want to put the mags back. She's probably stolen mags again. We can't keep a complete eye on her, especially now that she chooses to strike when one of us takes our bathroom break but we do remember the 1-up that we got on her.
One of these days we're going to catch her in the act and then she'll be banned. I hope. Oh, i do hope.
"We told you so!" I find it strange that a business would not worry about shoplifters, especially when the economy is still bad and companies are struggling to keep their heads above water. Sounds like the people at Corporate don't have their priorities straight. Sure they got more important stuff to worry about, but they could at least let you guys handle it, and then you could get mall security to ban her from the place and possibly the mall too.
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