The Calliope Crashed to the Ground

So yeah….wow. I have wanted to post for several days now. But I always think of a reason not to. Like right now. I came in here about 2.5 hours ago to start writing this. But instead, I browsed on Ebay, check my neglected Yahoo e-mail, downloaded some songs and watched Cops. Such is my life on a Saturday night. I forgot to mention that I am doing all this in bed. Yep…this girl put her PJs on at 7:30pm and hopped into bed. Pathetic eh? Now it’s almost 10pm and I feel like it’s too late to write all this. So I am still downloading songs. It took me a half hour just to write this one paragraph.

Anyway. It’s been quite a week. We will start with Tuesday. I worked with Tackleberry again. We had a gang of thieves come in the store that afternoon. I noticed about 5 guys walking around the Polo department. They were acting like they weren’t together, but come on. You ain’t foolin’ me. One guy picked up an armful of big & tall Polo shirts that cost about $75 a pop. He pretends to look at some other shirts on a rack and then turns around and picks up another armful of Polo shirts. So all together he’s got about 8. He walks behind a rounder and dumps them on the floor. I should mention I sent Tackleberry out to the floor as soon as he picked up the first armful. I should have called the police right away, but I didn’t. Don’t ask me why. Stupid stupid I know. So I am watching this guy and his friend. I thought for sure the friend was going to go pick up the goods. I didn’t see the tall guy dressed in black, until he was walking away with a big black garbage bag. Fortunately, Tackleberry was standing by the door and I told him the dude was coming with the bag. Before Garbage Bag Dude (GBD) even walked out the door, Tackleberry said “Yo man, what’s in the bag?” GBD ignored him and kept walking towards the door. Tackleberry followed, repeatedly asking him to stop and open the bag. GBD finally turned around and said, “Back off, I bought this stuff at another store.” GBD kept walking faster with Tackleberry in pursuit. I was trying to keep an eye on the 2 guys still in the store. Until Tackleberry told me he was outside. I had no idea he had gotten that far. I forgot to mention, our 2 way radios are crap. I missed several of his transmissions about following the guy outside. The whole thing was just bad. Bottom line – they got away. I could just imagine them all meeting up at their car “Yeah man…shit. Did you see that little white boy tryin’ ta stop me? Shit. Don’t know who he think he is.” We were both kicking ourselves after that. For about 30 minutes.

Then we notice more dudes in the store. This time they are over in the “Urban Wear” area. The Bald Dude walks into the fitting room with nothing to try on. Weird right? Yeah…I send Tackleberry to check it out. Bald dude leaves the fitting room and walks to a different fitting room in the rear of the store. Again he goes in with nothing and looks around. In the first fitting room, Tackleberry finds a HUGE bag stuffed with clothes. Bald Dude must not have been very smart because he totally missed it. So Bald Dude is walking around trying to get a signal on his cell phone (which is nearly impossible in our store) to call the Stasher and find out where he hid the stuff. Meanwhile, Tackleberry walks right past him with the bag full of the clothes. The look on Bald Dude’s face was priceless, especially when Tackleberry turned back around to smirk at him. So that was a nice $826 recovery.

After that most exciting day, I was even more depressed about giving up my job. Tackleberry said when he called the Security Company to find out about his new schedule he was going to tell the SCM about me and how terrible it would be to lose me and my mad skillz. I thought a lot about it too. It would be a detriment to the Security Company’s client to let me go. Test or no test, I am a good LPO.

Thursday, I called the SCM myself. (Tackleberry had talked to him the day before and sang my praises) I asked if there was anyway around this test BS. There has to be! He said he thought about it and tried to figure out a way, but if he were to hire me with my horrendous score, his boss would have his ass. I know it’s my own damn fault, but damn. It’s just not right. SCM told me to hang on until May when I can retake the test. He said he can work out the schedule to give me some hours, he really wants me in there and so does my current boss at the store. So I guess I just have to wait. There’s nothing I can do.

I was ready to enjoy my final 3 days as LPO Extraordinaire. Surprise! I have to train one of my replacements on Friday. Edgar. (not his real name. I call him that because he reminds me of Edgar on 24. Not looks really, but his voice. If you were to close your eyes you would think you were talking to Edgar. Sort of thick tongue, slight NY accent…the whole works.) Edgar is pretty cool. He talks a lot, so him and Tackleberry should get on fine. He is Puerto Rican, but looks Caucasian, which is good in this business cuz the Mexicans will try to get over on you and play like they don’t speak English. And Edgar is HUGE. Seriously a force to be reckoned with. People were probably stealing us blind Friday because it is kinda hard to train someone and be effective at watching people at the same time. But I think Edgar will work out well.

Today I had another surprise. Training my other replacement. It’s gonna take me a minute to think of a nickname for this guy. He is an ex-cop from New Jersey and he’s about 5 ft. 6 – yeah you should know where this is going. He’s nice enough, but a bit on the hard-core side. He has one of those dorky ass haircuts that Marines and cops sometimes have. They shave their head except for this fat looking short spiked Mohawk on top. It’s not even a proper Mohawk because it doesn’t go all the way down the back, it stops right at the crown. Do they know how ridiculous that looks? So we’ll just call him Recon.

I have only been at this job for 6 months, but I am proud to say that during that 6 months, I have never - Repeat NEVER , made a bad stop. I always make 200% sure that someone has concealed something before we make a stop. I am terrified of falsely accusing someone. Today while I am training Recon on the cameras we see this sorta shady looking guy walking around. He wasn’t doing anything suspicious, he just looked like he had the potential to. He was carrying a shirt and browsing the racks. A guy with a blue bandanna around his head (straight out of the 80s) and carrying a suit bag, walks up to Shady and hands him something. Shady looks at it and puts it in his pocket. To me, it looked like a piece of paper or cardboard. It was purple with silver stars on it. At least that’s what it looked like to me. But it was unusual for someone to just walk up to a stranger and hand them something in the middle of a department store. Recon thinks it’s a Dooney & Bourke wallet. Say what? It’s not even 1mm thick. I was zoomed in on it – it was paper!

Also working today was one of my usual Security Guards. (god another nickname) Greg. Original right? Anyway, Greg and Recon go out to watch the guy. He gets in line to buy the shirt he has been carrying around. He keeps looking over at Greg and Recon because they are standing about 10 feet away staring at him. I was not happy about this. I am not fond of harassing customers who haven’t done anything wrong. Greg doesn’t usually act like that, but I guess he was under the influence of Recon the ex-cop. Shady paid for his shirt and walked toward the door. I watched him leave. Next thing I know, Recon and Greg are out the door behind him! I called on the radio a couple times “What are you guys doing?” No answer. After a few minutes, they came back in. I asked again, “What is going on?” Recon says “It’s drug related.” WHAT? I said “Can you guys come back here please.” Me: “What the hell were you guys doing?” Recon: “I thought he had a wallet.” I asked what it was in his pocket and Greg said it was directions to a rave. A rave? What is this? 1990? Do people still do that? Me: “Where do the drugs come in?” Recon: “The paper could have had acid on it.” Hold on hold on. We are not the police. We are not narcs. This is not our job. We are here to prevent retail theft. What is going on here? I was pissed. You can’t just stop innocent people like that!! I asked Greg how it went down. He said he told the guy a sensor alarm went off when he left the store and asked to see what was in his pocket. (oh god) The guy showed him the paper and said he didn’t know the guy that gave it to him.

A while later I saw Blue Bandanna guy walking around again and he handed another of those papers to an associate working in the Juniors department. I called her and asked her what it was. She said the guy was a promoter and the card was an invite to an event at a nightclub called Purgatory. The guy shouldn’t have been soliciting in the store, but still. The innocent Shady looking guy shouldn’t have been stopped. He didn’t do anything.

So today was a frustrating day. I have Recon and Tackleberry with me tomorrow. I also found out that I get to spend one more week in LP, to train Recon and Edgar. Recon is going to be tough. After next week I will be working a day or two a week in the cash office. It’s an accounting job that appeals to my anal retentive nature. Isn’t it ironic though? The Security Company won’t hire me to sit in a room and monitor cameras, but the department store will allow me to sit in a room with a safe containing about $15,000 at any one time.