This afternoon, I was standing behind my assistant who was at the till and so I saw everything. She served customer after customer and simply asked for a bag check please. All of them obliged, opened their bag and walked out the store. Easy. Until this one lady at the end who thought she was special than everyone else.
Assistant: Can I please have a quick bag check?
Lady: Pardon me?!?!?!?!?
Assistant: Just a quick bag check please.
Lady shakes her head and slams her bag down on the counter and begins to take everything out.
Lady: Here happy?
Assistant: Thanks.
Lady: This is disgusting. I'm never gonna shop here again! (and walks out)
2 min later, she walks back in and complains about the bag checking.
Lady: This is the first time in Australia that I've had my bags checked! Do I look like a thief to you? How dare you accuse me of stealing!
Me: We didn't accuse you. Its just store policy. You saw me standing right behind her all that time, I saw how she asked you. She asked you quite politely to check you bag.
Lady: I don't care. I've got a degree in psychology and I've been in Australia for 10 years and I've never seen this before.
Me: I've been to Target, Big W and they all check my bags. Nothing out of the blue. Anyway let me show you something.
I take her and show her the big sign we have that says we need to do a bag inspection.
Lady: I think that only applies to guilty people or thieves.
Me: Guilty people and thieves have a face?
Lady: You are just profiling.
Me: Did you see the 5 people lining up ahead of you before?
Lady: No
Me: Well I did. And all of them got their bags checked. The person in front of you was an elderly lady. We check school kids, elderly people, men with bags, women... how is that profiling? To make it fair on everyone, we check everyone's bag.
Lady: Have you been to Myer? They're a big store they don't check bags.
Me: Different stores have different policies. Just because some stores don't check doesn't mean all stores shouldn't check. Myer has a whole security department probably about 50 security guards who sit in front of the cameras and watch you. We're just a small business and we don't gonna employ people to watch cameras.
Lady: Maybe you should have a better way to catch thieves.
Me: Oh if you have a better suggestion, let me know so I can pass it on to management.
Lady: I don't know. Better barcodes!
Me: You clearly haven't worked in retail.
Lady: I own a car yard. (how is that retail beats me) Well I'm never gonna shop here again.
Me: Great. Thanks.
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Wasted a good 15min of my time. 90% of people who come in are understanding and cooperate. Its only the 10% minority group who are uneducated and unreasonable don't really understand the whole concept of bag checking.
For the whole day we've been opened, she was the only customer that complained. What does that make her? Maybe I should've rhetorically asked her "We check everyone's bag and they willingly show us. Give me one reason why I shouldn't check you bag? Because you have a so called Psychology degree and you've been here 10 years in Australia?"
True born Aussies like me would know bag checks are exist here in this country. Please do not use what kind of education, race, gender to determine your exemption. No one is exempt as long as they have a bag on them. Everyone has potential to be a thief. There's not just one face for a thief.
We would appreciate if you let us check your bag. If you don't agree we this, we would appreciate that you don't ever this store and purchase goods from us as we don't want to do your business.
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