With grocery prices up 25% since the beginning of the pandemic, Americans have found themselves making some serious sacrifices and putting off paying for necessities, such as rent or other bills, to afford groceries.
    • Hexphoenix [any]@hexbear.netEnglish
      22·
      4 months ago

      If you’re literally shoplifting to get enough food, it shouldn’t be too hard. Food staples are not especially closely guarded (the way electronics and whatnot are) and they’re cheap enough that loss prevention people aren’t going to focus too hard on it.

      If I were in a food-precarious situation I would just make a habit of grabbing a chunk of extra food any time I’m buying food. Leave it in the cart or your own bag or whatever and if you get caught by Paul Blart well then you just forgot to ring up that one, no big deal.

      I’d look up what amount of theft (in $ amount) constitutes a felony and then be careful to never steal more than that from one store, not even over a period of months or years. Cause those wannabe piggies will be more than happy to let you cross that line and then get the cops involved

      • Tempo [he/him]@hexbear.netEnglish
        9·
        4 months ago

        Used to be one of those Paul Blart Mall Farts (it was either do a security guard course for indigenous guards or lose my Centrelink benefits). Back in the days before they put in sensor gates at the entries and exits, you could pretty much head straight back out the front and nobody could stop you. All we did was write down descriptions in a log that I’m fairly sure nobody read.

        A few months before I quit, Coles got rid of us guards because they realised we barely actually did anything to stop people taking stuff. CCTV and facial recognition pretty much replaced guards.

        (For the record, I’m very much a “If you’ve seen someone stealing, no you didn’t” kinda guy now. Last straw for me at that job was when they wanted me to do a course for an army base gate guard. Fuck the troops.)

        • booty [he/him]@hexbear.netEnglish
          4·
          4 months ago

          hey, nothing inherently wrong with being security. retail security sucks ass though since it’s mostly looking for petty theft and then snitching. a lot of security is almost literally “i sit here and do nothing and then you pay me” which is kinda a sweet deal

          • Hestia [comrade/them, she/her]@hexbear.netEnglish
            4·
            4 months ago

            Yeah, I currently work security at a casino. I have very few qualms with kicking people out, because it’s not a healthy environment for the homeless to be at. It’s a place full of addicts and chances are if they manage to get their hands on some money, it’ll go straight to the tribe. We get pretty lax with kicking people out during the winter though, and will typically only do so if they’re consistently causing problems or are actively barred already.

          • ShimmeringKoi [comrade/them]@hexbear.netEnglish
            3·
            4 months ago

            That’s what concert security was like, except I was also hitting a dab pen the whole time and pretending not to see people’s drugs in bag check. Man, what a great pre-covid gig deeper-sadness

    • Tankiedesantski [he/him]@hexbear.netEnglish
      21·
      4 months ago

      Both sides are so ideologically opposed to handouts that it’s possible they won’t do anything like that. If that happens, people can’t eat and when people can’t eat we enter the Cool Zone ™.

  • Ericthescruffy [he/him]@hexbear.netEnglish
    16·
    4 months ago

    …you know maybe its misguided, especially as someone who practices it, but suddenly i can’t help but connect this with how intermittent fasting became super trendy more recently.