Lies, damn lies and.....

[LPCap]

I am a member of another web forum geared for loss prevention professionals and an interesting thread popped up - but not in the way the original poster intended it to. I will not link it here (unless the administrator oks it), but will lay it out for you and get your comments on the matter. Keep in mind that this person is a Loss Prevention Supervisor for a national company.


The OP, throws down a the original scenario:

So there I am earlier today in the mens room, seated performance, middle stall....I know what you're thinkin', TOO MUCH INFORMATION SOUPS!!!......but the scenario setup is integral to the story. So in walks another like-minded 'customer' who obviously had some sort of ailment, if ya know what I mean...I was needing oxygen!!!!

Well, at the same time the gentleman finished the paperwork and stood up, his cellphone rang, and I reckon it...no, I know it slipped out of his hand and landed with a resounding splash! Of course there had not been plumbing actuaction yet so his $600 blackberry/gps/superphone had a cushioned splashdown.
I couldn't help myself, I started laughing and absolutely could not stop.

So as I exit my stall Mr. poophone is ready to kick my butt for laughing at his misfortune. I'd stopped by then and apologized for giggling but this guy just would not let it go......even to the point of following me out of the restroom. So I turn and identify myself but this guy is not letting up! Even after showing my badge.....I mean this guy was pissed!!!!!
Then I told him one last time to let it go, go retreive his phone and I'll show him to the door. Not good enough for him.......he thought pushing me would be cool, til he bit tile, got bracelets, then a cool ride in a CrownVic.......

I then washed my hands real good!

Then flushed his phone......didn't go anywhere, but it got real clean

#1 - What would you have done in this situation? (I have made bold points on a few remarks because they are integral in how this plays out.

Most of the remarks that followed were good - they did not condone the actions and suggested that the OP be talked to and/or reprimanded for this incident. A few said that he did a good job and congratulated him on the matter.

Sample response:

EXACTLY! My objections revolve around the agent's laughing, and ID'ing himself as a store employee. He should have walked away. True, a push (or several) are a battery, but wasn't this battery really initiated by the agent's laughing over the customers predicament in the customer's presence.

Here are the OP responses in order when his credibility on the issue are called into the matter.

Posted:6/22/2007 4:24 PM
Now this is getting good!

IF I MUST ELABORATE!.......... I did apologize to this jerk but he FOLLOWED me out of the bathroom. I attempted to walk away twice, still apologetic!!! That's when I ID'd myself.

Still not good enough for this individual he chose to keep up an escalation continuum despite my repeated deescalation attempts! GETTING THE PICTURE NOW MR.C!!!

SO, when he chose to make it physical I accomodated him to the best of my ability and his 6'4" butt was put down by my 5'8" one!

I then celled the Law and went with Peace Disturbance INSTEAD of assault. He was booked, cited and ROR'd.

Did I connect all the dots fer ya now??????????

Y'all know what's up when one ASSUMES!


......and it was after 5 and a half hours in court for a third continuance during which I couldn't make it out to the meter in time and got a $15 parkin' ticky.....then everybody and thier brother was up my butt about something for the rest of the day.....

So when a moment of levity 'knocked on the door'....I answered the call.

So when one of thier officers (a manager in this case) makes numerous attempts to deescalate a situation, all to no avail, then gets assaulted in the process, "the top" should expect them to turn tail, puss out, run off and hide?

I'm not saying that that's the most ridiculously ludicrous concept I've ever heard of..........but I'm damn sure thinking it!!!

Gee, now I know what an amoeba under a highschool microscope feels like.

Hey sportsfans, I only ID'd myself after numerous attempts of walking away from this fool......he was having a much worse day than I was it seems. AND, he chose to push me the first time when I radioed for a manager to respond, which was moot anyway due to the fact that area associates had already called and they were witnessing. WHEN it got physical it was NOT thier place to step in, it was NOT my duty to turn tail, it was NOT as previously repeatedly (many times over)stated, my actions that brought on the assault....this guy followed me and made this situation into what it became DESPITE my exhausting every attempt at a calm and peaceable resolution. There are witness statements attesting to my restraint during all this.

Had this occurred at an 'off-duty' time he would have STILL been the agressor and there would have been an assault charge instead of peace disturbance.

Now, with all that said, where do I send the lumps of coal to be turned into diamonds!?!I think it's humorous to have to be in "defense" mode this long.....truth be told the Cops wanted to go with Assault, I pled it down to Peace Disturbance. Mr Poophone took his bad day out on me but he didn't hurt me. Cops wanted to tow his cool Escalade, I argued successfully against that. Only other thing that stuck is the trespass ban............

AQing my own self in all this, like I do all the time anyway, I wouldn't have done anything different. Well, maybe not laughed quite so loud til I was out of earshot........

Now there's a narrow-minded approach. Both myself and my LPOs interact with customers on a sometimes daily basis. When you 'floor-pound' all the time eventually someone is gonna figure you out. Ours runs the gamut from the "WTF you lookin' at...." type of encounter to 'regular' customers that notice us noticing someone else, to other LP that'll pick us out.......to simply deny and run off with a philosophy of "No good comes out of any conversation they would have." is not good customer relations. IMHO.

Now this is where he admits to lying:

NOW FOR THE REALLY GOOD PART!!!

There was some BS to this story..........the part that read ".....earlier today.....".

You see, in my great state we get notified when defendant's sentences are completed and I got the notification last week. That brought this case to mind. Therein my 'experiment' was planned. I posted like this just happened to see what kind of knee-jerkin' would go on. What fun this was!!!

This actually occurred in 2001. The facts remain as stated. BUT, when the municipal prosecutor read all the witness statements and saw that an assault of a security officer had taken place he kicked it up to the county prosecutor for state charges. Poophone got himself a cool lawyer who did about two years of continuances but all that did was piss off the court and give Poo a chance to stew. About three weeks before the trial Poophone saw fit to come in the store and harrass a couple witnesses. Significant upgrade to his charges along with criminal trespass......

The final outcome: 364days, S.I.S., contigent upon successful completion of anger management classes, and a total of 4 years probation which ended sometime last month. No contact with the vict, wits, store and mall EVER!

Soooooooooooooooo, this passed muster all the way to a jury room.

Good gawd! Now there's an over-reaction if I've ever seen one.

Gee, one teensy wittle thing was untwue.......and you come off like it's the offense of the flippin' year!!!!!!!!!!!

Two questions to start discussion on:

#1 What you would you have done if you were in the original scenario and/or how would you have handled it if one of your workers did what he did?

#2 How does his lying, changing the story around affect him not only online, but say if his superiors found out about it?

I have known for a long time that this hooligan not only falsifies postings online (and brags about extravagant (false) credit and check fraud busts) but also violates company policy and is a major liability to his employer. He thinks he is above the law and enjoys in not only "getting people in trouble" but destroying shoplifters property.

How does this kind of acting/posting affect those of us trying to make our security/loss prevention departments a little more professional?

[Curtis Baillie]

All of the information

Since you have chosen to bring your long standing feud with Souperdave to this site - I'll post the link as I think, in all fairness, the interested members here deserve to see all of the posts. Not just selected excerpts.

http://www.lpinformation.com/Default.aspx?tabid=70&forumid=6&postid=11514&view=topic

[panther10758]

In defense of OP he states he did not post link not knowing in admin would approve which I felt was proper action. To post the entire thread would take much space, too much probably. Since you are a moderator you are one with authority to make that decision. I agree entire thread should be viewed but Op actions were very considerate of this site in my view.

[LPCap]

I did not post the link purposely.

If I wanted to continue my "feud" with the OP, I would continue to post on lpinformation.

I posted this so that we could get conversation flowing on matters which store level LP/Security deal with everyday. It is good to have open conversation and posts on differing points of view. In our line(s) of work, we deal with stuff like this everyday.

What would have happened if this was a uniformed security officer? What would have happened if he worked for you Curt?

Do you believe everything the OP says? Do you find him credible?

This is not an attempt to drag our differences to another site, it is to get different (read the uniformed security) view on issues such as this. When we close ourselves off to healthy debate, conversation and opposing points of view (which alot of people do) we have already lost the battle.

I sent you a pm.

[Curtis Baillie]

Civil Discussion

I posted my responses on the LPInformation. I have no problem with this being discussed on this site. If I had I would not of posted the link. I would urge the discussion be kept civil.

"And that's all I have to say about that" - Forrest Gump

[Curtis Baillie]

In defense of OP he states he did not post link not knowing in admin would approve which I felt was proper action. To post the entire thread would take much space, too much probably. Since you are a moderator you are one with authority to make that decision. I agree entire thread should be viewed but Op actions were very considerate of this site in my view.

No need to "defend" LPCap - he stands on his own merit.

[panther10758]

No need to "defend" LPCap - he stands on his own merit.

I agree but I felt need to justified or not. He made every attempt not to anger either site and posted his reason which I felt were very compassionate to both sites.

[LPGuy]

I really don't understand the point of posting all this here.

#1 What you would you have done if you were in the original scenario and/or how would you have handled it if one of your workers did what he did?

What would I do in this situation? Let me get this straight. I exit a stall and laugh. The subject exits his own stall ("ready to kick my butt," so I assume the subject is posturing as if he would like to fight) and confronts me for laughing at his own sheer idiocy. The subject then ignores my repeated apologies and follows me out of the restroom, still confrontational.

Yes, I'm going to badge him, and once he puts his hands on me, yes he is going to be placed in handcuffs and wait for the police. I would have done the exact same thing in this situation, including laugh at someone who is clumsy enough to drop an expensive phone into a toilet. I think it's absolutely disgusting to sit on a toilet and have a phone conversation in the first place.

Okay, so the original poster tried to flush his phone down the toilet. So what? The guy is heading downtown to jail and has no way to retrieve it. I'm certainly not reaching into his excretement for his damn personal property and I sure as hell won't ask housekeeping to do it either. He should have retrieved his own phone before chasing me out of the restroom. He chose to leave it behind in the company's toilet, so it's abandoned property now.

#2 How does his lying, changing the story around affect him not only online, but say if his superiors found out about it?

I don't think anyone's bored enough to read through another forum of a conversation between you and a dozen others to determine if some random guy on the Internet who claims to be a loss prevention supervisor is, in fact, telling the truth about this story. It's the Internet. You take it with a grain of salt and move on. No one cares.

[Bern Wheaton]

To tell you the truth I wouldn't of laugh at all.As a professional Officer you should of ask if he needed assistance and gotten maintenance to the rest room.
Or at least a janitor. Instead you laugh in this guys face , Slap out your badge telling him to back away like this was going to do the trick!

Not to be mean here But I think you need to go back to training .Your PR stinks,and I really don't blame the guy,but If I was him I would of reported you instead of making waves ,because as long as you wear that uniform you are telling them you are protecting them and willing to help in any way . Instead you think it was real cool getting this guy in more trouble then he needed. just my two cents.

[HotelSecurity]

Aw something that supports staff not using guest washrooms! It's incidents like this why most hotels do not let off duty staff visit the hotel.

[panther10758]

That story caused quite a stir on the site it was orinally posted on. In fact so much so that the orignal poster requested him membership at that site be removed and no one has heard from him since

[LPGuy]

To tell you the truth I wouldn't of laugh at all.

No one here laughed at the customer. The original poster was re-telling a story told by someone else on another site's forums.

As a professional Officer you should of ask if he needed assistance and gotten maintenance to the rest room.

No plainclothes loss prevention officer should be offering customers assistance in retrieving their cell phones from toilets. This kind of defeats the purpose of being in plainclothes. Sure, housekeeping can be called, but the officer should not offer assistance himself.

because as long as you wear that uniform you are telling them you are protecting them and willing to help in any way .

1) The officer was in plainclothes, not a uniform. If in uniform, then yes, laughing is not appropriate, but 2) "Willing to help in any way" does not include fishing cell phones out of toilets. That's not security (or more specifically, loss prevention) work.

[Lynch Mob]

1) The officer was in plainclothes, not a uniform. If in uniform, then yes, laughing is not appropriate, but 2) "Willing to help in any way" does not include fishing cell phones out of toilets. That's not security (or more specifically, loss prevention) work.

So if you are not in uniform and still on duty, it is okay to laugh at a customer's misfortune? Aren't you still an employee, and therefore a representative, of the company? Does it matter if the customer knows that at the moment you laugh or when you "flash your badge"?

I would recommend that any employee be fired for laughing at the misfortune of a customer, instead of doing what they can to try to help the situation. As an employee, in any capacity, you are there to provide service to customers and make their experience in the store as enjoyable as possible. That means you look to help customers. Loss Prevention also must be responsible for assisting customers at times and should never be laughing at their misfortune.

[Bern Wheaton]

I don't believe I said anything about the security officer fishing it out of the pot!

As I once was in LP ,explaining the duties of a LP officer is not required,each state has it own rules,further more ,he could of informed him to tell the store he lost his phone in the pot either way plains clothes or Security you should have a certain respect for people ,you can joke about it off duty ,The officer was on duty ,I am not trying to start a argument ,but everyone has there op pion .

[JB diligence]

I am pretty good at keeping my composure, but I can understand the LPO's natural compulsion to laugh, not be the most empathetic thing to do mind you, but I understand. As far as the customer goes, this sounds like a very angry person, not only in this incident but more than likely all the time.

He over reacted, I can understand being upset and angry about dropping the super-phone in the can of all places, and I would be too (I often wonder about it).

As far as the LPO goes, and all of us for that matter, we need to remember to be empathetic towards people. Sure might be funny as he** but we must remain professional. I think he did the right thing identifying himself and arresting, as there appeared to be no way out of the confrontation and clearly the phone dropper was a risk to the public in that state of mind.

What could have been done? I would suggest after not laughing, calling maintenance to retrieve the item. This thread is a great tool as it shows us all how one natural reaction can turn sour with out intent. Remember you can always laugh over stories over coffee/beers with coworkers, but not with the individual that it has happened to.