As I may have mentioned in the past, I have worked in retail for far too long. At one point, I worked in a grocery store. This particular grocery store had a policy regarding people stealing food; if we witnessed someone stealing food, we were not to stop them. The owner believed that, if a person was so desperate that they felt the need to steal food, then they needed it more than the company needed the money. They would rather take the hit financially than press charges against someone in need.
However, I have a story regarding the theft of some strawberries while I worked there. I worked in general merchandise, so I typically was not over in the grocery department and rarely witnessed food being stolen, but I did find the remains of many stolen goods. One night, I was putting away merchandise and noticed strawberry stems and leaves on the floor, leaving an easy-to-follow trail. So, I start picking up the bits because keeping the store clean was one of my responsibilities and quickly found the culprit.
I found a group of girls with one of our biggest containers of strawberries and one of the girls was eating the strawberries and throwing the uneaten parts on the floor… I just stood there looking at these girls trying to process what I was seeing. I decided to tell the girls that, if they helped clean up the mess, I would look the other way but before I could even say anything, the girl eating the strawberries threw the container at me and they took off running.
I still have no idea what was going through their minds or if security grabbed them after I informed them of what happened. I really would not have minded the whole thing if they just had not thrown the strawberries at me. What a waste of good strawberries.