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Sunday, June 06, 2004
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ADVENTURES IN LOSS PREVENTION, PART ONE: MIND YOUR OWN MONGLOID
I haven't written about my current job. This is largely because I loathe it so intensely that the very thought of it when I'm not getting paid is enough to drive me to deep, heaving sobs. It's much like reading that counter that reminds me how long its been since I've had sex. I hate that place so much that I currently have two letters of resignation that I carry in my book bag, one addressed to the manager and one to the Human Resources director, depending on which one of them is there when I finally decide that I've had it. Yes, it is really that bad.
I'll explain why I hate the place from the bottom of my black little heart in a later post. Right now, I'll explain what I do, but I may actually turn this into a series. I already have a few pretty funny stories. I work in a major Canadian depratment store chain as a Loss Prevention Investigator. I'm the guy who walks around pretending to shop while you theiving bastards steal everything in sight and then have the unmitigated gall to get pissed off at me when you get arrested. Have I mentioned lately how much people disgust me? I have? Good.
Anyhow, I really didn't want to go to work today. Well, I don't most days. Did I mention that I hate my job? Good. But I especially didn't want to go today. You see, presidential death is like porn to people like me. When Richard Nixon died on April 22, 1994, the only time I left the house that week was to go buy more booze. I know what my lady readers are thinking right now. "skippy's a keeper! Why hasn't some lucky girl stolen him from the rest of us yet?"
But go in I did. As a matter of fact, I was early. I'm chronically early. I view work the same way sensible women view rape, if it can't be avoided, the sooner it starts, the sooner it ends. I know the flaw in my logic, most rapes are over in a matter of minutes and I have a nasty habit of holding jobs for years. But I figured that if nothing else, I'd be able to enjoy my coffee and read my book for a half hour in peace.
It was not to be. I'm sure you've all been in a department store and heard a combination of letters and numbers that make no sense over the loudspeakers, right? That's code for someone wanting to bother me. That code started just as I cracked the cover of Richard Clarke's Against All Enemies: Inside America's War on Terror.
I was wanted in the toy department. Oh goodie! Annoying children pissing people off before I've finished my third coffee. Rat bastards, I thought. I walked as I ruminated about how if I were King of Ontario, no one under the age of 25 would be allowed in public without their fucking parents. So I get there and was met by a West Indian supervisor who I would like to hold like a puppet. She was immediately snotty, too. "Oh, you're here" she said, "I thought you were late."
"I'm never late," I responded while thinking of how my hand would fit in her various body cavaties, "I'm not even supposed to be here until noon."
"Oh, this woman wants to call 911. I'll take care of it."
She used the three most dreaded words I know, nine-one-one. Cops are famously cranky when you call 911 with bullshit. Don't ask me how I know that, just know that I do. They just assume that everyone knows that "911" translates into "emergency." Bullshit calls are what you bother the police radio room with. It takes a trained professional to know what the cops view as bullshit and what they don't. The West Indian with an ass I'd like to use as an oven mitt is decidely not such a professional.
"No, it's okay, I'll take care of it" I said as I turned my attention to the angry Philipino woman and her kids. "What can I do for you, ma'am?"
"A boy attacked my daughter. I want the police."
I look at the daughter. She was 11 years old. Not a mark on her. Oh fuck, I thought, it's one of those attacks. I made a mental note to start showing up late for work.
So off to my office we go. Here's a little aside about my office. It's about the size of a broom closet and roughly 115 degrees celcius. There are a bunch of TV monitors that show the four cameras that actually work. If you ever go to a department store, look at the ceiling. You should see a series of black bubbles that protrude from the tile. Those are cameras. Don't worry, most of them are broken. This is good is you want to steal stuff, but decidely not so if you let your daughter look at a Monoploly game unattended with the expectation that she won't get felt up. Memo to Moms: Don't count on secutity to look after your kids for you. There are three reasons why.
A) We're not getting paid yet and are drinking coffee and reading bitter recriminations of the Bush administrations failure to anticipate 9/11.
B) The cameras don't work. Besides, toys are a low loss area. Most people steal cosmetics, CDs and DVD players. Loss Prevention the world over ignores the toy department.
C) We carry multiple letters of resignation in our book bags.
But to my office we go. I start off with the easy question.
"What happened?"
The little girl looks at me and says, "Well I was looking at the board games and my mom was watching looking the TVs and this boy ran up behind me and grabbed my head then wrapped his arms around my legs."
Cool, I thought. This meant two things, both of them positive. First, I wasn't dealing with a molested 11-year old. That's a horrible way to start my period of mourning for the Gipper. Secondly, assuming he was still around, I wouldn't have to share my office with a child molester. I hate them. In a violent way. And my office chair has some....heft to it.
"Okay, do you remember what the boy looked like?"
"Yes." She went on and gave it. According to her, I was looking for an 11 year-old with a moustache. Shit, I might actually end up with a dwarf pedophile after all. God really does hate me.
So the mother is very insistent about calling the police. Actually, I don't blame her for this. Bad things have been happening to little girls in this city lately. She's right to be creeped out. But it's Sunday. The woman is there with her family. Families do family stuff on Sunday. I very nicely explain that police response times are very unpredictable. They could be there in 20 minutes, or they could be there in 4 hours. Actually, that's not a lie. Someone I work with had to wait 5 hours for the cops to show up for 30 bucks in lipstick a couple of Sundays ago.
"Okay," the mother responded."I need to go to the car and talk to my husband."
"All right. And while you do that, I'll walk your daughter through the store and see if he's still here."
"Oh, he'll be long gone by now."
"Well, I should check. You never know." Truth be told, I wasn't expecting to find him either. But with all those people, it was now 900 degrees in my office. I needed to get out of there. Before we left, I told her that if we found him I wanted her to point him out and go back to my office. I even made sure that she remembered where my office was. Aren't I good with kids?
So there I am, walking through a department store with a little Philipino girl, looking exactly like what I was trying to catch. I got a LOT of stares. I'm lucky like that.
Suddenly, the girl pulled my sleeve. "It's him. There he is! She said."
Ï looked at him. Her description was almost perfect. Most descriptions.....well, they suck. They're worse than useless. If you ever become a victim of crime, please try to pay attention, k? If a traumatized 11-year old can do it, I'm sure you can. Memo to everyone: "Ummmmmm, he was black." doesn't help.
The kid was in the girl's fashion section.
"Good girl! do you remember where my office is?"
"Yes."
Great. Go back there and wait for me or your parents, ok?"
"Ok."
So, I approach the moustachioed 11 year-old (Actually, he turned out to be older, but not much.). I'm probably two feet taller than he is. Of course, since this nightmare started before I was on the clock, I didn't have my dopey badge with me. Yes, I carry a badge and yes, it makes me feel like an idiot.
"Hi, I saw to the kid with cooler facial hair at 11 than I had at 17.
The kid stared at me, all slack-jawed like.
"Are you here with your parents?"
No response, just a blank stare. I had a feeling where this was going. It wasn't good. Bear with me.
"Okay, if you're not with your parents, I need to tell you that I work for the store and you need to come with me."
FINALLY he said something. It consisted of, "I didn't do nothing wrong."
A double negative.
"I still need you to come with me."
"But my.....dad's here." I knew that the threat of being taken away by a giant, ugly monster like me would work.
"Okay, let's go see your dad."
And we find Dad.Looking at lawn furnature. He was in more of a shave than I am. But, after all, it is Sunday.
So I leave the kid, with his mom. The girl is traumatized enough by the day's events without being subjected to being locked in a room with this mutant for another 3 hours.
Dad and I go the office. The girl is there. Introductions are made. I'm just the kind of guy who was born to hold a social event!
Then the fun begins. I explain to the father what the dillio is and his tirade begins. His kid has "a mental problem", which I had gleaned already. I'm real quick that way. But it turns out that the kid is in a special school and has "problems." I could've pointed out that I surmised this from my three minute non-conversation with him, but didn't. Being me is to be all about diplomacy.
There's a point I should insert here. I have nothing but sympathy and admiration for the parents of a retarded kid. The very concept of it must be Hell on Earth, nevermind the actuality. I doubt that I could pull it off myself. As some of you may have noticed, I'm neither a good - or particularly patient man. But as sympathetic as I may personally be, I have a job that I detest to do. And that job involves your 'tard not being my, and by extension, anyone else's problem. It sounds cold, I know.... but shit, I'm only one man! Most kids are a giant pain in the ass in public. I'd like to outlaw them all. But most kids aren't grabbing the head and legs of other, non-problematic kids.
At that point the girl's parents come back. I explain the situation to them, harmless 'tard gets away from frazzled Dad. 'Tard gets carried away, no harm, no foul. I'm hoping against hope that I don't have to explain this to the cops.
No dice. The father is even more pissed off than the mother. In fact, his anger is feeding hers. Yippie! They insist that I call the heat. Done and done. I'm nothing if not accomodating. I tell everyone before I make the call that we may be there awhile, so if you have any objections, speak the fuck up, pronto.
No one does. Even Tard Dad is cheerleading for the police. Wheeeeeeeeee!
I make the call. Then Tard Dad decides he needs to go out and smoke. Guess what? That's precisely what I was planning on doing just before this nightmare started! I tell him I need someone there to speak with the police. Besides, having left Tard and Tard Mom in another part of the store to spare the girl of looking at her tard attacker for potentialy countless hours, I needed a reason for everyone to stay.
Basically, I needed a hostage.
I tell Tard Dad that I can let him go, if he takes Tard out with him and leaves Tard Mom in my office in case the cops show up. He would, but there's a small problem; Tard Mom speaks NO English. Zero. Nada. None. My Farsi is rusty. I can only imagine how fluent the the responding cops are. So Tard Dad got to stay in my hot, miserably crowded office without his holy, holy cigarettes. He was unhappy. How unhappy was he? If you guessed "still not as unhappy as skippy" you WIN!"
Here's where things get even more complicated. The cops are going to want to talk to the Tard. At this point, I only have a vauge idea where he is. He DID get away from the parents once, right? My life would be an unmitigated Hell if he rinsed and repeated. I decide that I need Tard in my office. I really don't want to keep the girl in a broom closet with Tard......what to do, what to do? I know, I'll send the girl and Mom to the store's restaraunt! Fuck, I'm brilliant. I'm also sympathetic. I decided that I'd also call the staff there and tell them my problem is headed their way and not to pressure said problem to do something nuts, like buy stuff or leave a tip. Oops. My directory has no extension for them. In fact the directory is a full five years old. My employers are all organized an stuff.
So I get rid of the girl and hold her dad as insurance in case they flee and Tard Dad and I run to snatch Tard and Tard Mom. At this point, Tard Mom and Tard Dad are BOTH screaming at Tard in the middle of a department store. No one wanted to kill Tard more than I did, given what he had done to my day and now it was my job to get Mr and Mrs Tard to cool the fuck down. Who says I don't appreciate irony?
No sooner do I get back to my office with the Tard, Momma Tard, Poppa Tard and Baby Brother Tard, than Momma Tard decides the Tard needs his medicine. This is waaaaaayyyyyy more complicated than it sounds. The whole Tard Clan is now in my legal custody. Tard can be allergic to his medicine. Momma Tard could've been awaiting this day so that she could poison the Tard. It could just be medicine he's been taking every day since he was six, like they told me. The problem is, if anything happens to the Tard, everybody gets to sue.......ME! Granted all they'd get is my 7 grand in VISA bills, but who needs the headache?
So Dr. skippy goes to work. I have to inspect the bottle, match the name on the bottle against the Tard's health card, verify the dosage and time of administration and then personally administer the doseage.
Don't get me wrong.....it's not ALL glamour.
the prescription read, and I kid you not, 10mg of Methylphenidate, 120 doses. Jesus, I thought, anything with that many letters in its name has GOTTA BE serious! You know what the drug is? If you guessed Ritalin, you win! Ritalin for a Tard kid with a proclivity for attacking young girls looking at board games.
Aint medicine neat? So effective and stuff?
The day just got worse from there.
Please kill me?Labels: Life With skippy
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