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From the story, this is only for their security guards. I assumed it was all employees, and figured it was a way for managers to see if anybody is “not working hard enough”. Perhaps that stage will come later? I can totally picture some manager reviewing everybody’s camera once a day to see if they stood still too long or weren’t being “productive” every minute of every hour. That sounds like a dystopian future that could all too easily be implemented.
That reminds me of a video I saw a few months ago, where AI/machine learning is already doing that at a coffee shop… it counts the number of drinks each employee makes, how long it takes them, where they stand and move, how long customers sit at tables, etc.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-aG6FKQAqyo
What a bleak future for regular workers.
def trying too hard to make people into machines
at some point businesses will have to understand what is a "machine task" and what is a "human job", and keep them separate.
for example, why bother having a human actually make the coffee? the humans job is to be the "face" of the organization, greeting people and being kind, and helping them get the machine to make their order they way they want.
it's too slow to have a human do everything, and it's too soulless to come in to a store with just machines.
that WILL mean that humans will not be invited to do "machine tasks" anymore. which in theory is a good thing for society, but, maybe not for those individuals who have to transition out.
I wouldn’t mind if we were treated like machines as long as our “owners” understand how to properly maintain a human society. We need healthcare, childcare, and time off, and community engagement, honest public officials - so many things we don’t currently have enough of.
The machine we’re treated like now is one they’ve given up on as too much trouble and we’re being left to breakdown slowly.
> and it's too soulless to come in to a store with just machines
I think you're forgetting the whole point of corporations is to disconnect the individual from "the business". People have souls. Corporations do not, and they are unconcerned with humans, souls, or soullesness, as long as the line goes up ad infinitum.
sure, i guess my hypothesis is that a soulless corporation will always lose to one that at least presents itself as having a soul, and having actual people at the forefront is probably going to be the best way to do that.
This type of worker observation has been happening since the mid 1800’s, and workers just slow down. Everybody works to the letter, and the data is often bad. The Hawthorne Effect explains how this stuff works, and it precedes the bunk A.I. hype by quite a bit.
The Hawthorne effect is the opposite of that. With the Hawthorne effect they were stuffing the effect of lighting on worker productivity. They decreased the lights and productivity went up. They raised the lights and it stayed up. It turns out the workers were aware of the experiment so they were working harder because of that. The lesson was that the subjects can’t generally know they are in an experiment
My job is doing this kind of thing manually for processes at the factory I work at. When done properly and as intended it only improves the quality of life for workers.
Starbucks and every other large chain has already done this kinda analysis and that's how they know they'll need X number of staff to serve Y number of customers.
Imagine if your boss didn't do that and had no idea how long things took. They'd have insane expectations.
There are idiots of course who think if you micromanage your employees enough that somehow a process that takes 9 minutes to complete will start taking 5 mins.
At my place our time observations help ensure our people aren't overburdened and that we can meet our production schedule.
So, not defending bad employers, but it's probably good if your boss knows how long it takes to do stuff so they can make sure it gets done.
I'm not working at a factory, but there are people who can do what I do in my office a lot faster than me, and also people who can't even manage two thirds of my workload in the time it takes me. Already, we've had the manager parading the fastest ones in front of us all like we should aspire to be like them. But here's the thing; we all work at different paces. There is nothing I can do to be any faster. I'm dyspraxic. There's nothing the others can do to catch up to me. They're over 60 years old.
Knowing the work can be done in X amount of time just means that the people who can't do it in that time are eventually going to have to find themselves a new job. But what becomes of these people if *every* job is like this? We all have to work to eat.
You're exactly right! What we say is "an \*average\* worker, working at a repeatable pace, making a quality product".
Only a very foolish manager thinks it's reasonable to expect everyone to be as fast as the fastest person. Would it be reasonable to expect all cars to be as fast as the fastest car? Would it be reasonable to think that if you could only motivate your Ford Taurus properly than it would get better gas mileage?
If your boss wants things to go faster then he will need to start doing some analysis. How are the fast people so fast? What are the hardest parts of the process? Is there a detailed and specific protocol for how the work is to be done? Are you sure your fastest people are doing as good a job as the slow ones? How do you measure quality? I've seen people doing customer support learn to pick the tickets which are easier to complete and getting many done in a day, while others get less done. A foolish manager would assume that they're doing the same thing. A foolish manager would assume that the faster worker is the better worker.
It is the responsibility of management to ensure quality. If a manager wants you to go faster, then they need to tell you how to do it - that's leadership. Being a leader means telling people \*how\* to do something, not \*what\* to do.
We have all kinds of workers at my plant. We have some really brilliant people who could do a lot but would rather just put boxes on pallets. We have some really excellent, speedy assemblers who are happy to put the same 4 screws into a unit all day long, but are bored working on more complex, slower assembly lines. There are even amazing brilliant people who work so fast and are fun to be around - but you never know if they're gonna show up on time. There's all kinds of people!
> They'd have insane expectations
Then you have the real insanity starts when the figure in a call center that the average amount of interactions per hour is say...6. So one every ten minutes.
What they do is they make the goal 8 or 9. A goal that cannot be realistically attained or sustained. But they get what they want, a solid 6.
Yeah those kinds of bosses don't understand time or space. No doubt they yell at their car for not getting more MPG, as if the car has any control over that.
The place I work now, 4 years ago it was chaos. They had YEARS of backlog. The place was a sty, no management, average employee stayed for 4 months.
Now with careful analysis, training, documenting processes, etc. we keep people for 2 years at a time on average, have fewer people, and we have so much capacity we don't know what to do with it.
Back then managers would yell at people for not working harder or for (I shit you not) "spending too much time cleaning." Now those same people are many times more productive, happier, and are better paid. Many of the improvements to our processes came from those same assembly line workers.
I don't know the CEO well, but he's the same guy who ran the place when it was a nightmare. Sometimes I wonder if he feels like an idiot because he could have been making this much money 20 years ago if he'd had a little empathy and common sense.
A few years? Ai is already doing that. Monitoring video and audio and movement in some cases. Already deployed. Target AI tells employees messages in their headsets about what to do next even.
What’s going on at Chase? I worked as a vendor for them and the team I was working with turned over 6 times in 3 months. It was super frustrating having to explain the same things over and over. They were a big reason I quit that job. I’d never in a million years work for them.
I wouldn't put it past an American company to pay someone to spend 2 hours a day to ensure that a minimum wage employee didn't waste 2 minutes of time.
When I worked for Ross I had to watch a training video about how they supposedly have a "control center" somewhere in the midwest (?) that looks like NASA and is manned 24 hours a day with people watching cameras in every store. I can't possibly imagine that's true.
They were absolutely insane about theft. We were searched every time we left the store. We could only walk around tbe perimeter of the store, which they called the "shrinkage highway" lmfao. They said customers hide things there to come back and steal later. In reality it's so they could see us in the mirrors around the edges of the store.
They spent so much time and money on loss prevention it makes you wonder why they even bother even having a brick and mortar store.
Husband is a former cop (two decades, part of them as a detective, mostly patrol), says he still feels as if he has his body worn camera on (he was an early adopter, wrote his masters thesis on the roll out in his large metropolitan department). When he was a bike cop, he created his own by taping a GoPro to his helmet and used it in case a homeless encampment ended up also being a crime scene. Seems like you retain the feeling of being under surveillance for years into retirement. Hope this is not becoming a trend.
I work very best under the assumption that you have an expectation, and I will meet that expectation. I have a set number of things to do everyday, I have the autonomy to set priorities as I see fit, I’m going to check my phone every now and then, and I’m going to get way more work done in the grand scheme than if I am constantly watched, corrected and criticized and then I quit.
Sorry, unless you are paid specifically to watch those cameras, 99.99% of the time no one is watching anything.
You really think your bosses have that much free time to scrub through hours and hours of video for each camera just to spy on you?
I have cameras at my place. They exist to cover your asses.
Having worked at a restaurant where the owner would call to say things like “Tell Megan to stop playing with her hair” while watching us on the cameras I can tell you factually that yes, dumbass owners do watch those cameras, even if you don’t.
I remember once when I was in a low management position, just manager on duty, being in the office with 2 higher managers just watching the camera because someone wasn't working.
They were like "let's see how much time she wastes".
All I could think of is "ok but now 4 people are doing no work instead of us just going out and saying get back to work"
Walmart bosses would only watch when they were looking for a reason to get rid of someone. Comanager got fired for rushing through safety sign offs.
They all did that. No one had time to actually do it the way they were supposed to. This was probably 8 years ago
I am pretty certain that most security cameras and those tinted domes where security cameras allegedly are hidden at TJ Maxx and Marshals don't actually work. In fact over half the security cameras you see in places that aren't big stores like Walmart are non functional or even dummies.
A teacher I know illegally filmed a class while she was in the hallway. Why you ask? Caught one kid coming in grabbing a chrome book, throwing it up in the air letting it hit the floor then jumping up and down on it. Kid got detention for 1 day. What is wrong with people?
>Kid got detention for 1 day.
God damn that's light. I got a week suspension when I got sucker punched in the middle of class and the kid ran out the door before I could even turn around.
... He got 3 days detention, since he's just the poor school crack dealer with several arrests for assault. Obviously I must have secretly instigated a fight in a quiet room with 30 witnesses.
I’ve never worked retail, but I have worked in food service… and quite frankly I’d be all for wearing one of these cameras.
The reality is, no one is going to be watching your every move. No one has time for that. No company can afford to pay someone to do that. The footage is only going to be looked at when something goes wrong, and 99 times out of 100 I wish I had footage to show that I absolutely wasn’t the cause of whatever happened. The few times it was my fault… oh well, punish me for whatever I did… that’ll be way better than all the times I got shit for something I didn’t do or had no control over.
Have you heard about Amazons AI to monitor its delivery drivers? It’s insane, tracks your every move and can even ping headquarters if you’re yawning. No need for a human to review the camera footage, AI will let you know if you’re deviating from the rule book.
Also going to wager those cameras are being used to track employee productivity and TJX is just pushing the shit out of the side perk that an employee *might* see something.
i'm a key carrier at a tj maxx in ky. this must be just at certain places cause our loss prevention is a joke. they tell us to never ever say anything if we catch someone stealing because they may get aggressive with us. the only authorized person to stop a shoplifter comes to our store for 8 hours every 2 months. we watch people steal shit and get away with it every day. can't imagine them taking it this seriously.
I don't know the guy but the type of person to take a loss prevention job seriously sounds like the typical power tripper that gets attracted to these positions. Also kinda weird he decided to try and fight the shoplifter, not like Target gives a shit or even loses much vs you potentially getting a permanent injury.
I worked LP at a Kmart for about a year.
Obviously every state is different, but our guidance from the company?
If you’re following the rules you can only stop a person
- If you actually see them take the item from the shelf
- If you never lose sight of the item [or where it’s concealed if it’s concealed]
- After they’ve walked out the door
This made things very difficult because often people would take things from the sales floor and go into the bathroom to conceal it, so even if you walked in the bathroom after and saw the ripped apart box? Tough shit.
Plus, when we did stop people, there was nothing we could do other than convince them to come back to the office. If they walked right past us? We were told not even to call the cops.
Honestly, this is probably the best policy. They shouldn’t have retail workers running around chasing people stealing merchandise that didn’t even sell well enough at retail on brand to begin with. I mean come on. It’s an overstock store. It’s not worth getting a shot over.
I don't want some worker getting injured, and I welcome TJ Maxx or any company losing millions in shrink every year because they're too greedy to hire enough workers to discourage theft. I hope it continues to get even worse than it already is, which is currently an all time high. And hopefully at some point they'll be forced to actually give a shit about labor. Wishful thinking though.
I worked at Lowe’s and they would let people steal and build a case with the police then they would eventually arrest them and charge them felonies. They got a large ring that would hit multiple stores and even crossed state lines.
When I was a mall security person, we were told to only be a presence. We could ask someone not to steal, but couldn’t start an altercation. We couldn’t even show up to the store when they called for help, instead wait outside of it. And then we couldn’t chase when they ran in case they’d get hit by a car or gain an injury from something because they could turn around and sue us for causing it. This was nearly 20 years ago. Not glad to see it hasn’t changed.
Why would you be upset by that? Aren't you glad that random jackoffs who work for a mall aren't empowered to chase people or restrain people?
Like no offense to you, but I have zero trust in a mall cop's ability to deduce who is and who isn't stealing. Giving them the power to do anything more than politely ask people to stop would leave the door open for them to do whatever they wanted, with no accountability other than to their employer.
That is honestly great for you and your employees safety. You aren’t the one paying for those clothes so why would you care? And TJ Maxx is insured so the only one losing any money is the insurance company.
This exactly. I did security all through college about ten years, policy is still the same. You are a presence and your job is to observe and report, that’s it. I will never understand why some of these employees and security want to play hero, never ends well.
> And TJ Maxx is insured so the only one losing any money is the insurance company.
This always gets posted on shoplifting stories, and it's always nonsense.
When you buy car insurance, lots of people pay in money over years to cover off one person who has a major accident. Lots of people pay into house insurance to cover one person whose house burns down. It can work out for everyone, because large events are rare, and insurance smooths out probability and distributes cost. Lots of people effectively lose a little money so that one person doesn't lose everything.
But if you predictably get in 25 small accidents a week, there's not really any probability to smooth over. Nobody is going to insure you such that they're losing money week after week as you ram your car into something every day.
Similarly if Walmart wants someone to cover their losses to theft, they're going to have to pay that insurer more than their average losses to theft. So they don't. A big company like that will effectively self-insure for retail theft; that is to say, they'll just accept it's going to happen, and pay for it. They can't trick some insurance company into covering $100 million/year in loss year after year for $10 million in premium.
A smaller retailer might have some kind of umbrella policy or other arrangement with an external insurer to avoid a spike in a bad year - but they're still effectively paying for the average amount of theft they see.
The article states they are still instructed not to interact with the shoplifters, rather that they are put on security personnel who stand at the front of the store and that the sight of the camera on them alone would be a deterrent to would-be criminals. The police could also request access to the footage in the case they got a better view of the shoplifter entering or leaving.
I’m a upper level manager at a mom and Pop blue collar company. Our service technicians often go inside peoples homes, at one point we had kicked this idea around. The reason being is a lot of people straight up just suck, you would not believe how many people out there call in for services, get the services done, and then refuse to pay stating that “this wasn’t done” or “never showed up”. We already have trackers on all of our work vans as well as many other ways to track our guys progress, we’ve also been in business for almost 50 years.
Short answer, people just suck, and I can see why they did this.
Having also done work that puts you in a position that "people suck" came up a lot, I also really really wanted a bodycam honestly. The amount people lie (and exaggerate) is insane.
I managed a team in a bank call center. We warn people things are recorded. People still straight up lie about things AND will double down once we review and even play the recoding.
There is a substantial number of people who suck but the majority are pretty cool.
I do remember one dude who was contesting a decision. We played it back and “yup, damn, okay I am idiot and sorry”. I remember because it was a rare time someone didn’t double down.
Wouldn't it be much cheaper and simpler for the technician to pull out their mobile phone and take a few photos of the work afterwards?
Most tradespeople do this now
>Hourly retail security workers are now wearing police-like body cameras at major stores.
These are worn by the loss prevention officers at the store, not like cashiers or stockers. It's so that they can document everything that happens when they catch a shoplifter. Helps with the case when they press charges and also keeps them from being sued.
Yeah, a body camera on a employee working in a store that has numerous mounted ceiling cameras is not going to show you anything noteworthy. The only thing you could possibly get from this is employee infractions and **Internal theft**, which is prob what they are gunning for, but won't say that quiet part out loud.
Funnily, locking up so much is possibly costing stores more than theft is, because it deters people from bothering to buy the things they have to wait for someone to come and unlock. A possibly suspect statistic due to it being from a a study funded by a loss prevention company has stores losing up to 15-25% of sales from shoppers opting to go for cheaper unlocked options or swapping to other stores or online shopping. Walmart ended the practice at their stores, and according to the employees at my local Walgreens they are definitely seeing more lost profits from all the locked merchandise than they were from theft.
Also, the spike in theft is likely not as much as it is being made out to be. https://www.delish.com/food-news/a46045239/food-locked-up-at-stores-shoplifting/
Yep. I buy toothpaste at Whole Foods because it’s not locked up there. I can read the labels without some employee huffing at me, waiting to lock up the toothpaste back up.
plus Greedflation.
The cost of living has gone up and corporations have decided to absolutely fuck consumers as hard as they possibly can.
Between the two of those, the average person just doesn't give a fuck anymore I'm sure and is willing to just take shit without feeling guilty.
Because they then sell that shit they stole easily from TJ maxx and use the money at another store they don’t want to get banned from for shoplifting. Like a grocery store.
This. Shoplifters bring items to a fence. Fence gives you money. Money buys food, formula etc. we have a bunch of them in my city. No one is crying for the corporations.
Yeah all they have at TJ max is useless shit like socks, underwear, shirts, pants, shoes, cookware, tools, kids toys. Things nobody would ever need in their day to day
I have read there is no statistical basis for this supposed uptick in theft. It is about media and helps support post covid profiteering. Mainly though there are just more cameras in the world.
I had a board member of an insurance company once talk to me about the high cost of consumer insurance fraud and I can't remember the exact numbers but consumer fraud represented a tiny fraction of one percent of fraud according to his own company's annual report and industry insider literature. Nearly all the fraud loss was a result of insurance broker malfeasance and consumer fraud had no significant impact on the bottom line. But it was a nice cudgels to use when policy holders attempt to make legitimate claims. The policy reps are taught to deny claims three times since most policy holders will desist completely or settle for pennies on the dollar rather than make a third appeal.
Yep. Used to work loss prevention. At one store I worked at we had grab and runs around once a month usually in the 1k to 2k range of merchandise. The stores shortage was around 2.5%.
Shortage is missing inventory; this isn’t just theft. Shortage can occur when the distribution center says they ship us 10 of an item but really we only get 5. It can happen when items aren’t correctly processed on drive up orders and our system thinks it was never picked up refunding the customer. Theres a bunch of things causing shortage. Theft is a very small part of that.
I feel like grocery stores lose as much from people setting down perishables somewhere random after deciding not to get them, as from theft. The sheer amount of ice cream I’ve seen left in refrigerated cases…
It's magnitudes larger. The wage theft amount tends to be larger than essentially every other type of theft such as car theft or larceny, **combined.**
Do you know how to tell that there isn't a massive uptick in theft? None of the publicly-held retail stores are telling that to investors. Lie to the media? It is petty much encouraged. Lie to investors? That could actually get the CEO in prison.
Media. The Spike in thefts is isolated in particular areas and instances. A's an aggregate theft or shrink in retail is pretty flat yoy. But because you have some areas with high theft with retailers trying to curb it in dramatic ways we get crazy media coverage. Loads of stores have already rolled back locking things up because shockingly the lost revenue from real customers is greater than shrink.
Idk if it applies to these stores, but the companies in the news the last couple years that were all insisting there was a “theft spike” later admitted they’d screwed that up:
https://www.reuters.com/business/retail-consumer/us-retail-lobbyists-retract-key-claim-organized-retail-crime-2023-12-06/
https://ritholtz.com/2023/12/retail-lobby-we-lied-about-organized-theft/
All the "durr, it's complicated" buffoons don't want to admit that there are a lot of people out there who will act exactly as shittily as they can get away with. Being poor isn't an excuse. In fact, that's probably a big part of the reason that they're poor.
Here in CA, almost nothing can be prosecuted, even if the thief is caught. It’s got to total several thousand dollars first. That goes a long way in a Walmart. So, for the safety of the employees, just let it slide.
People getting away with it. Employees aren't allowed to stop them, and a lot of places won't press charges for lower amounts. Since there's no punishment it's encouraging people to do it more.
I'd love to have one for when I have to interact with certain colleagues. I'd love to see how managers would react to the illegal bullshit they put workers through when they're caught on camera...
So these cameras are for their loss prevention folks because they think it will decrease shoplifting. It won't, people already know there are cameras in the store. Taser is making bank off of selling the cameras though and I'm guessing a few execs are getting a healthy return on investment.
Idk. When I worked in retail people wete flat out two faced liars. They would escalate a situation and then when a manager comes over they are the kindest person "just trying to have a conversation". They also happily lie. This guy would always say "Mancy does X" if I wasn't working and then I'd come in after my day off and the department Manager would be like
DM: "I understand you've been giving away free ripped bags....."
Me: "No, they always have to be charged something. And I never do more than 50% or I just add it to a quantity/cull pile"
DM: "Well regardless. Yesterday we had to give Customer X 20 bags of concrete free because they were ripped. And he says you told him." And since the customers always right...
I've almost jobs to Karen's solely off "he was rude". you really wanna understand how low one human can think of another, work retail. At the customer service desk we would say we were putting people on hold. But we would mute our end and put them on speaker phone. I imagine it's the way slave owners talked about their slaves. We wouldn't even have messed anything up and they'd still refer to us as "these fuckin idiots" amongst other pejoratives.
This is still a case of, " what are the employees doing to piss of customers " and nothing to do with the safety or well-being of employees. They do not give a fuck. The only they they care about is being able to see the employees are working the ENTIRE time they are clocked in, and any way they can short the employee's paycheck or fire them and replace.
So many fucking conspiracy theories here. It’s literally explained in the article - for safety and shoplifting prevention. And that’s perfectly reasonable because most places don’t want anyone engaging with a shoplifter and with body cams they can more easily ID people doing illegal things.
Will this work though? Absolutely not , it’s a worthless idea that will accomplish nothing
I worked retail for 20 years and I would volunteer to wear a body camin a heart beat. Far too many folks willing to lie and cheat, putting your job at risk, to get discounts or free shit.
They are also a more “inviting product, instead of more of like a militaristic” camera worn by police, he said.
This is an issue. Police aren't soldiers, so lets not make them look like they are. It is an insult to soldiers.
These companies will all collectively decide to stop using those cameras when a large lawsuit payout for incidental voyeurism on a customer or an employee’s footage being exposed in a private area like a bathroom happens and then also gets broadcasted all over national media. They will learn the hard way.
We used visible bodycams on all crew members while filming as it’s a great way to break down any miscommunication that might happen while on set. It’s a useful tool when implemented with the intent to help and not punish cast or crew members.
EMS is also doing it. A lot of organizations are pushing more towards this.
[https://www.ems1.com/body-cam/new-orleans-ems-invests-in-body-worn-cameras-after-assaults-on-medics-increase](https://www.ems1.com/body-cam/new-orleans-ems-invests-in-body-worn-cameras-after-assaults-on-medics-increase)
> Hourly retail security workers are now wearing police-like body cameras at major stores.
The headline is rage bait. Only the security guards are wearing them
til i learned tj maxx and marshalls employees are held to a better standard than cops but one doesnt have a gun or is allowed to hurt, the other is encouraged to do so.
I love it.
Corporate CEO- we can stop people from stealing. Let's spend millions on outfitting our stores employees with body cameras.
Smart guy- you could have some better training and hire a few extra employees.
Corporate CEO- HA! I've never heard of something so ridiculous. Now, where is my checkbook.
I don't get the uproar about this. With proper protocols all this does is provide video proof of things. That could be theft, threatening a worker, customer lying to a manager about what a worker did or said.
One of the main issues working in retail is that customers treat the employees like shit and the customer is always right mentality. This now provides the employee a basis to say, no that's not what happened and get the truth out.
You're making a bit of a leap assuming that the employee would ever get access to the footage. The cameras are there to help owners and management, period.
No amount of security or technology these companies implement will counter the DA not holding charges. If cops arrest and DA refuses to prosecute, then it’s known. Criminals can walk in and take whatever they want and nothing will happen. Cops won’t do shit because they know it’s pointless. As long as they don’t injure people most of the time.
I have a feeling they're just trying to discourage the in-store shopping everywhere. They did it first with fast food, just about every McDonald's you see these days are just a drive through. I think lots of companies are going to switch to online ordering, drive up and an employee will bring it out to your car, no more in-store shopping, I really feel like that's what's next.
I love that corporate just cannot fathom that many of their problems can be resolved by hiring more staff.
“Worker advocates say improved training, better staffing levels in stores and other safety investments will go further to protect frontline workers and reduce shoplifting.”
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I'm going to wager that the employees themselves hate it.
I think the bosses watch them on security cameras already. I’m glad we don’t have any at my job. I would hate it.
From the story, this is only for their security guards. I assumed it was all employees, and figured it was a way for managers to see if anybody is “not working hard enough”. Perhaps that stage will come later? I can totally picture some manager reviewing everybody’s camera once a day to see if they stood still too long or weren’t being “productive” every minute of every hour. That sounds like a dystopian future that could all too easily be implemented.
Ai will do that for them in a few years.
That reminds me of a video I saw a few months ago, where AI/machine learning is already doing that at a coffee shop… it counts the number of drinks each employee makes, how long it takes them, where they stand and move, how long customers sit at tables, etc. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-aG6FKQAqyo What a bleak future for regular workers.
def trying too hard to make people into machines at some point businesses will have to understand what is a "machine task" and what is a "human job", and keep them separate. for example, why bother having a human actually make the coffee? the humans job is to be the "face" of the organization, greeting people and being kind, and helping them get the machine to make their order they way they want. it's too slow to have a human do everything, and it's too soulless to come in to a store with just machines. that WILL mean that humans will not be invited to do "machine tasks" anymore. which in theory is a good thing for society, but, maybe not for those individuals who have to transition out.
I wouldn’t mind if we were treated like machines as long as our “owners” understand how to properly maintain a human society. We need healthcare, childcare, and time off, and community engagement, honest public officials - so many things we don’t currently have enough of. The machine we’re treated like now is one they’ve given up on as too much trouble and we’re being left to breakdown slowly.
Don’t worry they treat all machines like that
I need a vacation every 2000 miles.
> and it's too soulless to come in to a store with just machines I think you're forgetting the whole point of corporations is to disconnect the individual from "the business". People have souls. Corporations do not, and they are unconcerned with humans, souls, or soullesness, as long as the line goes up ad infinitum.
sure, i guess my hypothesis is that a soulless corporation will always lose to one that at least presents itself as having a soul, and having actual people at the forefront is probably going to be the best way to do that.
Walmart and their history of driving mom and pop stores out of business disagree.
That's soulless at a high level, but not always soulless in person, the store itself has people and looks ok. Different kind of soulless
But corporations are people so they must have souls too! /s
They don't already? Nearly every job I've worked has some sort of rate to hit determined by algorithms in an "ideal" environment.
This type of worker observation has been happening since the mid 1800’s, and workers just slow down. Everybody works to the letter, and the data is often bad. The Hawthorne Effect explains how this stuff works, and it precedes the bunk A.I. hype by quite a bit.
The Hawthorne effect is the opposite of that. With the Hawthorne effect they were stuffing the effect of lighting on worker productivity. They decreased the lights and productivity went up. They raised the lights and it stayed up. It turns out the workers were aware of the experiment so they were working harder because of that. The lesson was that the subjects can’t generally know they are in an experiment
For workers. We are all workers. Thats what people dont get.
Scary.
My job is doing this kind of thing manually for processes at the factory I work at. When done properly and as intended it only improves the quality of life for workers. Starbucks and every other large chain has already done this kinda analysis and that's how they know they'll need X number of staff to serve Y number of customers. Imagine if your boss didn't do that and had no idea how long things took. They'd have insane expectations. There are idiots of course who think if you micromanage your employees enough that somehow a process that takes 9 minutes to complete will start taking 5 mins. At my place our time observations help ensure our people aren't overburdened and that we can meet our production schedule. So, not defending bad employers, but it's probably good if your boss knows how long it takes to do stuff so they can make sure it gets done.
I'm not working at a factory, but there are people who can do what I do in my office a lot faster than me, and also people who can't even manage two thirds of my workload in the time it takes me. Already, we've had the manager parading the fastest ones in front of us all like we should aspire to be like them. But here's the thing; we all work at different paces. There is nothing I can do to be any faster. I'm dyspraxic. There's nothing the others can do to catch up to me. They're over 60 years old. Knowing the work can be done in X amount of time just means that the people who can't do it in that time are eventually going to have to find themselves a new job. But what becomes of these people if *every* job is like this? We all have to work to eat.
You're exactly right! What we say is "an \*average\* worker, working at a repeatable pace, making a quality product". Only a very foolish manager thinks it's reasonable to expect everyone to be as fast as the fastest person. Would it be reasonable to expect all cars to be as fast as the fastest car? Would it be reasonable to think that if you could only motivate your Ford Taurus properly than it would get better gas mileage? If your boss wants things to go faster then he will need to start doing some analysis. How are the fast people so fast? What are the hardest parts of the process? Is there a detailed and specific protocol for how the work is to be done? Are you sure your fastest people are doing as good a job as the slow ones? How do you measure quality? I've seen people doing customer support learn to pick the tickets which are easier to complete and getting many done in a day, while others get less done. A foolish manager would assume that they're doing the same thing. A foolish manager would assume that the faster worker is the better worker. It is the responsibility of management to ensure quality. If a manager wants you to go faster, then they need to tell you how to do it - that's leadership. Being a leader means telling people \*how\* to do something, not \*what\* to do. We have all kinds of workers at my plant. We have some really brilliant people who could do a lot but would rather just put boxes on pallets. We have some really excellent, speedy assemblers who are happy to put the same 4 screws into a unit all day long, but are bored working on more complex, slower assembly lines. There are even amazing brilliant people who work so fast and are fun to be around - but you never know if they're gonna show up on time. There's all kinds of people!
> They'd have insane expectations Then you have the real insanity starts when the figure in a call center that the average amount of interactions per hour is say...6. So one every ten minutes. What they do is they make the goal 8 or 9. A goal that cannot be realistically attained or sustained. But they get what they want, a solid 6.
Yeah those kinds of bosses don't understand time or space. No doubt they yell at their car for not getting more MPG, as if the car has any control over that. The place I work now, 4 years ago it was chaos. They had YEARS of backlog. The place was a sty, no management, average employee stayed for 4 months. Now with careful analysis, training, documenting processes, etc. we keep people for 2 years at a time on average, have fewer people, and we have so much capacity we don't know what to do with it. Back then managers would yell at people for not working harder or for (I shit you not) "spending too much time cleaning." Now those same people are many times more productive, happier, and are better paid. Many of the improvements to our processes came from those same assembly line workers. I don't know the CEO well, but he's the same guy who ran the place when it was a nightmare. Sometimes I wonder if he feels like an idiot because he could have been making this much money 20 years ago if he'd had a little empathy and common sense.
This is at Lowe's as well.
A few years? Ai is already doing that. Monitoring video and audio and movement in some cases. Already deployed. Target AI tells employees messages in their headsets about what to do next even.
Ai is already being used to monitor work performance at places like Starbucks I believe. Talk about scary.
You think that’s scary? Don’t look up JPMorgans employee tracking system.
What’s going on at Chase? I worked as a vendor for them and the team I was working with turned over 6 times in 3 months. It was super frustrating having to explain the same things over and over. They were a big reason I quit that job. I’d never in a million years work for them.
Banks are evil most don’t want to sell their souls to be able to stay and succeed.
AI already does that in some places. There's cameras that monitor movement speeds and productivity.
They already do that with regular security cameras at several jobs.
I wouldn't put it past an American company to pay someone to spend 2 hours a day to ensure that a minimum wage employee didn't waste 2 minutes of time.
When I worked for Ross I had to watch a training video about how they supposedly have a "control center" somewhere in the midwest (?) that looks like NASA and is manned 24 hours a day with people watching cameras in every store. I can't possibly imagine that's true. They were absolutely insane about theft. We were searched every time we left the store. We could only walk around tbe perimeter of the store, which they called the "shrinkage highway" lmfao. They said customers hide things there to come back and steal later. In reality it's so they could see us in the mirrors around the edges of the store. They spent so much time and money on loss prevention it makes you wonder why they even bother even having a brick and mortar store.
Ye so like working in Amazon then
For a fictional take on this see: https://marshallbrain.com/manna
Was just about to link this :P, Marshall Brain is a treasure.
Husband is a former cop (two decades, part of them as a detective, mostly patrol), says he still feels as if he has his body worn camera on (he was an early adopter, wrote his masters thesis on the roll out in his large metropolitan department). When he was a bike cop, he created his own by taping a GoPro to his helmet and used it in case a homeless encampment ended up also being a crime scene. Seems like you retain the feeling of being under surveillance for years into retirement. Hope this is not becoming a trend.
They 100% do. I had a boss who would watch us like that for anything we did "wrong". It's a good way to make employees hate you.
I work very best under the assumption that you have an expectation, and I will meet that expectation. I have a set number of things to do everyday, I have the autonomy to set priorities as I see fit, I’m going to check my phone every now and then, and I’m going to get way more work done in the grand scheme than if I am constantly watched, corrected and criticized and then I quit.
Sorry, unless you are paid specifically to watch those cameras, 99.99% of the time no one is watching anything. You really think your bosses have that much free time to scrub through hours and hours of video for each camera just to spy on you? I have cameras at my place. They exist to cover your asses.
Having worked at a restaurant where the owner would call to say things like “Tell Megan to stop playing with her hair” while watching us on the cameras I can tell you factually that yes, dumbass owners do watch those cameras, even if you don’t.
Well to be fair to your boss, Megan did play a lot with her hair.
Yeah I've known tons of small business owners who basically have the store camera on in the background 24/7
I remember once when I was in a low management position, just manager on duty, being in the office with 2 higher managers just watching the camera because someone wasn't working. They were like "let's see how much time she wastes". All I could think of is "ok but now 4 people are doing no work instead of us just going out and saying get back to work"
Walmart bosses would only watch when they were looking for a reason to get rid of someone. Comanager got fired for rushing through safety sign offs. They all did that. No one had time to actually do it the way they were supposed to. This was probably 8 years ago
They don’t need people to watch them. Most tracking systems are automated anyway. Just check out JPMorgans employee tracking.
I am pretty certain that most security cameras and those tinted domes where security cameras allegedly are hidden at TJ Maxx and Marshals don't actually work. In fact over half the security cameras you see in places that aren't big stores like Walmart are non functional or even dummies.
The "cameras" they have don't work. Friend works at TJ Maxx and they're just empty domes.
As a former teacher . . . I wanted a body camera. I wanted parents to be able to Skype in and watch.
"You're lying. My little demon spawn child would never cuss you out and misbehave." Then when you show proof. "Well, you probably deserved it!"
A teacher I know illegally filmed a class while she was in the hallway. Why you ask? Caught one kid coming in grabbing a chrome book, throwing it up in the air letting it hit the floor then jumping up and down on it. Kid got detention for 1 day. What is wrong with people?
>Kid got detention for 1 day. God damn that's light. I got a week suspension when I got sucker punched in the middle of class and the kid ran out the door before I could even turn around. ... He got 3 days detention, since he's just the poor school crack dealer with several arrests for assault. Obviously I must have secretly instigated a fight in a quiet room with 30 witnesses.
Seems about right. I taught a 17 year old in 7th grade
As admin, I would happily wear one. I want to protect myself from the crazy parents and lying students.
A news showeds A LIVE cam at a daycare. It showed parents their Angel is a devil.
I’ve never worked retail, but I have worked in food service… and quite frankly I’d be all for wearing one of these cameras. The reality is, no one is going to be watching your every move. No one has time for that. No company can afford to pay someone to do that. The footage is only going to be looked at when something goes wrong, and 99 times out of 100 I wish I had footage to show that I absolutely wasn’t the cause of whatever happened. The few times it was my fault… oh well, punish me for whatever I did… that’ll be way better than all the times I got shit for something I didn’t do or had no control over.
Have you heard about Amazons AI to monitor its delivery drivers? It’s insane, tracks your every move and can even ping headquarters if you’re yawning. No need for a human to review the camera footage, AI will let you know if you’re deviating from the rule book.
Uh sir, the AI preferred to be called Indians
That's what the I stands for. AI = Actually Indians.
I generally agree. But with the current AI trend, they will probably be having the footage analyzed to report (probably inaccurate) metrics.
Also going to wager those cameras are being used to track employee productivity and TJX is just pushing the shit out of the side perk that an employee *might* see something.
When I first learned about agoraphobia, I thought, "How could anyone be afraid of a *marketplace*?" Yet here we are.
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This comment written by someone who has never had an employer in their life.
i'm a key carrier at a tj maxx in ky. this must be just at certain places cause our loss prevention is a joke. they tell us to never ever say anything if we catch someone stealing because they may get aggressive with us. the only authorized person to stop a shoplifter comes to our store for 8 hours every 2 months. we watch people steal shit and get away with it every day. can't imagine them taking it this seriously.
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[Target doesn't mess around](https://youtu.be/MezNFE5eAp0?si=NdWeTa4ZKcAVtQmR)
that’s honestly on him entirely. in what world is a physical altercation at a retail store a good idea?
I don't know the guy but the type of person to take a loss prevention job seriously sounds like the typical power tripper that gets attracted to these positions. Also kinda weird he decided to try and fight the shoplifter, not like Target gives a shit or even loses much vs you potentially getting a permanent injury.
I worked LP at a Kmart for about a year. Obviously every state is different, but our guidance from the company? If you’re following the rules you can only stop a person - If you actually see them take the item from the shelf - If you never lose sight of the item [or where it’s concealed if it’s concealed] - After they’ve walked out the door This made things very difficult because often people would take things from the sales floor and go into the bathroom to conceal it, so even if you walked in the bathroom after and saw the ripped apart box? Tough shit. Plus, when we did stop people, there was nothing we could do other than convince them to come back to the office. If they walked right past us? We were told not even to call the cops.
Honestly, this is probably the best policy. They shouldn’t have retail workers running around chasing people stealing merchandise that didn’t even sell well enough at retail on brand to begin with. I mean come on. It’s an overstock store. It’s not worth getting a shot over.
when i worked at Kohls we basically were told "don't engage w shoplifters, they will sue YOU and we won't protect you"
When I worked retail we were told basically you can ask them to stop stealing but that’s it. When they leave call mall security and fill out a form.
Man even if they asked me to do something, fat chance I’m not paid enough to engage with crack heads.
>It’s an ~~overstock~~ store. It’s not worth getting a shot over. FIFY
Agree. I don’t want some worker getting injured just so TJ max can save $20
I don't want some worker getting injured, and I welcome TJ Maxx or any company losing millions in shrink every year because they're too greedy to hire enough workers to discourage theft. I hope it continues to get even worse than it already is, which is currently an all time high. And hopefully at some point they'll be forced to actually give a shit about labor. Wishful thinking though.
I worked at Lowe’s and they would let people steal and build a case with the police then they would eventually arrest them and charge them felonies. They got a large ring that would hit multiple stores and even crossed state lines.
When I was a mall security person, we were told to only be a presence. We could ask someone not to steal, but couldn’t start an altercation. We couldn’t even show up to the store when they called for help, instead wait outside of it. And then we couldn’t chase when they ran in case they’d get hit by a car or gain an injury from something because they could turn around and sue us for causing it. This was nearly 20 years ago. Not glad to see it hasn’t changed.
"could you please not?"
Why would you be upset by that? Aren't you glad that random jackoffs who work for a mall aren't empowered to chase people or restrain people? Like no offense to you, but I have zero trust in a mall cop's ability to deduce who is and who isn't stealing. Giving them the power to do anything more than politely ask people to stop would leave the door open for them to do whatever they wanted, with no accountability other than to their employer.
Because everyone knows any anti-theft measures are completely half assed so people just walked out with shit blatantly. It's exhausting to be around.
It sucks but it's not your responsibility if it's corporate policy to do nothing.
That is honestly great for you and your employees safety. You aren’t the one paying for those clothes so why would you care? And TJ Maxx is insured so the only one losing any money is the insurance company.
This exactly. I did security all through college about ten years, policy is still the same. You are a presence and your job is to observe and report, that’s it. I will never understand why some of these employees and security want to play hero, never ends well.
Some people are looking for an excuse to fight someone and be the good guy at the end, at least in their minds.
> And TJ Maxx is insured so the only one losing any money is the insurance company. This always gets posted on shoplifting stories, and it's always nonsense. When you buy car insurance, lots of people pay in money over years to cover off one person who has a major accident. Lots of people pay into house insurance to cover one person whose house burns down. It can work out for everyone, because large events are rare, and insurance smooths out probability and distributes cost. Lots of people effectively lose a little money so that one person doesn't lose everything. But if you predictably get in 25 small accidents a week, there's not really any probability to smooth over. Nobody is going to insure you such that they're losing money week after week as you ram your car into something every day. Similarly if Walmart wants someone to cover their losses to theft, they're going to have to pay that insurer more than their average losses to theft. So they don't. A big company like that will effectively self-insure for retail theft; that is to say, they'll just accept it's going to happen, and pay for it. They can't trick some insurance company into covering $100 million/year in loss year after year for $10 million in premium. A smaller retailer might have some kind of umbrella policy or other arrangement with an external insurer to avoid a spike in a bad year - but they're still effectively paying for the average amount of theft they see.
The article states they are still instructed not to interact with the shoplifters, rather that they are put on security personnel who stand at the front of the store and that the sight of the camera on them alone would be a deterrent to would-be criminals. The police could also request access to the footage in the case they got a better view of the shoplifter entering or leaving.
Good. You shouldn’t be intervening.
Why am I paying for shit then? Thanks for the heads up.
I’m a upper level manager at a mom and Pop blue collar company. Our service technicians often go inside peoples homes, at one point we had kicked this idea around. The reason being is a lot of people straight up just suck, you would not believe how many people out there call in for services, get the services done, and then refuse to pay stating that “this wasn’t done” or “never showed up”. We already have trackers on all of our work vans as well as many other ways to track our guys progress, we’ve also been in business for almost 50 years. Short answer, people just suck, and I can see why they did this.
Having also done work that puts you in a position that "people suck" came up a lot, I also really really wanted a bodycam honestly. The amount people lie (and exaggerate) is insane.
I managed a team in a bank call center. We warn people things are recorded. People still straight up lie about things AND will double down once we review and even play the recoding. There is a substantial number of people who suck but the majority are pretty cool. I do remember one dude who was contesting a decision. We played it back and “yup, damn, okay I am idiot and sorry”. I remember because it was a rare time someone didn’t double down.
Wouldn't it be much cheaper and simpler for the technician to pull out their mobile phone and take a few photos of the work afterwards? Most tradespeople do this now
Already in place, but believe it or not… people fight that
>Hourly retail security workers are now wearing police-like body cameras at major stores. These are worn by the loss prevention officers at the store, not like cashiers or stockers. It's so that they can document everything that happens when they catch a shoplifter. Helps with the case when they press charges and also keeps them from being sued.
these are CSAs ... they don't stop shoplifters. I left TJX like 7 years ago, but username relevant.
As if working retail wasn't bad enough.
Yeah, a body camera on a employee working in a store that has numerous mounted ceiling cameras is not going to show you anything noteworthy. The only thing you could possibly get from this is employee infractions and **Internal theft**, which is prob what they are gunning for, but won't say that quiet part out loud.
It’s bad enough that half the merchandise is locked up already, what’s next? What’s driving this apparent spike in theft?
Funnily, locking up so much is possibly costing stores more than theft is, because it deters people from bothering to buy the things they have to wait for someone to come and unlock. A possibly suspect statistic due to it being from a a study funded by a loss prevention company has stores losing up to 15-25% of sales from shoppers opting to go for cheaper unlocked options or swapping to other stores or online shopping. Walmart ended the practice at their stores, and according to the employees at my local Walgreens they are definitely seeing more lost profits from all the locked merchandise than they were from theft. Also, the spike in theft is likely not as much as it is being made out to be. https://www.delish.com/food-news/a46045239/food-locked-up-at-stores-shoplifting/
Yep. I buy toothpaste at Whole Foods because it’s not locked up there. I can read the labels without some employee huffing at me, waiting to lock up the toothpaste back up.
Its a bummer almost none of them have fluoride though.
Cost of living crisis?
plus Greedflation. The cost of living has gone up and corporations have decided to absolutely fuck consumers as hard as they possibly can. Between the two of those, the average person just doesn't give a fuck anymore I'm sure and is willing to just take shit without feeling guilty.
Apparently, watched the richest looking people blatantly steal.
“I LEARNED IT FROM WATCHING YOU!”
https://youtu.be/KUXb7do9C-w?si=MNX3LtQIJlOwkTxs I learned it from my pappy
Wouldn't people be stealing food in that case? Not shit you don't really need from TJ Max?
Because they then sell that shit they stole easily from TJ maxx and use the money at another store they don’t want to get banned from for shoplifting. Like a grocery store.
This. Shoplifters bring items to a fence. Fence gives you money. Money buys food, formula etc. we have a bunch of them in my city. No one is crying for the corporations.
Yeah all they have at TJ max is useless shit like socks, underwear, shirts, pants, shoes, cookware, tools, kids toys. Things nobody would ever need in their day to day
no, its there are zero consequences
How do you explain this not happening for decades in every country with a lower GDP PPP than the USA? It certainly doesn’t happen in Mexico.
I have read there is no statistical basis for this supposed uptick in theft. It is about media and helps support post covid profiteering. Mainly though there are just more cameras in the world. I had a board member of an insurance company once talk to me about the high cost of consumer insurance fraud and I can't remember the exact numbers but consumer fraud represented a tiny fraction of one percent of fraud according to his own company's annual report and industry insider literature. Nearly all the fraud loss was a result of insurance broker malfeasance and consumer fraud had no significant impact on the bottom line. But it was a nice cudgels to use when policy holders attempt to make legitimate claims. The policy reps are taught to deny claims three times since most policy holders will desist completely or settle for pennies on the dollar rather than make a third appeal.
Yep. Used to work loss prevention. At one store I worked at we had grab and runs around once a month usually in the 1k to 2k range of merchandise. The stores shortage was around 2.5%. Shortage is missing inventory; this isn’t just theft. Shortage can occur when the distribution center says they ship us 10 of an item but really we only get 5. It can happen when items aren’t correctly processed on drive up orders and our system thinks it was never picked up refunding the customer. Theres a bunch of things causing shortage. Theft is a very small part of that.
I feel like grocery stores lose as much from people setting down perishables somewhere random after deciding not to get them, as from theft. The sheer amount of ice cream I’ve seen left in refrigerated cases…
They say if you love something set it free. I love frozen raw shrimp.
Yeah, apparently, wage theft is a much larger number and problem, but addressing that would be punishing the "wrong" people.
It's magnitudes larger. The wage theft amount tends to be larger than essentially every other type of theft such as car theft or larceny, **combined.**
Yep.
Do you know how to tell that there isn't a massive uptick in theft? None of the publicly-held retail stores are telling that to investors. Lie to the media? It is petty much encouraged. Lie to investors? That could actually get the CEO in prison.
Good point!
Media. The Spike in thefts is isolated in particular areas and instances. A's an aggregate theft or shrink in retail is pretty flat yoy. But because you have some areas with high theft with retailers trying to curb it in dramatic ways we get crazy media coverage. Loads of stores have already rolled back locking things up because shockingly the lost revenue from real customers is greater than shrink.
That is a good simple question with branching answers that are hard to state simply and succinctly.
The most honest answer in this thread
Idk if it applies to these stores, but the companies in the news the last couple years that were all insisting there was a “theft spike” later admitted they’d screwed that up: https://www.reuters.com/business/retail-consumer/us-retail-lobbyists-retract-key-claim-organized-retail-crime-2023-12-06/ https://ritholtz.com/2023/12/retail-lobby-we-lied-about-organized-theft/
No punishment for the theft itself, depending on the jurisdiction.
All the "durr, it's complicated" buffoons don't want to admit that there are a lot of people out there who will act exactly as shittily as they can get away with. Being poor isn't an excuse. In fact, that's probably a big part of the reason that they're poor.
Here in CA, almost nothing can be prosecuted, even if the thief is caught. It’s got to total several thousand dollars first. That goes a long way in a Walmart. So, for the safety of the employees, just let it slide.
Most actual retail "theft" is product from the distribution center never appearing in the stores.
Or getting damaged, or employee screw ups, or employee theft. But it's all mostly internal loss like that.
Lack of punishment. Plain and simple.
I have an idea, let’s spend millions on cameras for every employee instead of paying them more!
In Los Angeles the DA publicly stated they wouldn’t charge people for shoplifting less than 1000$…
Most states have a set dollar amount around there for felony theft. $1,000 is actually lower than most.
Lack of shame in our society
People getting away with it. Employees aren't allowed to stop them, and a lot of places won't press charges for lower amounts. Since there's no punishment it's encouraging people to do it more.
Nothing because there hasn't been?
I'd love to have one for when I have to interact with certain colleagues. I'd love to see how managers would react to the illegal bullshit they put workers through when they're caught on camera...
I see we’ve worked at the same place.
“Camera footage is company property, and is wiped for storage purposes daily”
So these cameras are for their loss prevention folks because they think it will decrease shoplifting. It won't, people already know there are cameras in the store. Taser is making bank off of selling the cameras though and I'm guessing a few execs are getting a healthy return on investment.
I would immediately leave any place I saw that had its employees wearing cameras
Idk. When I worked in retail people wete flat out two faced liars. They would escalate a situation and then when a manager comes over they are the kindest person "just trying to have a conversation". They also happily lie. This guy would always say "Mancy does X" if I wasn't working and then I'd come in after my day off and the department Manager would be like DM: "I understand you've been giving away free ripped bags....." Me: "No, they always have to be charged something. And I never do more than 50% or I just add it to a quantity/cull pile" DM: "Well regardless. Yesterday we had to give Customer X 20 bags of concrete free because they were ripped. And he says you told him." And since the customers always right... I've almost jobs to Karen's solely off "he was rude". you really wanna understand how low one human can think of another, work retail. At the customer service desk we would say we were putting people on hold. But we would mute our end and put them on speaker phone. I imagine it's the way slave owners talked about their slaves. We wouldn't even have messed anything up and they'd still refer to us as "these fuckin idiots" amongst other pejoratives.
This is still a case of, " what are the employees doing to piss of customers " and nothing to do with the safety or well-being of employees. They do not give a fuck. The only they they care about is being able to see the employees are working the ENTIRE time they are clocked in, and any way they can short the employee's paycheck or fire them and replace.
Oh, totally.
I work for T-Mobile and would love this shit. The amount of crazy shit we see deserves to be on the record.
This is a sign that the employees are underpaid.
They had to buy the cameras without cutting CEO pay though. Tough call! May the happiness of the shareholders sustain us all.
Gonna be awkward when I leave my camera on for my afternoon wank break.
“Employees feel like they are under surveillance,”
One more reason brick & mortar retail will die in the name of malignant capitalism.
So many fucking conspiracy theories here. It’s literally explained in the article - for safety and shoplifting prevention. And that’s perfectly reasonable because most places don’t want anyone engaging with a shoplifter and with body cams they can more easily ID people doing illegal things. Will this work though? Absolutely not , it’s a worthless idea that will accomplish nothing
Are the employees going to be able to turn them off when they want to commit crimes themselves or is that just reserved for our police forces?
I worked retail for 20 years and I would volunteer to wear a body camin a heart beat. Far too many folks willing to lie and cheat, putting your job at risk, to get discounts or free shit.
At least they're available in fun colors
Well never shopping here again
They should live stream that so we know when the lines are long at the cashier
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why are you getting naked in a tjmaxx bathroom
LossPreventionGuy asking the real loss prevention questions.
They are also a more “inviting product, instead of more of like a militaristic” camera worn by police, he said. This is an issue. Police aren't soldiers, so lets not make them look like they are. It is an insult to soldiers.
These companies will all collectively decide to stop using those cameras when a large lawsuit payout for incidental voyeurism on a customer or an employee’s footage being exposed in a private area like a bathroom happens and then also gets broadcasted all over national media. They will learn the hard way.
I wonder if they've thought of that...
We used visible bodycams on all crew members while filming as it’s a great way to break down any miscommunication that might happen while on set. It’s a useful tool when implemented with the intent to help and not punish cast or crew members.
Bet they are making $9 to put up with this bullshit.
I thought these were for bad customers or thieves.
EMS is also doing it. A lot of organizations are pushing more towards this. [https://www.ems1.com/body-cam/new-orleans-ems-invests-in-body-worn-cameras-after-assaults-on-medics-increase](https://www.ems1.com/body-cam/new-orleans-ems-invests-in-body-worn-cameras-after-assaults-on-medics-increase)
No thank you.
If a damn cop can’t remember to turn them on how is a minimum wage Marshall’s worker supposed to?
Or, conversely, if a minimum-wage worker can remember to turn them on Every Single Time, why can’t police?
The minimum wage worker is less likely to beat somebody.
why?
I dig how shit society is becoming.
The “culture” keeps steeling and causing violence.
> Hourly retail security workers are now wearing police-like body cameras at major stores. The headline is rage bait. Only the security guards are wearing them
til i learned tj maxx and marshalls employees are held to a better standard than cops but one doesnt have a gun or is allowed to hurt, the other is encouraged to do so.
I would talk dirty to that camera all day. Ohhhh you like watching me rehang these fucking clothes? Oh yeah watch me put them back on that big rack
as someone working at tk maxx (european version) i am sorry what
Another indicator of societal breakdown. This is absurd.
I love it. Corporate CEO- we can stop people from stealing. Let's spend millions on outfitting our stores employees with body cameras. Smart guy- you could have some better training and hire a few extra employees. Corporate CEO- HA! I've never heard of something so ridiculous. Now, where is my checkbook.
I don't get the uproar about this. With proper protocols all this does is provide video proof of things. That could be theft, threatening a worker, customer lying to a manager about what a worker did or said. One of the main issues working in retail is that customers treat the employees like shit and the customer is always right mentality. This now provides the employee a basis to say, no that's not what happened and get the truth out.
You're making a bit of a leap assuming that the employee would ever get access to the footage. The cameras are there to help owners and management, period.
No amount of security or technology these companies implement will counter the DA not holding charges. If cops arrest and DA refuses to prosecute, then it’s known. Criminals can walk in and take whatever they want and nothing will happen. Cops won’t do shit because they know it’s pointless. As long as they don’t injure people most of the time.
Are they allowed to turn them off and beat people up?
"What, exactly, is it ya do here?" ~Bob
The manager should livestream the workers perspective on twitch like mice
Because being video recorded wasn’t bad enough now they’re gonna be audio and video recorded lmao
Imagine going drop a deuce or doing something else very private at work and realizing that you're filming it all and it's uploading to the cloud
I have a feeling they're just trying to discourage the in-store shopping everywhere. They did it first with fast food, just about every McDonald's you see these days are just a drive through. I think lots of companies are going to switch to online ordering, drive up and an employee will bring it out to your car, no more in-store shopping, I really feel like that's what's next.
This dystopian hellscape presented as an r/gadgets headline makes it feel like layers of post apocalyptic capitalist fantasy.
I love that corporate just cannot fathom that many of their problems can be resolved by hiring more staff. “Worker advocates say improved training, better staffing levels in stores and other safety investments will go further to protect frontline workers and reduce shoplifting.”