No Surrender to the Shoplifter Alarm

I own a home, pay my taxes and help raise two children. Since graduating from college 12 years ago, I have worked for the same company. I have never committed adultery, a felony or a misdemeanor, and yet I’m presumed guilty. I bought batteries at a chain home repair store. When I walked out, the security sensor bell chimed. A clerk ran out calling frantically after me, “Sir, you have to come back. The shoplifting alarm went off.”

In that split second I had a choice to make. I had not stolen anything, so I had nothing to fear walking back. Of course, I had not stolen anything, therefore their system must be faulty, and therefore they had no right to search me. The alarm made a mistake, accusing me of theft in the eyes of clerks and shoppers. I should have slunk meekly back to explain. Instead, I kept walking.

The clerk ran out after me, “Hey, you have to come back,” I said, “That’s your system, not mine. Go ahead and call the police.” As I walked to the car, heart hammering in my chest, I hoped they would call the police. I hoped a security guard would tackle me and search me. After that, let the lawyers sort it out. Another clerk, a male, followed me to the car and wrote down my license plate number. To hell with them. What can the police accuse me of, failing to jump at the chime of the alarm?

This will seem ridiculous to most people, and even as I write this I wonder why I made the choice I did. The good people who work at this store were just doing their jobs. How many millions of dollars has their antitheft system saved them and us? I do not have that answer but I have seen the same kind of advanced technology spring up all around me at work.

In the past 12 years, our company has started to monitor employees’ phone calls, monitor employees’ computer keystrokes, monitor which doors employees badge into and out of all day and monitor employees’ urine for drugs.

Thomas Jefferson said, “How much cost has been paid for evil that has never occurred?”

Our company has spent millions of dollars to prevent at best thousands of dollars worth of theft. It has not done management-employee relations any good either; we hate them, and they don’t trust us. I cannot afford to quit work so I suffer these indignities, but I can afford not to shop at that home repair store anymore.

I write these words as I sit at home with my batteries, waiting for the police to come.