New scheme by BORGs?

[Duane Bozarth]

[Bill]

A long time ago I ended up with an unintended book. I had been doing research at the library amidst the research volumes. I re-shelved them and properly checked out several others.

The alarm went off.

I walked back over to the checkout desk and the pile was re-swiped.

Again, the alarm went off.

One more trip to the checkout counter for a third scanning.

The third time the alarm went off the security guard grinned and waved me through.

Had any of us ever looked in my briefcase we'd have found the offending volume.

...

That left me, a normally honest man, with a problem -- how to return it past the scanner / metal detector at the entrance.

I eventually opted to come back late at night and use the night drop-off.

Bill

[Leon]

For future reference, had they searched your briefcase you could have been arrested. Conceiling merchandise whether you intend to pay for it or not immeditely qualifies you as a thief with intent to steal.

[Charles Wood]

[Edwin Pawlowski]

Depends on where you live. NJ, all the stations must pump for you and they have the cheapest gas around. In MA, each town decides. At the town borers, one side of the street is self serve, the other side is full serve at the same price. Anyone that thinks self serve is a bargain is nuts.

[Wes Stewart]

And in Arizona this would be a capital offense with summary execution authorized.

our quirky law:

"Unklesbay said several factors played into his decision, from witness accounts that described Hernandez as provoking the fight to a state law that allows merchants to detain suspected shoplifters for law enforcement purposes. Another state law also allows people to use physical force when detaining others for law enforcement if it's necessary."

[Brian Elfert]

I wouldn't even know where to find a station with full service here in Minnesota. I don't recall seeing one in ages.

I remember in 1994 or so stopping for gas in the middle of the night at a station somewhere in Georgia or Florida. I didn't realize it was full service until the guy came out. The gas was around $1.65 a gallon. (Remember, this was 1994.)

Brian Elfert

[Brian Elfert]

This was a library, not a store. Libraries don't require payment last I checked.

I doubt a library would prosecute someone for a first offense, especially someone who was helpful in trying to fix the problem. Someone who wanted to steal a book would have kept right on going when the alarm sounded.

Brian Elfert

[Leon]

It does not matter where you are, if you pick something up and conceil it you can be liable for theft. Many libraries that I have been to do charge late fees, REQUIRE you to check out the book and some actually sell books. So yes many libraries do indeed require payment especially if you have turned in a book that was late.

[Bill]

Yep ... and they could have looked into my briefcase, which I normally kept locked because it had spontaneously opened a couple times, as soon as the municipal police arrived with the search warrant.

And here in Michigan, sometimes a mistake is just that ... a mistake. I had a table full of books, some mine, some the library's. I had been there for hours. One of theirs got mixed in with mine. For all I know, one of mine might have been 're-shelved'.

[Duane Bozarth]

[Fly-by-Night CC]

Check this out from Saturday's Oregonian:

[Prometheus]

Yes, yes. Thank you for protecting us all from the terrible scourge of absent-minded bookreaders. Now don't you have a McDonald's to sue for making you fat or something?

I know the law is the law, but it's important to use a little perspective and common sense.

[Leon]

Well I am not the one with the problem here. If you rely on perspective and common sense of employees of a library or store you may very well be the type person that needs to be reminded of this. I'd say 80% of retail and public workers believe that they are there for YOUR benefit. Those are the ones that get overly excited about some one breaking the law whether it be purposely or by accident. The other 20% realize where their paychecks come from and or why they are there. They tend to be the only ones with common since and perspective in situations like this. In my younger days I fell in the 80% group and most of us seemed to see eye to eye when it comes to theft. So it will be easy for you or I to use perspective and or common sense but keep in mind that it is the store employee or public worker that you must rely on to have the perspective and common sense after he has witnessed you break the law and does not know you from Adam.

[Fenrir Enterprises]

Self checkout technology is still too 'buggy' to be reliably useful, most of the time the cashier has to help out anyway. It tends to aggrivate customers (most of whom will refuse to use it again and want a real cashier afterwards), though I find it extremely useful when I only need one small pipe fitting or pack of saw blades and the lines are full of people with fifty boards or stacks of tile.

I find it interesting that the local Home Depot has self-checkout lines and always has at least five registers open on most days, while Lowes has no self-checkout lines and almost never has more than one register + service desk open even during Christmas rush. Seems that Home Depot is making enough with them to keep over twice as many real cashiers working.

[Charles Wood]

I can see it would be pointless to explain the irony of people who shop at a DIY store who can't.

[woodrat]

What is BORGs?

[Robert Bonomi]

(a) a weak pun on the like-named aliens from Star Trek:The Next Generation, that 'assimilated' everything.

And travelled around in big, boxy, spacecraft

(b) an acronym for ig range etail iant -- originally referring to Home Depot, subsequently generalized to mean any of the big-box superstores. The 'Blue BORG' is Lowes, the "Red BORG" is Menards, for example.

[Duane Bozarth]

If you're meaning that as a jibe to me, it's not a case of "can't" but "choose to not participate"...

If I thought there were any attempt to pass on any reduction in cost back to me, I change my attitude, but I see no indication of same. It's mostly a case of being a fossil, I guess... :)

[Dave Hall]

For those of you with a few years under your belt, isn't it interesting that "full service" is defined as a station where they pump the gas for you? Even the few times in the last 20 years that I have gone to a "full service" station or pump (like when my left leg was broken and in a cast) I don't recall anyone cleaning my windshield or checking my oil ;-)

I think that one of the best innovations of the last few years was the gas pump card reader.

Dave Hall