Tales of Target: Episode 5
Inevitably in retail there is going to be theft. Most large corporations have security or loss protection of some sort. Target is no different. Within the Target franchise, this position is called Assets Protection (AP). Sherwood Target, being a very small store, in a fairly safe town only has one AP. I hold our AP very close to my heart, his name is AP Brad (always referred to as “AP Brad” due to numerous other Brads or Bradleys employed at the store). And he is the best. No one is capable of changing my mind on this. It is a running joke in the store that the shoplifters or other hooligans only come whilst I am in charge/on duty. This legacy started on my very first shift where I fell victim to a gift card scam, costing the store nearly 3,000 dollars. (I wish I was kidding). This began AP Brad and I’s relationship, as the new 17 year old cashier sat crying in his office on her first day. It is also a running joke that the thieves, scammers, and other AP related shoppers only come while AP Brad is gone. Most stores always have an AP present, but as mentioned, we only have one, and he (unfortunately) cannot be at the store all day every day. If some unworthy-of-a-911-call-offense occurs when AP Brad is not present, we write him a note and leave in near his office. These notes typically end up written on receipt paper with some message revolving around the general script “AP Brad-- 6:53pm 9/17 Self Check #1 White female didn’t scan all items Ugh… AP Brooke” (My fun nickname for myself, given after all the shenanigans I have had to deal with.) Now that you, my reader, have a relative understanding of Target Asset Protection, maybe you can begin to understand how horrible this one particular night was for AP Brooke: To set the scene, AP Brad was not at the store, and he was actually on vacation for the remainder of the week. To sum it up before proceeding, I called the cops twice—equipped with statements given both times— and wrote six (6) separate notes to AP Brad. By the 4th or 5th note they began with “Me again…” Everything that could have happened, happened. It all began with a lady with a full cart (estimate: 700$) simply pushing it out of the store without paying. Yes, this happens. I walked backwards in front of her, desperately trying to stop her exiting from the store. But without being able to touch her and having to stop my resisting as she exited the freedom threshold of the doors, I watched this lady simply walk out with hundreds of dollars of merchandise. I don’t have the time, energy, or a word count that allows for me to tell you every story of the night, but there was an OD (yes, overdose) in the family restroom, three small shoplifting incidents, and two seperate groups of scammers (that I stopped with my stealthy AP work… just kidding, I had already fallen for both the scams in the past, but with failure comes knowledge, AKA they didn’t succeed this night). Another highlight was me sitting defeated, criss-cross applesauce on the floor in front of a self checkout machine filling the change dispenser. In my vulnerable position I watched yet another customer walk out holding a few expensive tech items. Yet, with the money door open in front of me, I simply had to observe them receive their free new gaming system, as I couldn’t get up and leave that money exposed. Poor AP Brad got to watch my hands hit my face whilst sitting on the dirty floor on grainy security footage. Oh, Target. The grey hair is indeed your fault. Whether you are a fellow retail soldier, a customer, or a mother, I’m sure you have witnessed a child meltdown in a store at least once. Children and stores, especially those with toys, don’t seem to get along. I have dedicated Episode 4 to my personal highlight reel of what I refer to as Retail Birth Control.
3. Coming in third place, we have the Twin Horns. Named with no irony, the Twin Horns event occurred when a mom entered the store with her twin boys. The boys were around 2 years old, being pushed in a tandom stroller side by side. When you enter Target, the first section you encounter is Bullseye’s Playground, also known as the dollar spot. Housing small, inexpensive knick kncks, this is our young guests favorite spot. On this particular day, with the twins strapped in tightly, the mom was the one who ventured into Bullseye’s Playground, picking out two bicycle horns, and handing them to her boys. For the next 45 minutes (I wish I was kidding), the trio walked around the store accompanied with HONK HONK HONK HONK radiating from inside the stroller. Imagine the loud, radiating echos of a bicycle horn whilst the mom saw no issue with the situation. Now imagine me, threatening to quit. 2. Coming in second, we have I Want Dino. Once again, named with no irony, the young shopper in this situation desperately wanted dino. And made it known. The “dino” was a dinosaur toy which for one reason or another his parents informed him he couldn’t have. This kid couldn’t have been 3 or 4 years old, but he had a set of lungs on him capable of screaming loud enough for the entire store to hear. Amidst his frustration the only words said during the meltdown were “I WANT DINO!” Over and over.. and over.. for close to an hour. I went on my 30-minute-break towards the beginning of the meltdown hoping to escape the screams, but to my surprise you could hear “I WANT DINO” even in the break room. Upon my return, he still prevailed, “I WANT DINO.” He was persistent, I’ll give him that. 1. And it first place, Weave Be Gone. I still laugh telling this story and I’m honored to share it with you, my readers. Yet another meltdown began to occur back in the toy section, and as the screams got louder I knew the parent was dragging their kid out toward the exit. They rounded the corner and I saw the cuprate, a 3-ish year old and his mom. The mom desperately trying to get her screaming kid out of the store. The mini shopper would walk a few steps, then roll on the floor, then be picked up and carried as he flailed, then be set down to walk, and the cycle continued. They were in the home stretch, the doors only steps ahead and the kid laid down and would not get off the floor. Finally his mom picked him up, he dead-weighted his body and made the task difficult. He hit and scratched at her. A sight for sure. Just as they walked out the doors, he grabbed at her hair, taking it with him on the back swing, and releasing it behind him. As if in slow motion, the hair flew through the air, all the bystanders dashing our glances anywhere but the now furious mom. The doors closed and the store quieted, no one having a response. Oh, Target. Dearest reader, I am fully aware most of you are here upon the demand of a rubric, but I hope you find yourself entertained once again.
2020 is sort of like Target. Once you get used to the pandemic, the wildfires come. Similarly, sometimes you barely make it to the midnight close a week before Christmas, and then the freezers break. Target does this fun thing (not fun thing) where for 2 weeks before Christmas the store stays open until midnight, to ensure everyone has the utmost opportunity to give the store their money. For these 2 weeks I typically don’t crawl into bed until well past 1 AM, only to get to do it again the next day. Today’s Tale of Target comes from one of these midnight closes. We finally locked the doors and began the typical closing regimine. Trying to shorten the amount of time until I got to sleep, we sped through the cash office and cleaning processes. Finally, it was just my coworker, Clyde, and me in the store and we headed toward the time clock to head out for the night. BEEP! BEEP! BEEP! BEEP! BEEP! An alarm in the distance sounded. The options now consisted: the store was being broken into, the store was on fire, an exterior door was open, or (this possibility unknown to us at the time) a section of freezers had warmed up and were no longer keeping the food inside cold enough to sell. I would have preferred the store being robbed. After desperate calls to our store director we learned we had to move all the food in the freezer sections affected, and place it in an operating freezer. I wish I was kidding. The situation worsened when we discovered an entire aisle of freezers in the grocery section was broken, not just one or two freezers. Clyde and I threw thousands of frozen meals into boxes in the dark, abandoned store as the time approached 1 in the morning. The two of us could knock out about a single freezer door every 20 minutes. The process consisted of pulling every item out of the freezer, placing it in a box, quickly moving that box back to the main freezer in the backroom and finding a spot for it in there. I speak for both of us in ensuring that we have never considered quitting more than that night; our hands freezing, our eyes tired, and our will to complete the task drastically low. At 2:06 AM we walked out the front doors, finally heading home. I hope anyone who ate those frozen meals really really enjoyed them. I hope they filled their stomach and their souls. I hope they prayed over them and thanked God for the meal. I hope those Lean Cuisines tested better than Benihana, itself. In fact, I hope they were the center of their communion and represented Christ’s body, himself. Jumping into episode 2 of The Tales of Target, I will preface again that I have worked at Target for two years and even still, every day I am never prepared for the next whacky incident that can walk through those automatic doors. I wish I could tell every story, unfortunately there will never be enough time. I am blessing you, my readers, with only the best, most outrageous, and funniest encounters in my history at store 1868, Sherwood Target.
Common sense is not all that common. I mean this in the kindest regards toward my Target guests, but it must be said. Not everyone is graced with God’s touch of logic. (I have changed this featured guest’s name for privacy.) I was again perched behind the Guest Service desk prepared to do returns or answer other related questions. I called the next guest in line forward and asked how I could help her. “I lost my ID,” she said, almost accusatory in nature, as if I had personally snatched it from her wallet. “Well, I’m sorry about that,” I replied, taken aback by her hostility when I was, in fact, the only one standing between her and finding said lost driver’s license. I tucked my ego away and went to check the lost and found. There was another ID in there, so I glanced up, asking her what her name was. “Sandy Hinstien.” Not her. I informed her it had not been turned in and stood there waiting for her to thank me for looking and walk away. She did neither of those things. Amidst the awkward standoff, I inquired further, asking where she had last seen it. She informed me it was in the electronics area of the store. I asked if she had checked back there and she responded that she had not. If you’re wondering why she didn’t go check where she last saw it in the first place, I, too, am wondering. So, naturally, I suggested she go check back there. This was apparently the wrong response. “Where can I call to see if it has actually been turned in?” she inquired, clearly angry with the service I was providing. By this point I am already at a loss with this lady, and very confused I replied, “Well.. uh.. this is where it would be turned in.. Guest Services..” I said glancing up acknowledging where I was standing. “Guest Services?” she clarified, as if this was the first helpful thing I had told her. “Yeah,” I replied with the utmost hesitation. “Okay I will call them.” She walked away before I could again tell her that this was where she had been the entire time. Not 45 seconds later the phone rang. It was my friend, Sandy, reporting her missing ID. ~~~ Now, I wish it ended here, but after the painful phone call with Sandy who was not 100 yards away from me, a few hours later the phone rang again. “Sherwood Target this is Brooke, how may I help you?” “Hi, I lost my ID earlier…” “Ah yes, hi Sandy, it’s Brooke. The one you’ve dealt with a few times now.” She had to be kidding. “I just remembered, earlier you found a driver's license in the lost and found and I told you my name was Sandy Hinstein. It is actually Sandy Hinstein-Shaw. Was that the name you found?” I could barely warrant such a question with an answer. The logical conclusion she had drawn was that I would not be able to connect the dots between the two names, even assisted with the photo on the ID. With my fakest customer service voice on I gritted out a reply, “Nope! That wasn’t the one!” Genuinely sick of the entire interaction I asked for a phone number we could call if it was found, hoping to avoid fielding phone calls from Sandy the rest of the month. She read me her phone number and wrote it on a sticky note. Above the number I wrote “Lost ID, Sandy Hi…” I paused, asking how to spell her name. “You want me to spell Sandy???” How dare I ask a stupid question. Since the start of my employment at Target almost two years ago, I have learned many things. On the list includes: children aren’t for everyone, the customer is not always right, common sense isn’t very common, and close reading is not a valued skill (especially when it comes to sale signs, and weekly ads). Nearly every shift I am surprised again by the nature of retail and the people I encounter. Thus begins The Tales of Target, a sharing of the strangest, most shocking, most enraging or upsetting events in my time at store #1868—Sherwood Target.
The most recent, and probably most notable Target story happened a couple weeks back. Like any regular Thursday shift, I was working at guest services. The general services provided here include returns and exchanges, order pickups for preordered items, some general questions about purchases, and the dreaded “may I speak to a manager?” questions. This particular day, a man walked up and asked to check out his item. The service desk, not being the check lanes, does not typically complete transactions. Internally irritated, yet externally keeping a friendly manner, I agreed to let him purchase the item—a stuffed ostrich toy—with me. After some extremely uncomfortable small talk about stuffed animals, the receipt printed and I was happy to be through with the interaction. Only, it wasn’t over. “Do you like stuffed animals,” he asked. What do you respond to that as a twenty-year-old college student? I paused, sure I thought. “Uh, yes and no,” I muttered. “Well this one is for you!” Now, briefly put yourself in my shoes. I don’t want and certainly don’t need this random man to buy me a stuffed ostrich in the middle of my work day. I eventually decided it was in my best interest to accept the gift so that I could move on with my day sooner rather than later. Following my acceptance of one of the weirdest gifts I have ever received, I hoped again that the interaction would be over. And I was again proven wrong. “Have you heard of TikTok?” the man on the other side of the counter asked? Of course I had and informed him of this. He asked if it was okay for him to post a video of me. Now, even more confused than I already had been for the past five minutes I said “sure,” not knowing a video had been taken already, and still really wanted the moment to be over. Finally, he walked away, after I had clearly given the answer he wanted. Beyond confused, I carried my ostrich with me for the remainder of my shift, before forgetting about the interaction all together by the following day. “DUDE!!” “Look at this!!” “Is this you??” My phone notifications blew up. The strange man, evidently, was a famous TikToker and I was the center of his newest video. I am not overly connected with the virtual world, but, thinking it was funny that I had thousands of views on his platform, I made a response video (the hip kids call this “duetting”) of me holding my newest ostrich friend. Who knew that this was the content my generation craves? To date I have 5.3 million views, 1.2 million likes, and my previous 6 followers now stands at 47.9 thousand. These numbers are still rising every second. Weird things happen at Target. The MRI Tube of Deep Thinking. Laying on my back, every extremity strapped down to the narrow table, the coffin-esk machine less than a foot from my face. I thought about every breath I was taking in a last ditch attempt to avoid the seemingly inevitable panic attack that was looming.
As the nurse rolled me down the long hallway on a wheelchair that likely would not have completed the journey should I have weighed 6 more pounds, I thought back to my last MRI a couple weeks before. That memory was hazy, but the strong medication that was flowing through the IV in my arm had made that experience more pleasant. The MRI technician explained the process as I looked toward the small circular opening in the huge machine I was about to slide back into. I laid down on the table, still feeling the tension from the glue holding a large gash on my forehead together. Strapped down like a prisoner, the technician asked what genre of music I would like to listen to—I guess to drown out the loud banging the MRI produces. With anxiety quickly taking over my thoughts I requested a Christian mix to play through my headset. I closed my eyes tight as the testing began and lied to myself saying I wasn’t in a tiny, metal tube, rather relaxing on the typically uncomfortable hospital beds I was accustomed to. Just when some of my fear began to fade, I felt a warm sensation running down my forehead. My initial confusion was met abruptly with the realization that my wound had not been tamed by the glue used to hold it together. I had no desire to start the test all over again so I made the executive decision that the blood could keep its temporary residency dripping down my face. I tuned into the soundtrack that had been playing quieter than my thoughts up to that point and began to listen to the words of a song I hadn’t heard before. “There’s another in the fire” the artist sang. Suddenly, the tube didn’t seem as bad. The fire that had filled the machine moments prior was gone. I was met in a place of fear by a peaceful presence sharing the moment with me. A presence that was just waiting for me to let Him join me in that place. I have a reminder on my phone that goes off twice a day, once at 9:05 AM and once at 2:00 PM. The reminder pops up and simply says “be kind:)”. The reminder is not there because I think I will be a mass murderer, or bank robber if I don’t remind myself not to; however, it is there to remind me not to get frustrated about small things like someone chewing loud, or driving slow. It reminds me that life is short, and there is no reason to not be kind to those we share the Earth with.
Recently I have learned that with expectations comes let down. People won’t always act in the way we were hoping or speak to us in the way we think they should. My most immediate reaction to the hurt I feel is to retaliate, as I feel is most of our reactions. I feel a need to get back at the person who hurt me in an attempt to hurt them or let them down, like they did me. As I have stepped back and observed my own actions as well as those around me, I am realizing that these retaliating actions almost never make us feel better and have a 100% track record for not fixing the relationship or the situation at hand. As hard (trust me, HARD) as it has been, I have intentionally made an effort to respond with kind words, and actions when my heart is let down by others. Not because they deserve it, but because choosing to use words of love has proven itself to me that it can improve the situation, and if not the situation, at least the emotions involved. Kindness does not have to just be shown in situations of hurt. It can also be shown to the person in front of you at Fred Meyer who is taking forever to check out, or the person you can not stand in your dorm. I’m not claiming to be perfect here, at all. In fact, seeing my own flaws in this area has what has drawn me to the idea in the first place. Patience, especially those in social situations, is not something I will claim to be a strong suit of mine. Maybe two reminders a day can help with that. Life is not promised to be easy. I thought for a long time if I wanted to post this, as it simply started as a journal entry, but maybe one person can be influenced by a small glimpse of my story. God is good. Amidst the storms of life He won’t let go.
“Recently it has felt like all the curveballs the world has to offer have been thrown my way. And at times it felt like they were coming at me from all directions with no chance of me hitting any of them. I could sit here and say I’ve been brave and optimistic the past few months, but that would be a lie. It doesn’t seem fair that a perfectly healthy, athletic college student has her life flipped upside down one night waking up in an ambulance, being told I had a severe seizure. It doesn’t seem fair that I had to spend my next weeks in and out of hospitals and doctors offices, getting poked and scanned and monitored. It doesn’t seem fair that all my independence was taken, no driving, no swimming, no being alone, no taking the stairs. It doesn’t seem fair that one seizure turned into three, resulting in cracked open heads, cuts, and scratches. It doesn’t seem fair that someone who worked out six days a week can so suddenly not be allowed to even walk to class alone, and taken out of a sport I loved so much. People like to tell me how brave and strong I am, telling me they are amazed at the great attitude I have had through it all. As humbling as this is it feels so wrong. Sure I have taken the whole adventure with smiles and humor, but I have to remind myself every day to keep my head up.” I wrote this journal entry after my third grand mal seizure in the span of a month. I woke up alone in my room with blood all over my sheets, and although I was confused and disoriented I knew what had happened. I called for help and watched the paramedics and my friends walk through the door with concern on their face. I made my usual jokes, trying to lighten up the room and take some of the spotlight off the blood dripping down my face. I’d be lying, again, if I said I didn’t break down crying when the room finally emptied. The title of this post is “A Statement of Faith.” So far, however, I have not made it clear as to why I would title such a vulnerable post this. Life is not fair. My journal entry expressed my frustrations with the situation. But, God is so good. I could have been driving, I could have been walking up the stairs, I could have fallen off my bed. Every situation could have been so much worse. My saying through this all has been “God is good. Life is good. And there are so many reasons to be happy.” Focusing on only the negative doesn’t allow us to see all the beauty in this world. We were created by a God who loves and cares for us. There has never been a promise that life would be easy. Faith in something bigger gives me hope, though, that one day my body won’t need medication. Hope that kindness will be spread and my stupid jokes will be appreciated. Whether you are religious or not, kindness and a smile is something that we can all do. It takes no effort to be nice. God is good. Life is good. And there is a LOT of reasons to be happy. As an English major I frequently get asked my opinions on books. Whether it be “What’s your favorite book?” or “Do you have any book suggestions?” or even “Do you want to write a book someday?”
To answer these, The Great Gatsby is my favorite book, EVERYONE should read Love Does by Bob Goff, and no, I do not want to write a book. The last one is where people get mad. I do not know why people take some sort of personal offense to an English major not wanting to be an author, but they do. In my writing specific classes I get weird looks in discussions upon announcing I have no intention of writing a book, and family gatherings get awkward when people realize there are other career options out there for an English major that don’t include being an author. I want to teach. I’ve written about this before. I do love to write, but at least right now I have no story or interest I am willing to write 300 pages on, only to have to face the brutal publishing industry. The above video talks a little bit about the ins and outs of publishing a book and the extreme battle it takes to sell your work. It is not simply the book publishing that steers me away from being an author, because I am always up for a challenge, however I have had no big calling, or sunlight descending from heaven that has driven me to battle this industry. Everyone has their calling. Mine is not to be an author. At least I don’t think it is, and sort of hope it is not. Should God meet me on the street and tell me I am going to write a book, I of course will do it. But until then, I am perfectly fine keeping my name on the chalkboard of my classroom, not atop the best seller list. |