Blog

Short blog posts, journal entries, and random thoughts. Topics include a mix of personal and the world at large.

Consequences must follow

What really grinds my gears is going to Target and finding the thing I wanted to buy is locked up behind plexiglass. The introverted me will definitely not call for an associate to unlock the damn cabinet. Target often leaves me no choice but to buy the same item from Amazon. Sure I would have to wait two days to get it shipped for free, but at least I don’t have to beg someone to allow me the honor to make a purchase.

It’s a real shame that it has to be like this. Those tasked with making and enforcing laws have abdicated their duty to the public. When criminals can steal with impunity, the law-abiding majority suffers. The few ruins it for the many. We all have to take our shoes off at airport TSA checkpoints because one person nearly snuck a shoe bomb through one time. We all have to pay higher auto insurance premiums to cover the few who do not.

There has to be sufficient punishment to act as a deterrence. America cannot be like Japan: the orderliness, the cleanliness, and the utter lack of common crime is because of the Japanese culture. Lacking that, government must then create strong incentives. Take a look at China: pretty crimes are nonexistent, not because the population is overwhelmingly benevolent like Japan, but it is because there’s surveillance cameras everywhere. Who would be stupid enough to steal anything? Especially in a country with a somewhat arbitrary judicial system.

Not that I am advocating for mass surveillance here in the States. I’m just saying we cannot get to Japan from a bottom-up cultural standpoint. We must catch and punish those who do not follow laws. There’s no room for laxity. Oh, you can’t afford that red light ticket because you’re poor working class? Easy: don’t run the freaking red light in the first place. Choices were made, consequences must follow.

My fellow San Franciscans: you ever go to other parts of this country and be amazed that merchandise at a Target aren’t locked up behind glass? I have. It’s fantastic and sad to see at the same time. The powers at be in San Francisco are actively choosing to not have nice things.

Book 'em, Danno

Today, in things you love to see: a notorious retail thief was convicted last week of stealing from our local Target store. This is a win for those us who follow the rules and pay for the stuff we buy. I sure hope San Francisco will continue enforcing laws and put some actual consequences to offenders. (Please do traffic violators next.) The citizenry deserves to live in a civilized society that is free of these nuisances.

I point any defeatist attitudes towards the island nation of Japan. There I can leave stuff in the backseat of our rental car, with the full expectation that the items will still be there upon returning. We - the United States - can and should also have such nice things. To say otherwise is simply tyranny of low expectations.

To the people who say Target’s insurance will make the company whole - therefore the few thievery should de-facto be tolerated: do you actively try to get into car accidents? Your auto insurance will repair your vehicle fully, am I right? That asshole in a truck not merging properly: I’m going to let him hit me. That will teach him! I am in the right!

Retail-theft is not a victimless crime. Regular, law-abiding shoppers are victims when we have to summon a staff person just to buy a tub of detergent. The workers are victims when they witness the thefts happening, and can do nothing about it (nor should they, from a safety perspective). The community can potentially be victims when the problem becomes so bad that entire stores shut down.

I don’t know about you, but I rather enjoying have a Target within walking distance.

Paul Blart, library cop

Every time I’ve walked by the local public library lately, I’ve noticed a security guard out front. I guess that’s a permanent fixture now? What a sad commentary on the state of things here in the Bay Area, that even a freaking library needs someone menacing to stand at the entrance. Let me guess: teenagers were doing wayward things inside the library during the afternoon hours. I can’t imagine anyone would actually rob a library. Used books on the secondary market aren’t that lucrative.

The local mall not only has its own security guards, but some of the shops inside - the ones with highly prized merchandise - feature their own security detail at the entrances. (Yo dawg, I heard you like mall cops…) This is a fantastic situation for rent-a-cop businesses: look at all the jobs being created! But for the patronizing public (read: me) it’s a jarring reminder of the reasons these security people have proliferated. We’ve seen the videos: the concerted looting, and rowdy teens (respectively or not).

Target closed down its self-checkout aisle because too many folks were scanning and leaving without paying. We really cannot have nice things around here. The utter tyranny of the minority of people breaking the law, and ruining the entire experience for the rest of us.

We laugh at China for being a policed state, with cameras everywhere. Have anybody noticed the we - at least in the San Francisco Bay Area - are getting there as well? I mean, at least here it’s not government sponsored! There’s private security guards at stores (and public libraries, apparently), and there’s private security cameras outside homes, businesses, and inside public transportation. We’re are absolutely being surveilled whenever we go outside. A price worth paying for being safe?

Shopping spree

Black Friday for our local Target store is not the Friday of Thanksgiving. Rather, it’s the weekend of move-in day before the start of Fall semester at nearby San Francisco State University. The horde of freshmen, with their family in tow (keepers of the credit card, obviously), attacking the shelves for their everyday dorm-life needs. That includes a SodaStream for one guy, and a whole vacuum cleaner for another person. The latter of whom is a guy I very much personality align with. A dirty room is simply unacceptable.

Whilst witnessing the purchasing madness going on (I was going to the Whole Foods at the same mall), I thought to myself, “Gee, I hope the crew at Target knew to stock up for this occasion!” “What if everyone wanted a coffee maker?” You see, our Target is not as big as the typical one. Under normal operation there is no way it can handle thousands of freshmen moving in and buying stuff. Heck, I can still remember going there not too long ago and was unable to buy the particular socks I wear. Not in stock.

The manager of that Target should be fired if the store were ill-prepared for Fall move-in day.

Seeing countless SUVs lining up towards the dorms with the entirety of a student’s living needs is a reminder that summer is almost over. I don’t know, it sure felt like a quick one to me. Work-wise it’s been bit of a lull since June, honestly. I am actually looking forward to having jam-packed days of action, and a bustling campus full of students and staff. The 2023-2024 school year is the first one since the official end of the pandemic, (Federal COVID emergency declaration ended in May of this year) so I am wondering if the campus can return to its former glory of packed buildings and halls.

Like back when I went to school at SFSU in the late aughts.

Not out of the woods yet

You may think the supply chain crunch from the pandemic is over, but it’s not really in reality. Two evenings ago I was at the local Target to buy milk, and there were zero whole milks on the shelf. Organic or inorganic, grass-fed or corn-fed, didn’t matter. The only milks on the shelf were the 2% and 1% variety. I guess most people, like myself, do not consider low-fat milk to be milk at all. Honestly, you might as well just drink water.

In my job, computer components break, and we have to call Dell or Apple for replacements. Recently a brand new Dell laptop had a faulty AC adapter. No big deal, right? It’s under warranty, Dell will replace the adapter no problem. Well, the problem is the supply chain. As of writing, we’ve been waiting for the replacement adapter for three weeks now - supply of which is severely backordered. Obviously, being a proper IT department, we had spares on hand for the user. Imagine if you’re a regular customer, though: your newly purchased Dell laptop cannot function going on three weeks. Hugely unacceptable.

And that’s why I recommend Apple. At least you can go to a local Apple Store to complain!

I’ve read that if you bought a new Land Rover sports-utility vehicle, and were unlucky enough to need a windshield replacement, you might be shit out of luck. There’s a supply shortage of windshields, and Land Rover rather concentrate on what little stock they have towards making whole vehicles (more profit in that enterprise). So what does the owner of a six-figure Range Rover to do? Apparently, Land Rover dealerships are buying back the cars, presumably enough compensated for owners to get another new Range Rover.

A scourge on civilized society

I really want to support my local Target store. I try to buy stuff there (instead of Amazon) as often as possible. However, when the thing I want to buy is locked up behind security boxes - requiring the assistance of a store clerk to open - I immediately give up and order that same item from Amazon. Sorry, I really cannot be bothered to talk to someone just to buy something.

I remember a time visiting Austin, Texas. The local CVS there has no such funny business. Every item was out in the open, not a security case to be seen. What a revelation that a well-functioning society should not subject its local populace to rampant retail thievery. Worse, there’s hardly any consequences for that sort of crime in the San Francisco Bay Area. Go to the 24th and Mission BART station and you can see vendors selling goods stolen from the likes of Target, Walgreens, and CVS. It’s madness.

I was at a Walgreens recently. Three young teens that looks to be of high school age walked in, and I immediately knew they were trouble. They took their sweet time to find items they wanted, stuffed them into their bags and jackets, then simply walked right out. Nobody working at the store paid any attention, not one person said anything.

And I don’t blame them. This is America, after all: you have no idea who has a gun and can shoot you for speaking out. Fellow shoppers just want to be left alone in peace. The minimum-wage store clerks definitely do not get paid enough to deal with this shit. Even for dedicated loss-prevention officers, potentially losing your life over theft is absolutely not a worthy tradeoff.

I don’t know what the solutions are. Smarter people have to figure out a solution to retail theft. It creates a wholly unpleasant situation for anyone. People coming into stores to steal utterly terrorize other shoppers while the act is being committed. Stores, in order to stem the tide, erect barriers that inconveniences otherwise law-abiding citizens. Eventually, it spirals into the store closing, like the Whole Foods in the heart of downtown San Francisco.

For the teens doing retail theft, I ask: “Where the heck are the parents?”

Supply chain comes for us all

I do laundry about every two weeks. Sometimes however, for various logistical reasons, I have to extend out the interval. Either the machines are in use, or I’m physically not home over the weekend. Whenever that happens, I often come close to running out of basic clothes. The socks, underwear, and t-shirts that get changed out often. I only have so much of those in my admittedly spartan closet. Plus, my laundry basket is only so big.

Anyways, to avoid the clothing crunch when I need to skip an extra week of laundry, I stock up on the basics. There’s always new and unworn socks and underwear at the ready. If I truly run out of anything, I’m lucky to live within walking distance to a Target store where I can buy practically anything I would need.

Except there’s a problem: the great pandemic supply chain crunch means sometimes there isn’t any stock, even on the most basic of clothing items. Just this past week I went to two different Target and both were out of the model of Hanes sock I buy. Half the shelves were absolutely barren of product. Granted, it is fall semester season so I’m sure lots of students stocked up on the essentials. But to visit two Target stores miles away from each other and see the same situation, it’s a supply chain issue.

In the end I had to buy a different brand of socks. Not an ideal situation because now I have to sort out two different sets whenever I do laundry. At least these Fruit of the Loom items are the same color as the Hanes I have: black.