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Comment by davidgh | Hacker News Reader

When I was in high school I worked at Kmart as a temp job during the holidays. They trained us on the first day to help fight shoplifting.

They told us that for the longest time they were losing large electronics and couldn’t figure out how people were hiding them. In time, they realized how it was happening. The thief would find the item he wanted and would calmly walk out the front door with the item in plain sight, even adding a quick “hi” and half smile to the greeter on the way out.

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I worked at Target during high school and learned a similar shoplifting story: people would pick up expensive merchandise in the electronic department and then return them at customer service without a receipt or even leaving the store.

Also, anyone wearing Target's signature red polo and khaki pants could likely have had free access to any part of the store. There were always new employees so no one could really tell who actually worked there.

At my local Kmart years ago, a canoe got stolen and security couldn't believe someone had done it. Turns out two guys walked in, went straight to the sporting goods department, picked up the canoe with one guy holding each end above their shoulders, and walked out the front door. The greeter held the door open for them!

As another anecdote:

I worked at Walmart years ago. During one Black Friday, 2 someones walked into laywawy dept (in the back of the store), and proceeded to unhook the register! Security footage shows it but they were wearing hats, so no faces.

So, they unhook it, and load it into a cart. Then they, during the Black Friday bedlam, just push it right out of the store. Off they went.

I used to do this in the dorm room cafeteria at my college, just to see if it’d work. People got yelled at all the time for filling bottles with coffee or sodas, but I’d just fill their ceramic cups up and casually drink from it while waving to the greeter. It’s bizarre what people will overlook if you don’t seem suspicious.

People enforce rules with a single minded focus that can be self defeating. Change the circumstances slightly and people are not likely to reinterpret the rules, even if this would seem “obvious”. This is one of the reasons top down management is so inefficient in the long run. Circumstances change but the person who made the rule is not around to reinterpret the rules.

A friend told me of a person in a flying club with him who went to the airport to go on a hunting trip. They had slung their guns over their shoulders and walked to the entrance of the airport to get to their plane. Security officials scanned them with hand held scanners and waved them through...

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