Lost and Found

People leave strange things in my store. Lots of time it's trash--cups, bottles, candy wrappers. Other times it's toys, hair bands, an earring, sunglasses--things that are easy to leave behind. But other things are insane. Wouldn't you miss a kid's shoe pretty quickly? One guy left his whole wallet, with credit cards and driver's license inside. We tried to contact him, but no luck. We never saw him again.

If there's a name or other identifying info on the lost item, we try to contact the person it belongs to. Most things we keep for a week or even a month, then if it looks like there's any value to it we'll keep it a while longer. But we can't keep everything forever! We eventually cut up and throw away credit cards that were left on the counter or found on the floor.

One lady dropped her checkbook in the parking lot--before she even got home we called and left a message for her. She came back later in the evening to claim it. Another lady left her ENTIRE PURSE sitting on the top of a display. Luckily it was found by an employee, who promptly turned it in, along with the $500 cash and cell phone inside. That lady was also easy to find. Another lady called us to look for her missing credit card. We had it and said we'd keep it in a safe place until she could come pick it up. That wasn't good enough for her, however. She lived SO far away, could we mail it to her? Uh, no. First of all, that's not all that secure, and second of all, I don't have envelopes and stamps. I can cut it up for you, and your CREDIT CARD COMPANY can send you a new card.

If someone loses something in my store, we do our best to find the owner. However, that's not our job. It's something we do because we'd like someone to do it for us if we ever get as absent-minded as some of our customers. The vast majority of my employees are honest. If they're not, I get rid of them. I know, I know--retail has a reputation for losing stock through employee theft, but my store doesn't tolerate that. If suspicious patterns emerge, we look into it and we have no problem with forcing employees to quit. Obviously, evidence of theft or misconduct is needed for an accusation or prosecution, but there's no law against lowering hours until the employee has to quit.

Anyway, I have honest people working for me. What REALLY bugs me is when someone calls and claims, "The cashier kept my credit card, I want it back now!!" I look in the safe and ask the cashier, and no credit card. "I'm sorry, Mr. Customer. We don't seem to have it in our store. Perhaps you left it somewhere else." "No," he insists, "the last place I used it was in YOUR STORE." "I'm sorry, but we don't have it. You might have dropped it in the parking lot, or any number of things. You should probably call your credit card company and report it as lost." "But I didn't lose it! Your employee stole it!"

The same thing happens with jewelry and other items. People insist on me taking their name and phone number in case we find their sunglasses or ring or whatever later on. "I left it on the shelf in the bathroom. Can you look to see if it's still there?" Sure . . . . no, your $100 sunglasses are not still there. Then they're upset and blame me for the loss, when all I'm thinking is, "How is it my fault that you're so irresponsible?"