Sailing to Work

Dayshva and Nathan Smith live in Northern Virginia, where they love their respective work despite long hours and extensive holiday schedules. She’s in retail with a fashion store at the original Tysons Corner while he’s a baker with a large bakery. While sailing near Williamsburg, Dayshva got off on an illuminating tangent about shoplifters.

“Near closing one night, two girls got up to table of high-end purses but found them secured to the table by a nearly invisible cable. They moved to a table of Ralph Lauren purses and just scooped them up, maybe a dozen between them. The manager was out of sight for just a moment and they got out the door.

“Another time, a new manager was in a similar situation and managed to stop one of the two girls as she got out the door. The manager was unaware of our non-confrontation policy. Leave it to Security. These happen around 8:55 at night when everyone is tired and busy closing up. We get distracted.

Late at night works in other sectors. I told them about a story the Daily Press did years ago that the best time to buy a car is on a rainy Friday night at the end of the month, when quota is due. The car dealers were so annoyed that they pulled their advertising for weeks.

“Women will try on shoes and put the old shoes in the box, then quietly walk out the store. It’s very hard to put shoplifting sensors in shoes because you need the big ones like you find with clothes. I’ve heard you can disable those by wrapping metal foil around them.

“Women will take the tags off earing and stuff the tag in the counter so they can walk away. You have to watch them.”

Nathan doesn’t get much pilfering at his work, but people will occasionally eat the freshly baked cookies and rolls on the job.