I brought in a part to Comp USA so I could buy a replacement. The clerk gave me a new part and the old one was sitting on the counter between us. I said to the clerk, “Could you toss that out for me?”.
The clerk looked around over both shoulders, and thrn ducked down to pick up a trash can.
He said, “I’ll let you throw it away. That way it won’t look like you forgot it at the counter and I threw it away behind your back.”
Hookay! I tossed it.
I imagine this kid had some reason for that behavior. Maybe live monitoring from a supervaor in the back. Or a video record should I or another co-worker try to make some claim against him.
Or maybe he was just jerking me around and telling me in a way he can get away with that I can thow out my own trash.
Sounds like “this kid” is pretty smart, and just wants to protect himself from any potential liability, real or imagined (like any of us). Perhaps he has the legal profession in his future?
I know that they made me do this at the airport when I forgot I had my artist’s paper knife in my bag. They wouldn’t touch the thing, and I had to be the one to throw it in the one-way, see-through disposal box. Probably it’s a matter of protecting themselves from indemnity. “Yes, I threw this away of my own volition and understand I will never get it back”-type thing.
That sounds more like a security issue to me. If it was somehow booby-trapped (and a questionable item that turns up in a routine airport security check would certainly be the type of thing you would want to booby-trap, if you were the malicious booby-trapping sort with ill-will towards airport security), then you would end up taking the fall.
This doesn’t fit the definition of paranoid.
Perhaps previously the store had an incident with a customer complaining his property got wrongly thrown away.
Perhaps… But the slot on the throwaway box was pretty much sized for pen, swiss army knife, etc. sized items. You would have to be pretty skilled to booby trap something that small.
Yeah, it could be a con, customer asks employee to throw something away, he does, customer comes back next day, asking for the item he accidentally “left” the other day, it’s gone, and if the tape is pulled, it would show the employee tossing it. A pretty lame con, but anythings possible. Kudos to the clerk for thinking of it.
