Late Stage Capitalism

I've probably complained about this on here before. But my local supermarket put these wide, low newsstands by the doors. It causes a bottleneck by the exit. I assume it's a loss prevention measure.

Maybe it works? It didn't prevent losing me as a customer. I can't be bothered navigating all the people who don't look up between the till and the obstacle, walk right up to it, and then struggle to fit through the gap.

The next place I went to stopped me twice at the self checkout store scanning thing saying that I was 'randomly' checked. (Mask on, sunglasses, hood up was almost certainly the issue. Either that or because I only go every three weeks, so my trolley is overflowing more than most people's.) I said if it happens again I won't come back.

Third time, it didn't happen but the alarm buzzed as I left and two security guys wanted to see my receipt. While they were looking at the longest receipt they'd ever seen and saying they didn't know how they were going to check everything, I explained that this was the third time I'd been inconvenienced on my way out and if it happened again, I wouldn't be back. It hasn't happened since. I suspect that someone was watching me enter with that mask, the glasses, and the hood, and pressing a big red 'dodgy' button as I got near the exit.

Same get up, different store, different day, I was accosted for using my own very wide open hard-to-hide-anything-in bag as a basket because the store's baskets are rubbish and it's hard to tell whether I'll over fill my bag if I use the basket; and if I over fill my bag, I ain't buying it, as I have a long walk home.

Someone comes over. Was I going to pay for that? This stuff that I haven't yet paid for? That's how it usually works. He clicks the walkie talkie. It crackles. He says, they say they're going to pay for it. He tells me to make sure I do. Vaguely threatening. I needed what I went in for so I bought it but I haven't been back. I probably should go back to give them someone to watch while people dressed incognito are stealing from another aisle and getting away with it.

I suspect this is one of the real reasons behind all the anti-mask stuff—it was getting too hard to surveil us; all that tech they had been sold as security-capable became practically useless overnight.

Maybe it's just me but when companies make it harder to spend my money, I simply oblige them. I am a begrudging shopper at the best of times. Most people seem eager, idk.