Shoplifting gets low-income retail workers punished or fired and does absolutely nothing to hurt corporate profits.
Whatever financial hit a store takes from shoplifting, it gets taken out on their minimum wage workers. Most of those workers would get fired if they took any one thing from the store, no matter how much they needed it.
When you shoplift, you’re endangering poor people’s jobs. It’s not cool.
ADVICE FOR YOUNG PEOPLE ON TUMBLR
Shoplifting is a GREAT WAY to put mom and pop businesses OUT OF BUSINESS. Shoplifting is a GREAT WAY to throw off a stores inventory which will throw the employees under scrutiny. Shoplifting is a GREAT WAY to put innocent employees in an extremely unsafe position because their options are to either A: let you get away with it and report you and then possibly get FIRED for “being inattentive” or B: Attempt to confront you and risk you throwing a FIT making a SCENE and eventually get the employee FIRED for “Not treating customers right” and shouldering the responsibility for the scene YOU JUST MADE. Shoplifting is a GREAT WAY to force companies into downsizing because they aren’t pulling enough revenue- firing hundreds of people who never did you any wrong.
Shoplifting is a GREAT WAY to make a complete jerk out of yourself and hurt as many workers as possible in the process.
And because the OP seems like something a person who only cares about themselves might say, you can also get caught and prosecuted. In fact if you do it often enough, it’s inevitable that eventually you will.
Yup. Plus, having any sort of criminal record can restrict you not only for the employment opportunities you’ll apply for later in life, but even for some volunteer work - and if you end up unemployed, depending on where you live and what your circumstances are, you may be required to do volunteer work in order to qualify for assistance.
in case you were wondering if anyone will remember your random acts of kindness:
when i was in kindergarten, i met a boy named jordan. i don’t remember meeting him. i remember knowing him when, one day before dismissal, he came up and asked if he could be my friend. i was a painfully shy kid, and he was friendly and fun and talked a lot, so i said yes. we were the kind of friends that kindergarteners are: buddies during snack time, sharing the best crayons when we colored, and never even thinking that it could go outside of the walls of our school. it was fine. it was great. i had a friend. he’s the first friend i ever made on my own. he’s the first person who made me realise that i could.
my next clear memory of jordan comes when i was in fourth grade. in the morning, i was talking to kristen, who was one of my only friends at that point. she was looking forward to gym, because it was dodgeball day. i was not; i was always picked last in gym class, no matter who the team captains were. you don’t pick the slow-moving kid with glasses if you want to win, and grade-schoolers can be cruel. jordan heard, though; i remember that, because i remember him looking at me as i pointed out how much i wasn’t looking forward to gym, and i remember my cheeks burning because this popular kid heard about my problems.
we had lunch, and math, and finally gym to round out the day. gym, and dodgeball, and riley being one captain, and jordan being the other. and jordan, who won the coin toss, who got his pick of any kid in our class, picking me first. he didn’t even hesitate. he called my name, he pointed to me, and he smiled at me when i walked up to stand next to him. when riley laughed and picked derek for his team and taunted jordan about how he was going to lose, jordan laughed right back and told him that with me on his team, he was definitely going to win. (i don’t remember if we won or not. we probably didn’t. all i remember is not hating dodgeball for one day, and that was enough.)
fast-forward another few years, to another gym class in another school. we were doing baseball, which was my own personal hell in seventh grade. my eyesight hadn’t gotten any better, and i was too tall, too skinny, too out of touch with how to move my limbs to possibly make the bat and the ball connect. rules were rules, though, and no matter how far back in the batting line i stood, nobody was allowed to go back in the building until everyone had a chance. i made myself last every chance i could, because by that point anyone who was interested in the sport had gotten their fill and wandered away, and it didn’t matter that i stuck my elbows out and hunched over the plate and swung and swung and swung at balls that kept whizzing by me and smacking into the fence.
this day, though, this day was the worst day, because i had to be in the middle of the lineup. i don’t remember why; i only remember the sick feeling in my stomach, the feeling that the class would laugh at me as i stood there praying i didn’t move the wrong way and get hit with the ball. when i got up to home plate, i grabbed the bat and stood there and stared at the pitching mound, and jordan smiled back at me. i was clearly nervous; it was no secret that i hated gym, wasn’t any good at it. there were two kids on bases in the field, and someone in the back made a comment about striking me out; one of the kids on base groaned about how he was just going to steal home. jordan kept smiling as he walked off the mound, came up next to me, and quietly asked if he could show me how to hold the bat, how to stand. he demonstrated how to swing, and told me to just try to hit it gently. “just like this,” he said, and held the bat out in front of himself. bunting. i knew the name, even if i’d never been able to pull it off before. “hold it there. you’ll hit the ball.”
i nodded. i didn’t care. i wanted it to be over with.
he walked back to the mound, looked back and me, and then took a few steps forward. “just like i said,” he told me, and i nodded again. he tossed the ball very gently, and i held the bat out, and miracle of miracles, i bunted the ball. “run, run,” he yelled, making a ridiculous dive for the ball, kicking it out of the way of any of the outfielders who were catching on and heading for it. “first base!”
i ran. i made it to first base. i laughed, because i had never been able to do that before, and jordan turned and smiled at me before returning to the mound and striking out the next three people at bat, one right after the other.
now consider this: i met jordan almost twenty-five years ago. i remember these things, these small kindnesses, the things he didn’t have to do but did anyway. he probably doesn’t remember doing any of them. he probably doesn’t even remember me, at this point, and that’s fine. i remember his kindness when there wasn’t a ton to be had, and i remember him smiling when everyone else was laughing at me.
kindness matters. thanks for being kind, jordan. and to everyone else who has been kind, to me or to someone else: thank you, too. your kindness is noted, is appreciated, is remembered.
Confession: I have a friend who likes to text me at like 4am when he’s had nightmares or he can’t sleep or he just needs a friend. He thinks I’m always awake at 4am but really I go to bed around 12am and I change his text-tone to the loudest one I have just so it wakes me up when he needs me.
you’re the kind of friend everyone needs
I think that since its been a year since I made this post its time for an update. In the past year I’ve watched this post grow and grow, people I work with have told me about it as “this post I saw the other day” and they have no idea it’s my post. The person I wrote this about has even reblogged it. He is no longer texting me at 4am. Not because we no longer speak but because the nightmares have stopped. He and I both are in a much better place. Most often the only times he’s waking me up at 4am is when he’s pulling me closer to him while we sleep. He’s more than a friend now and I’m forever thankful to have him. Everyone messaged me saying he was lucky to have me but I think I was just as lucky to have him and I would do it all over.
like the problem with the tumblr community is that no one is allowed to safely fuck up
if i was my uneducated ignorant little 14 year old self y’all would have ripped me a new one and probably scarred me for life
and that’s so scary tbh, that a community of adults would and DO witch hunt and harass minors over things they’re being children about
How to gently acknowledge and inform a person:
Check their blog/content/about me. How old is this person? If they are still in HS/under 18, remember that this person is a minor and needs guidance, not chastising.
Second, look at a little bit of their tumblr. Are they going through serious mental health struggles(Depression/suicide/etc)? Please take this into account when formulating your response.
Finally, evaluate why you follow this person to begin with. Now, if you are 19 and following a 17 year old, then you are within the same age bracket and can talk to this person as if you are talking to a peer. 12/13/14/15 year olds are still formulating their opinions of the world, and you being nasty to them isn’t going to help inform their opinion. So why do you follow a 13 year old? Would you hang out with this person IRL if you two were in the same location? Would it be weird(mentally and physically) for you to hang out with this person? If the answer is yes, unfollow their blog and step away from the situation.
NOW, here is how you formulate a PRIVATE ASK OR FAN MAIL to someone who has said or done something problematic. Shaming them publicly for ignorance/limited world view is a great way to close someone off or harass them, and you don’t want to do either of these things. Online bullying can take on many forms, and being an adult harassing a young teenager adds to online culture problems
“Hey! I noticed that you reblogged (x). I wanted to let you know that this is really hurtful to (x) group, and it is offensive because of (x) reason. I just wanted to let you know because you may not have known. Thank you for receiving this message and listening”
This points out what is wrong, why it is wrong, and does not demand anything of the person you are sending this message to
And then you step away. Do not send this person 20 asks. Do not threaten them. STEP AWAY.
If they engage, respond, or ask further questions, answer them kindly. If they don’t respond, don’t continue to engage.
REMEMBER: you were 14 once too. You said and did things that you cringe at now. You said and did things that were problematic. Getting yelled at was not what you needed. You grew up, you learned, you changed. Let others do the same.
