Is it true that night shift workers who work in a supermarket can easily steal things?

11 comments

1. I think staff at most supermarkets can steal things easy enough. It was so bad at the Iceland I worked at during college they sent down a special loss prevention manager because like 10% of the stock was going missing.

2. I’m not sure I understand… why would it be easier for nightshift staff to steal things?

3. They still have managers/ cctv. Why would the lack of customers make it any easier? A customer isn’t gonna question a staff member walking off with an item. They’re probably just fetching it for someone/ buying it on their break/ replacing an out of date item etc.

4. There’s some old classics like putting stuff in the waste that isn’t waste, or damaging packaging so it has to go in the waste.

   Then ‘accidentally’ leaving it outside near the bins, but not actually in the bins.

   I was a regular ‘stealer’ when 15 pack of eggs would be put in the waste because one was broken (genuine breakages, not me), saw no point in throwing 14 perfectly good eggs in the bin.

5. I have a friend who used to work at Sainsbury’s, I remember him telling me they accused him of stealing something once and was going to go down the disciplinary route with him, but he’d genuinely not stolen anything I think it was something silly like he’d accidentally mislabelled something.

   I can imagine most supermarkets are the same though with CCTV everywhere. They’ve got to prevent losses somehow

6. Hi, I work weekend nights.

   We get searched randomly throughout the shift, managers have a quota of searches to carry out.

   I can’t say on everyone’s behalf but honestly its not worth the risk even trying. You get caught and you loose your job over what? Most often we have enough to do that contemplating stealing cheese is hardly top of our minds.

   And things like waste either go to Charity if its salvageable (like broken packaging), in the staff room for staff to use (typically damaged multipacks of coke etc) or in the bin because who is going to want to nick a broken jar of Lloyd Grossman sauce?

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   Last point – Sainsburys atm at least put out food / snacks / free tea / coffee for staff in the staff room so that generally puts off anyone stealing because they are a little hungry.

7. The delivery drives and storemen have stolen the good stuff before it gets there 😂

   As an ex Store manager, the deals you used to see between delivery drivers and storemen were fantastic! One week the regular driver saved up all the spare items or stuff that had “dropped off pallets” up and had about 50 quids worth of beer and cider and he traded it for a 40 quid bottle of champagne.

8. Stealing is easy not getting caught is the skill and is a free can of pop worth losing your job for

9. I doubt this is true, as I suspect their bags are searched as they leave. And I can’t understand why anyone would do this anyway, they are already getting discounted shopping

10. I worked nights for a bit and neither stole nor was aware of anyone else stealing. Occasionally a packet of sweets or something would “break” and spill its contents, and that was understood to be free for the taking.

11. The amount of people that just walk into my local supermarket fill up bags with stuff and just walk out is huge. I don’t think they are going to go to the extra effort of getting a job there.