Once upon a time—many jeans ago—I was a Loss Prevention Detective at Bloomingdale’s. Yep, me. Tucked upstairs behind a wall of monitors, sipping lukewarm coffee and eyeing folks like I was born with X-ray vision. And while most jobs blur together over the years, that one still shines like a rhinestone in a box of bolts.
Now, I worked with a whole team, but Dave? Dave was my people. The kind of guy who didn’t just show up—he showed up. Took me seriously, too, right from the start. Probably because on day one, while he was easing into his shift with a newspaper and a donut, I pointed at a screen and said, “Uh, Dave? I think that guy just stole some jeans.”
Dave looked up slow, the way men do when they’re hoping you’re just being dramatic. But then he saw it. “Holy sh*t,” he muttered, tossing the paper and calling in backup. Next thing I knew, he was sprinting through the parking lot like it was the Boston Marathon—rules be damned. (We weren’t supposed to step off the curb, but rules used to be more... suggestions.) One police car clipped a median and popped a tire. But hey—we got the guy.
That moment sealed our partnership. We worked like a charm after that. Trusted each other. Laughed a lot. Not bad for retail surveillance.
But like all good things in retail, the job dissolved—people left for the police academy, the military, or in my case, a sales job that paid double and didn’t require chasing denim thieves through snowbanks.
Years passed. Titles changed. But that job? That was fun. Right up there with being a paramedic, only with fewer bodily fluids.
Flash forward to 2018. I went back into LP, this time at Target. Thought I’d be slipping back into the rhythm like a favorite pair of jeans. Turns out, the jeans had holes. Big ones.
Target had gone corporate. Real corporate. My store was in "makeover mode," but the real horror show wasn’t the new fixtures—it was the creepy men creeping on customers (sorry, guests), and the leadership that wanted it all kept hush-hush. Nothing to see here, folks! Just a woman being followed in aisle 3.
Then came Tom, my new Asset Protection Manager. He had the warmth of a dead fish and the enthusiasm of a soggy cardboard box. Told me I cared too much and maybe I should be more like Craig and Sam. (Both men. Both mediocre. But apparently “diverse” was code for “not you.”)
I asked to transfer. He said no. I said bye.
Macy’s was next. Plain clothes this time—finally, back to the glory of blending in. The tech was fancy (TrueVue towers that scanned your purchases like something out of Minority Report), but the department was a mess. Manager wore five hats, had time for none, and training was thinner than gas station grits.
Still, there were moments. The team would come alive during a case and, for a hot second, it felt like old times. But when we weren’t chasing bad guys, we were mostly chasing our tails—unclear policies, no leadership, and the kind of drama that makes reality TV look tame.
I used to say that if I won the lottery, I’d do this job for free. But now, I’d rather take my winnings and run. Not because of the thieves—but because corporate stopped caring. The criminals have more rights than the folks trying to stop them.
Still, if you’ve got a sixth sense for shifty eyes and you like solving puzzles that involve purses with false bottoms, give it a shot. You might find your niche. Investigations. Internals. Audits. Or like me—just watching and noticing what no one else does.
It’s not glamorous. It’s not grateful. But if you land on a solid team and keep your sense of humor close, you’ll find a kind of weird joy in catching the bad guy and drinking bad coffee under bad lighting. And honey, that’s not nothing.
