Just a week ago I saw a comical shoplifting attempt. A guy had a bottle of spirits of some kind with the neck of it sticking out of his jacket. He just walked through the line parallel to the person being rung up. The cashier said “mister!” and he started jogging out. Two cashiers left their registers and bolted out the door after him. They caught up with him down the street. One of them collected the items he tried to jack, and the other cashier grabbed him by the collar and marched him back into the store and left my view… probably took him to a back room for some kind of processing.

I was surprised by a few things. I would not think cashiers would have the authority to search and detain someone. But I was more surprised by their energy and motivation. If they were overworked and underpaid, and did not give a shit about their employer, why the motivation to spot a shoplifter and chase them down the street, get physical, and perhaps even take some legal risk not having the power of the police?

Big business often implies unethical conduct. But not necessarily. If a business is big, it’s wise to look for unethical conduct and if something is found, then boycott. But being big in itself is insufficient for boycotts and theft. There are actually quite big competitors of Lidl which have significant ethical problems (Carrefour and Delhaize).