One of the disadvantages of having a daughter who is both given to wayward behaviour in public and named Rose is that my increasingly frantic cries of ‘Wait, Rose! Wait, Rose!’ make me sound like an especially unhinged proselytizer for the middle classes’ favourite supermarket. When we do eventually make it inside the hallowed doors of Waitrose, however, I can feel my pulse rate returning to normal. Like Truman Capote’s Holly Golightly so famously said of Tiffany’s, it is a place where I feel that nothing bad can happen.
The supermarket has, however, suffered quite a public relations blow recently with its actions involving its former employee, Walker Smith. The 54-year old member of staff at their Clapham Junction store was sufficiently incensed by one shoplifter’s brazen, and repeated, behaviour involving his walking off with a selection of Lindt Easter eggs that he grabbed the man’s bag from him and, after a tussle in which the would-be egg thief escaped, threw a piece of broken chocolate at the shopping trolleys in frustration. Under normal circumstances, one would assume that Smith, who had worked for Waitrose for 17 years, would be rewarded, and possibly even given a rise for his quick thinking and selfless actions, which he has categorized as ‘the right and noble thing.’ Instead, he was fired after the matter was – that dread word – ‘escalated’.
Waitrose’s actions have led to an unsurprising chorus of disapproval, but they have not yet bowed to the inevitable pressure (coming from, amongst others, the Shadow Home Secretary Chris Philp) to reinstate Smith. Instead, they have hid behind verbiage and obfuscation: a disappointing approach for a company that used to pride itself in clear thought and speech. It is, apparently, company policy for its members of staff not to tackle thieves directly, and they announced in a statement last week that ‘there is a serious danger to life in tackling shoplifters. We refuse to put anyone’s life at risk and that’s why we have policies in place that are very clearly understood and must be strictly followed … nothing we sell is risking lives for.’
In other words, they suggest, let the shoplifters leave the store, and justice will take its appropriate course eventually. To which I can only say, despondently, ‘Yeah, right.’ The chances of the police, overstretched and undermanned as they are anyway, taking the slightest bit of interest in what they would categorise as petty theft – even when the perpetrator can be clearly identified as a repeat offender – is virtually nil. Shoplifting has become regarded less as a crime and more as a form of self-administered discount amidst ever rising prices in the high street, but we seem to be stuck in the Catch-22 situation whereby the easier it is to steal from shops, the more prices are likely to rise, meaning that more and more people – the desperate, rather than the opportunistic – will find themselves purloining goods from Waitrose, and the other high street shops.
Shoplifting has become regarded less as a crime and more as a form of self-administered discount
This is a miserable state of affairs, and it is particularly disappointing that Waitrose, which has won its reputation through decades’ worth of carefully creating a conspicuously pleasant retail environment, has chosen to make an example out of Smith. If so, this has backfired horrendously. Not only has it made it very clear to potential shoplifters that they can come in and rob with impunity, but they have intimidated their staff – their ‘partners’. Given that the stores, along with their stablemates John Lewis, were originally conceived on egalitarian, even socialist lines – in which everyone had a share in the business, this feels a bit, well, rich.
At this point, I must declare an interest over and above merely shouting the shop’s name in the streets of Oxford. About 15 years ago, I worked briefly for a content agency employed by Waitrose, in an ill-fated attempt to set up a digital version of the shop’s magazine. The endeavour never came off but what I was most struck by while working with the ‘client’, as they were always reverently referred to, was that they were an unusually broad-minded and engaged company. They didn’t just find the quickest or cheapest solution, as most of their competitors did, but instead wanted to offer their committed customers real value and interest.
If Waitrose is to its reputation back – and once lost, these reputations are near-impossible to regain – then they must reinstate Smith and offer firmer and more consistent support to their staff. Otherwise, when I’m next yelling ‘Wait, Rose!’, people will have precisely no idea what I’m referring to other than asking my errant daughter to stop in her tracks. And for the sake of my weekly shop, that would be a very English tragedy.
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