Imagine working in security at a retail store. Your job is to try to look for people who might be attempting to steal. If you saw someone steal and then fill out a job application while they were there, would you treat them any differently than any other thief?

In this story, one security worker sees this exact thing happen, but the situation gets even more baffling. And then there’s the thief’s girlfriend who is a bystander to this whole mess.

Keep reading to see how the story plays out.

Don’t steal from a place you just applied to work at

Let me preface this story. I am a loss prevention agent and have been so for only 3 years.

I work for a security company that is contracted with a hardware store chain. My entire job is mostly sitting in a room watching cameras and looking for someone who might steal.

Almost every encounter I have ever had wasn’t anything special.

I’ve caught people stealing minor things worth 70 cents up to people stealing over $6000 which is way over what a felony is.

However, today is probably the funniest thing (at least to me) I have ever dealt with.

Stealing doesn’t really make you look good if you’re trying to get a job.

So there I was just watching cameras waiting for the last half hour of my shift to pass by. It is a very boring job, but sometimes can result in weeks without stopping anyone.

I was watching this young couple who were looking at a knife. The male, lets call him the prospective employee (PE), began to bend the package to get the knife out of it. Eventually he does and tosses the empty package on a shelf and then pockets the knife.

I continue to follow them but then they head over to the desk with the managers and HR sit.

This genius decided after stealing that hell, he might want to work at this store so he began to fill out a job application. While he did that I grabbed the package from the store and then I continued to watch him until he left.

There’s a good reason he waited for him to leave before confronting him.

We wait for people to actually be out of the doors that way they can’t say they meant to pay for it. At that point they are past last point of sale.

I run up to them and introduced myself as store security. I show PE the empty package of the knife and tell him and his girlfriend to come back in the store.

PE walks towards the doors the immediately runs away leaving his girlfriend standing there to deal with me.

I shouted to him that I was just going to grab his job application, but he kept on running. I turned to the girlfriend and told her to get inside.

I feel bad for the girlfriend. She should break up with him after he ran away and left her there.

I lead the girlfriend, lets call her prospective employees girlfriend (PEG) and placed her in our holding room and called the police.

At this point PEG is crying because she is thinking that she is getting arrested.

The police arrive and grab her info and I give them a copy of PEs application. PEG happened to be a minor but PE had just turned 18 yesterday.

I eventually let PEG go after the police talk her and her dad.

The police instructed PEG to tell PE that he should turn himself in because he does not want the police getting a warrant for his arrest.

The thief really made this whole situation worse than it would’ve been if he hadn’t run away.

Here’s the kicker to the whole story.

I wasn’t going to even call the police on him. The value of the product was too low to merit that. But since he ran he got himself a court date, a minor record, and a trespass notice. So if he ever comes back to any of our stores locations he will be arrested for criminal trespassing.

Typically I assume someone is an idiot if they steal, but to steal and then fill out a job application is a special kind of stupid, and then to run away from security, well he might as well have just given me his ID before he ran.

Thanks to that genius I got 2 hours of overtime, a court day next month, and gave me and a bunch of employees a lot of laughs.

I hope his girlfriend breaks up with him after this mess. He’s definitely not the brightest.

Let’s see how Reddit responded to this story.

This must’ve happened awhile ago since they sold CDs.

This thief wasn’t very bright either.

This is exactly what happened. It’s so ridiculous!

One person has a question.

And this person thinks they know the answer to the question.

Hopefully, he never steals again.

If you liked that post, check out this story about a customer who insists that their credit card works, and finds out that isn’t the case.