You walk into a store. You see a tube of toothpaste you need. It’s behind a locked glass door. You press a button. A light flashes. You wait. No one comes. You press again. Finally, an employee ambles over, unlocks the case, hands you the toothpaste, and then stands there, watching you, as if you might sprint for the exit with a $4 tube of Crest.
This isn’t shopping. This is a perp walk.
Retail has evolved from a service into an obstacle course designed to test your patience and your innocence.
We used to be able to buy things in this country. You’d walk in, grab what you needed, and walk out. The only friction was the line at the register. Now the friction starts before you even touch a product. Locked cabinets, broken self-checkouts, receipt checks at the door, and cameras watching your every move. It’s not just inefficient—it’s hostile.
And here’s the twist that nobody talks about: we’ve actually come full circle. The self-service supermarket that we romanticize as the ‘good old days’ was itself a revolution against the clerk-served stores of the early 20th century. Back then, you handed a list to a man behind a counter and he fetched your goods. Sound familiar? That’s exactly what we have now—except the man behind the counter is now a surveillance system, and you’re doing the fetching anyway.
We’ve been trained to perform unpaid labor while being treated like thieves. The self-checkout machine? You’re the cashier. The cart corral? You’re the stock boy. The locked razor cabinet? You’re the suspect. Retailers have offloaded every cost onto the customer, then added a layer of suspicion on top.
I saw it firsthand at a CVS in Brooklyn. A woman spent ten minutes trying to get a deodorant unlocked. The employee finally came, swiped her badge, and then stood there, arms crossed, watching her every move. The woman didn’t steal anything. She just bought her deodorant and left, feeling like she’d been strip-searched. That’s the new normal.
And we accept it. We accept it because we’re told it’s for ‘loss prevention’ and ‘efficiency.’ But the real loss is our dignity. The real inefficiency is the time we waste jumping through hoops that didn’t exist a generation ago.
Neutrality is death. So let me say it plainly: this is not progress. This is a betrayal. The promise of technology was supposed to make life easier. Instead, it’s made us into unpaid employees and presumed criminals. The future we were sold—self-service convenience—turned into a prison where we serve ourselves and get searched anyway.
So what do we do? We stop pretending this is normal. We call it out. We demand better. And the next time a store makes you wait for a locked product, walk out. Vote with your feet. Because the only thing that will change this is when retailers realize that treating customers like suspects is bad for business.
Or, you know, we could just keep pressing the button and waiting for the blue light. Your call.
FAQ
Q: Isn't this just nostalgia? The old clerk-served stores were slow and expensive.
A: Nostalgia isn't the point. The point is that the current system combines the worst of both worlds: you do the work (self-checkout, fetching) while being treated like a criminal (locked cases, cameras). The old system was at least honest about who was serving whom.
Q: What's the practical implication for me as a consumer?
A: Stop rewarding bad behavior. If a store makes you wait for a locked product, walk out. Shop at places that trust you. Complain to management. The only thing that will change this is when retailers realize that hostile experiences drive customers away.
Q: Couldn't the friction actually be good—like deterring theft and keeping prices lower?
A: That's the standard industry argument, but it's a false trade-off. The cost of surveillance and locked cases is passed on to all customers, honest or not. And the erosion of trust has a real cost: people shop less, feel worse, and the retail experience becomes a chore. There are smarter ways to prevent theft without treating everyone like a suspect.