Shop monitoring

[Mike_GX101]

We're all accustomed to them now and most of us have accepted them almost like modus operandi of modern times but do any of you experience irrational levels of stress and anxiety with security guards and cameras in shops?

 

I remember when I was much younger having many such irrationalities when masses of cameras first started springing up everywhere but with education in security I learned a lot to dispel many of the myths I'd imagined and was able to quell some of the anxieties I felt back then. However with education there is always the danger of knowing too much and that can backfire and make one even more self-conscious to the point of pure paranoia.

 

Even now I get uncomfortable sensations when I'm looking up and round at the signs over the shopping isles of shops I don't know so that I can easily navigate to the correct section of the shop but then accidentally ending up locking sight with security cameras (which seem only to beg to be stared at with their huge bug-eyed appearances) and then feeling as if I'm being followed by every camera and security guard until I've finished my purchases or walked out empty handed (which in a way is even worse as every security guard is suspicious of people leaving huge supermarkets without having made a single purchase).

 

I had one such experience yesterday when I was in a DVD store and I suddenly got this surge of anxiety because I'd taken my coat off before entering the store due to being way too sweaty and I'd wrapped it up and held it in an ever-unravelling ball in my arm which I had to keep re-wrapping. I became self-conscious that it was bad to have my coat wrapped in my arm this way (bearing in mind thieves use these ploys to conceal things) but could do nothing practical about it. Well that was it wasn't it - as soon as I'd thought that, I could do nothing to forget it and the anxiety intensified. I decided I didn't want to buy anything as nothing took my fancy and that only made things worse. I slowly began to gravitate towards the exit and I floated near the security fences on a kind of high-alert that they were following me - I exited the store and just froze in cold petrification for several moments in the precinct where again there were more cameras and just very nervously began to walk away from the store.

 

You see from the point of view of the Security agents I would probably have seemed highly suspect and that thought was circulating round my mind at the time which only made it worse and I could see no way to stifle those feelings to help me relax. And I needed to escape that situation (that discomfort) but again any hasty exit would make me look even more suspect.

 

Of course I understand the common reason for having security in shops and elsewhere for our protection but it does a lot to undermine our confidence too. There's nothing worse than feeling you're being following/stalked/watched which only intensifies anxious-behaviour which makes them even more likely to follow.

 

And all of this has made me wonder if any one else here has experiences like this.

 

What are your experiences with security?

Edited August 8, 2012 by Mike_GX101

[LancsLad]

My first experience with security was as a kid going over to Northern Ireland at the height of the troubles. The army were around and you couldn't go into a main store in Belfast without being checked. Coming back to the mainland the contrast was enormous but I could understand the reasons behind the levels of security because people were dying through terrorist acts on a regular basis.

 

I have to say there is more security in the average city centre shopping precinct today than there was back in the Belfast of my youth, why? I had some sun cream taken off me last week at the Olympics because the chemicals might constitute a bomb but they were happy for me to put the same bomb making materials on the face of my 7 year old child.

 

Personaly I see such things as a complete attack on my civil liberties and I believe the underlying level of distrust simply undermines social values and makes issues such as shop lifiting more of a possiblility rather than less because it becomes a game to be played out between two parties.

 

Just a few thoughts.

[darkshine]

I have to say there is more security in the average city centre shopping precinct today than there was back in the Belfast of my youth, why? I had some sun cream taken off me last week at the Olympics because the chemicals might constitute a bomb but they were happy for me to put the same bomb making materials on the face of my 7 year old child.

 

 

There's a list of allowed items for the Olympics you know... found out yesterday when someone I know said they were going to watch some of the athletics.... don't know if this means you were in the right or wrong, guess you'd have to read it

 

http://www.london2012.com/mm/Document/Documents/General/01/25/44/10/Restrictionsonliquidsaerosolsandgels_Neutral.pdf

 

 

Personaly I see such things as a complete attack on my civil liberties and I believe the underlying level of distrust simply undermines social values and makes issues such as shop lifiting more of a possiblility rather than less because it becomes a game to be played out between two parties.

 

I was occasionally shop lifting when cameras were more widely installed and it was a game of avoiding them and it was pretty easy...

 

I dislike the things because in stores they didn't work... but I guess the only possible use I see is if some violent crime or major theft happens there's a chance of getting a pic of a criminals face... not that that means anyone will be caught - but some do I guess.

 

I hate the ones in the street too... again, crime is the only valid reason I see for it but I don't really think the cameras will stop crimes... just occasionally get a good enough pic to catch some people... judging by where I live, the cameras in the street won't have a high likelihood of that, because it's all too easy to get out of view of them, in which case I wonder why they are really there... must cost a bit to have them all...

[robert7111a]

Welcome to Orwellian Big Brother!

 

The UK is the security camera capital of Europe. Nothing like undesirables snooping and infringing our civil rights. I have had several arguments with security staff on railway stations if I'm out photographing trains. It's about knowing your rights.

 

It's only going to get worse...telescreens in your front room next...?

[darkshine]

It's only going to get worse...telescreens in your front room next...?

 

They don't need to do that, they just have to look at parts of the internet to see into every mundane aspect of everyone's lives.... cuz a lot of people do the job of revealing everything all by themselves....

[StoneDog]

I have had several arguments with security staff on railway stations if I'm out photographing trains. It's about knowing your rights.

 

hear hear!

 

one facet of my Special Interest involves architectural details and I've experienced the same thing.

 

I do always make sure I'm not including a bystander though - no reason my interest should cause them any inconvenience when it's as easy for me to wait 3 seconds.

 

Having the Autism Alert card is good too - people in uniform round here recognise it and have come to say hello on another day and to see if I've found anything interesting which is pretty good.

 

Non-official people tend to look nervous and back off - we have a theory that it's partly because our police force logo (they issue the card) is prominent in the design...

[indiscreet]

 

one facet of my Special Interest involves architectural details and I've experienced the same thing.

 

My partner has the same problem. Last week he was photographing one of the stone lions outside the HSBC building in London when a security officer told him he wasn't allowed to photograph that office block. He replied that there is no law against photographing a public building so long as you aren't actually on private property - and the 'security officer' just walked away.