Security? A shocking discovery!

I waltzed into WhSmith yesterday and was greeted by an immensely irritating noise. The security gate had been activated! (Oh no!) By me. . .Walking into the shop. Most certain I had not committed any thieving acts that day I confusedly peered around only to find that not a soul seemed to have noticed. As individuals in our society seem to be growing ever less communicative with 'strangers' the fact that no shopper took note did not faze me. However, I did expect some form of reaction from one or more of the employees, realistically my image of an ambush of FBI agents was a little 'out there' but surely I was not wrong in thinking there would be some kind of interrogation. Apparently I was. The fact that there is a security gate, I thought, was to alert staff that a theft is in process. If nobody reacts to these gates when they start blasting 'criminal' in their bleep language then what is the point?!

Similar scenarios occurred in two more shops before I realized. . . A pair of socks, seemingly exempt from the usual removal of security tags on purchase, was the culprit that kept overexciting the security barriers. . .thank you miss 'oh so intelligent' shopkeeper.

By this point I was finding the whole episode rather amusing as it was becoming clear that shops that pay vast quantities of money for security gates really needn't bother. Out of the three sets of gates that announced my grand entrance to the shops only one proceeded to also announce my exit. Even this one procured not a glimpse of human reaction. If these 'enforcers' of shop security were snuffed out of existence would shops really suffer anymore thefts?? Perhaps the removal of these machines would incite people to relearn the art of observation and one part of society could begin a re-humanisation process instead of a technological one.

No wonder people still get away with shoplifting. Until they either train staff to notice these mechanical security guards when they do their job, (of beeping annoyingly) or shop management decide to upgrade from beeping machines to armed robots these security gates in Guildford seem utterly pointless.