A long tale for your consideration...

jeweler jim

It's Sunday and as I couldn't find any playmates to go to the gun show with me I'm sitting here typing away.<br />
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Thought I'd report on a shortage that we're experiencing at the jewelry store. We're running out of "floor CZ's." We place a CZ (cubic zirconia) on the floor in various spots around the showroom floor (one at a time). Use to be (started this two years ago) that one out of four would steal it, but basically we're running more than three out of four take it now and then often come back later to try and sell it back to us! Damn few now pick it up and tell us "look what I found on the floor! What is it?"<br />
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Friday a woman was in the shop with her three "urchins" and while I went through the scrap gold that she had, she laid the ground work for selling me a loose diamond while her kids made a mess of the showroom. Asked if we bought loose diamonds and told me about one that she had from her grand mother that left it to her. It's always the grand mother who leaves these people all the jewelry or loose stones, always. Finished with her and when she left I immediately checked and sure enough the floor CZ was gone. Didn't even need to play back the tape of the previous time period as I knew she'd be back with the stone and told my partner Kenny, "she'll be back with the floor CZ to try and sell it back to us." One hour later she was back with it and I explained that her grand mother left her a CZ after making a show out of letting Kenny look at the stone while he was working on the "watch bench" as it was too good to just not share with him. <br />
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Fast forward to Saturday and another woman came in with three "ankle biters" and while they distracted with knocking over the candy dishes on the glass cases and tried going into the inside of the grandfather clock and otherwise made a mess of things the same scenario taking place again, but this one didn't have the "brass" to try and sell us our own stone back to us. <br />
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Started out by putting two dozen stones in a plastic bag by the printer in the showroom for replacement and we're down to having one left. Obviously not everyone sees the stone on the floor and on some occasions someone passes the "honesty check" and refuses to believe that anyone would actually take it. A two dollar CZ and a hundred dollars worth of entertainment. <br />
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The ones that you would never expect to take it and the ones that you are sure will are many times the opposite of what takes place and I've had to rethink my ability to judge character. So if you stop at the shop to visit you might want to look for the "floor CZ" and impress us with your honesty. Just some ramblings from jj on a winter's morning while drinking my coffee.<br />
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Guess you could say this is entrapment, but if you can't have fun while at work why bother?

Ugly

It's really a sad state of affairs isn't it Jim?