Intimidation in Retail: The Case of San Francisco

Visuals are an important ingredient in consumer marketing, so it is surprising to come across retail managers who are so purblind as concerns the latent yet obvious passive aggression in some of the visuals that those managers themselves approve in the name of security. The espoused, yet utterly fake claim that customer experience is improved by the added sense of safety—the actual underlying motive lies in loss prevention—is typically outweighed by the very human negative experience from being intentionally intimidated by passive-aggressive visuals. It may be that such managers, frustrated by high rates of in-store petty theft (i.e., “shoplifting”), are unconsciously taking their latent aggression out of the customers as a group. Even if not, the lack of judgment is palpable from the visuals themselves. It is no wonder that an increasing number of customers prefer shopping online.

The chain of Safeway grocery stores is a case in point. One store manager admitted to me that the subcontracted security company hires from “the ghetto,” meaning that the young security guards may themselves need to be watched. I was discussing one such guard, who had been standing just inside the interior entrance gates watching customers entering the aisle-area of the store as if we were suspects. The young man’s hostile facial expression was such that I instinctively took out my phone, which triggered him. “You better NOT be recording me, BRO!” he threatened. According to the store manager, the guard should not even have been standing in the entrance gate (as shoplifters typically do not bring and deposit merchandise inside stores, and watching people enter means missing people leaving). Even though the manager told me that the subcontracted guard would be dealt with, on my next visit that very same guard stood next to the cashier as I was about to pay for groceries; I left without the groceries or paying and reported the serial guard to the company. The manager, who had admitted to me that he had authority in the store even over subcontracted employees, had failed to hold the guard accountable, given the guard’s sordid, unrepentant attitude. The manager also told me that the guards were not supposed to cluster together, given the overdone visual, yet I witnessed just such a clustering a week later. Apparently latent visual passive-aggression, likely intended to intimidate, is not worth preventing in retail management. 

Sheer irony: Three security guards under a customer-service sign at a Safeway store in San Francisco.

At a Vons grocery store in downtown Long Beach, California, customers leaving the store must hand receipts to a security guard and then take the paper back in order to tap it to an electronic device that opens a gate allowing customers to exit the store. Presumably those customers who decide not to purchase an intended item must justify themselves to a guard in order to be let out of the store. Simply stated, this goes too far and yet strangely customers put up with the invasiveness such that it could become status quo, and thus the default not to be questioned. The passive aggression in the active involvement of security guards misleadingly dressed as police and the control-of-movement, if to become characteristic of society, would render it as saturated with latent hostility and severe distrust. 

At a Safeway store in San Francisco, customers using the self-check-out area must tap in order for a gate to open out of that area. Just outside that gate, sometimes as many as three security guards cluster to present a redundant display of intimidation, for they too are dressed to look like police employees. I submit that the managerial urge to dominate customers, even by using hired guns (literally), rather than to serve customers should be better studied in business schools, for the urge to control has arguably gotten out of hand at too many retail companies. If the latent hostility and over-control are allowed to reach a critical mass, a societal culture could be characterized in such terms, eviscerating connection that would otherwise exist between social animals like humans.

Even coffee shops are not off limits to overdone passive-aggressive visuals. Police should be mature enough to have the good sense to limit their number when they enter a small coffee shop to order and pick up coffee, for it is obvious that a lot of guns and uniforms in a small area are uncomfortable to customers who have not been in prison. The passive-aggression of guns should be obvious, especially given the incidence of abuse of power by police in the United States and the lack of accountability on police forces. Where, it may be asked, are the store managers in all of this? They err in judgment in favoring a sense of store safety and deterrence over providing customers with a comfortable in-store experience. Starbucks has been particularly guilty in throwing customer comfort under the bus in order to appease police. At the very least, the latter could leave their weapons in their squad-cars. 

Too many police in a coffee shop at once, as the store manager looked on in spite of the obvious discomfort of the customers.

One coffee shop in San Francisco that I walked past once even had a security guard wearing what looks like military (or police) heavy gear (or bullet-proof vest!) just inside the front door. Even if “people off the street” are a problem, the militaristic (or police look-alike) visual is antithetical to “chill” coffee shop culture; the sheer fact of being overdone should not go below the radar. Where intimidation is so obviously the intent, potential customers should indeed keep walking, for no innocent person deserves to be intentionally intimidated, especially in spending money for a product. The irony is that on the window facing outside was a poster urging love; just inside stood the security guard intimidating people entering the coffee shop. Intentional intimidation by overdoing visuals is antithetical to love, and yet there were the two visuals, back-to-back. 

Love may well be love, but just look inside the window and the door! San Francisco, the self-vaunted city of love, was only a patina of its label by 2026 in the retail context.

The impact on a society’s culture of this trend of presenting a visual overabundance of store guards as police and even giving them control over gates inside stores is in need of study. The related impact on the psychology of individuals is also important. Moreover, the individual-organizational-societal nexus should not be minimized. The uptick in store security-presence in the early-to-mid 2020s was no doubt due to a surge in shoplifting (stealing merchandise), but this does not justify either in moral or psychological terms the collateral damage that is done culturally and to the psychological well-being of individuals while in public.

The only security guard in a small grocery store in San Francisco closely watches customers paying while tcustomers in the aisles are presumably free to take what they like, unobserved. Where does shoplifting take place?  At the cash register? The store manager refused to intervene.

The impact on a society’s culture of this trend of presenting a visual overabundance of store guards as police and even giving them control over gates inside stores is in need of study. Perhaps more subtle, but no less dysfunctional both in terms of human psychology and the reputation of a city is severe rudeness when it becomes the norm among nonsupervisory employees enabled by their immediate supervisors. 

I am by no means a regular frequenter of bars, so the bar culture is not particularly well known to me, so I reported the following incident to the Board of Supervisors in San Francisco to obtain a more official reaction than my own to the conduct of employees that I had recently encountered at the entrance of a bar there. Just outside a bar, I encountered a regular employee, rather than an employee hired specially as a bouncer, who in spite of my advanced age demanded to see an ID, which I provided. He then demanded to see inside my laptop computer case even though the dive bar was not a dance club and this happened before 9pm. As he was looking in the case, he demanded to know, "What is the purpose of your trip to San Francisco?" That he assumed that I was visiting was strange enough; that he said that I was rude in telling him that my purpose was none of his business and therefore he was not going to allow me to enter the bar as a result was beyond the pale and utterly unacceptable, according to the city's Board of Supervisors. That the employee was acting as de facto security means that this was yet another manifestation of the presumptuous over-reaching by retail security in a business context in San Francisco. In my report to the city government, I added that when I had returned to speak to another employee of the bar who was then outside the entrance, that second employee, after repeatedly ignoring my initial statement that I had not objected to the bag-search, scolded me for not agreeing to the search. "You should not expect to be let into a bar when you refuse a bag-search." That employee's mental state could therefore stand to be scrutinized, for he had blocked out my initial statement, going on a lie told by the first employee! As if being corrected for blatantly ignoring an entire sentence were not enough, he presumed to have confidence in his opinion that saying "none of your business" is rude, so rude in fact that the original employee had been justified in baring me from the bar. The Board of Supervisors' clerk was stunned when I reported this. "It's not rude," he said emphatically; "It was none of the employee's business! Saying 'It's none of your business' in itself is not rude." That more than one of the bar's employees allowed their personal feelings to warp their judgment and perception of what is actually rude and yet presumed themselves to be omniscent, without there being a supervisor to intervene, permits a damning verdict to be made concerning San Francisco's small-business culture at least with respect to how sordid it had been allowed to become. Being so mistaken and emotionally warped, the two employees were so jejune that they should never have been hired, so the culpability extends back to the bar's manager, and ultimately to its owner. 

A local bar employee who, in demanding to know the purpose that visitors have in coming to San Francisco, dismisses his own presumptuousness and is angered when the reply is, "It's none of your business," as if saying that in itself were rude. He abuses his power by refusing entrance on that basis alone, and no supervisor is on duty at night to restrain the young man from acting out against customers who have and enforce personal boundaries.

All this goes to show the extent to which security services in that city's retail sector had become utterly unacceptable. To say that a power-trip mentality had become well ensconced is a euphanism. Sector-specific and even societal norms can have a tremendous impact on people in their daily lives even if they are not conscious of the source of the stress. "Over-kill," such as in there being three security guards clustered inside a Safeway grocery store, can, if allowed to go on long enough, be regarded as normal by customers whose measuring device has become subtly recalibrated by the sheer passage of time. That a new practice has been allowed to go on and on does not furnish it with legitimacy, and yet, sadly, as the saying goes, possession is nine-tenths of ownership. 

In illegally approving Israeli settlements in the West Bank, for example, Israel's government has been relying on this de-facto natural law; the facts on the ground come to constitute law, such that efforts to change the facts is regarded as an illegitimate usurption of someone's rights. The sheer presumptuousness of treating illegal settlements as legitimate and thus any attempt by the UN or any national government to remove said settlements as justifying military aggression is astounding, and yet how rare it is to hear something like, "Well, you shouldn't have approved the settlements in the first place." 

In San Francisco, the presumptous latant and even blatant hostility in the retail sector evinced through its security human-apparatus had arguable reached intolerable heights (or lows) in 2026. Even if crime were high, the motive to intimidate even innocent (prospective!) customers is unethical, as the actual intimidation, because such customers have done nothing to deserve even the unconscious emotions of anxiety and even of being regarded even in visually as a target. Local norms can indeed be dysfunction and yet go on, and even get worse, like arrogance on stilts during a flood. 

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1. Friedrich Nietzsche, The Gay Science, #162.

Yale Vipers

Even though it is sometimes difficult to "read between the lines" to assess whether or not people in an organization are welcoming or tacitly "showing you the door," the message is undoubtable and even palpable when "all the arrows are pointing in the same direction." In the case of Yale, where I have been an alumni scholar temporarily in residence during the 2023-2024 year, the university's administration could do its alumni a big favor by explicitly saying that we are not welcome back on campus, except to visit and of course donate money. Instead, passive aggression, unaccountability, and even unwarranted retaliation rule the roust there, in what is a toxic organizational culture. 

Since I have been back in residence doing research this year, I have unfortunately had to put up with non-academic employees telling me that Yale alumni, including more specifically those who are themselves scholars back on campus for a term or two to work on research as academics, are not "members of the Yale community." This is particularly rich when the person is not a student or faculty, but is instead a non-academic employee. Even the divinity school's Alumni Engagement director, Barbara Sabia, told me in person that I am not really a member of the Yale community, even though my connection to Yale is academic and her own is not; she was fixated on Yale's ID that students, faculty, and staff have (alumni doing research have different Yale ID, which Sabia decided is not a real Yale ID). Zero donations from me to Yale's "Christian" seminary. 

I've also been profiled by Yale security employees (whom, I must say, need to take it "down a notch"; they aren't prison guards). 

He was not even supposed to be in that lobby

He was circling me because I had looked at the building directory.

Last but hardly least, although Yale advertises to alumni that we can return to campus to audit courses, almost all of the faculty whom I asked rudely gave truly pathetic excuses as to why they don't allow auditors; some don't even distinguish between students and alumni in the making of the requests. Seminars are off limits, even for visiting scholars wanting to attend some of the lectures strictly for research purposes, and even then no participation is allowed (hence falling short audit in this way too). This sets up a "bait and switch" situation for alumni who return in part to audit courses. I returned in part to do so, but the faculty have been so rude that I have demurred. Even in trying to get to guest lectures on campus, I have been distressed that my Yale ID does not permit me access to classroom buildings. I did attend some lectures of a large lecture class in the fall, but the professor ignored my presence and later refused to give me the information on when her make-up lecture would be; her graduate-student teaching assistant reneged with impunity. All of the arrows were pointing in the same way; I didn't even retain the notes I had taken of some of the lectures, and I do not plan to cite the professor, as academic discourtesy goes both ways. I had contacted another professor, Teresa Morgan, before I arrived at Yale to request to audit her course. She demurred, saying that she was near her enrollment cap (even though alumni don't count against that cap and there was ample room), so I replied that I would wait until she gives the go-ahead after the first class. When I contacted her, as she did not follow up with me, she said, "I'm going to have to reconsider your audit because you missed the first class and there was a lot of important material in it." I wrote that I had taken the decision not to audit her class, to which she wrote, "That's fine!" No, that was very fine. 

For less than a month during the spring semester, I had been attending lectures by Kevin Elliot that he gives to his EP&E (ethics, politics, and economics) undergraduate class. I had made clear that I was not auditing the entire course, as I would be attending only several lectures directly relevant to my current research project. In other words, I approached him as a scholar rather than as an alumnus. My mistake with Yale, given the wholesale disrespect for scholars not on the faculty, was to do scholarship as an alum. The previous semester, even before I had arrived in New Haven, I had requested Shelly Kagan's permission to audit his EP&E course; I had read most of his ethics book and wanted to solidfy my grasp of normative ethics. But he kept referring to me as "another student" and said that even with my seven years of philosophy, "It would not be fair to the other students for me to audit the undergraduate course without having taken the prerequisite course. Only months later did I learn that Yale does not even track prerequisites, so Kagan is not able to do so. So what I got was a dish of arrogance, rudeness, and the refusal to extend academic courtesy to an academic colleague even though I am an alum. 

Although Elliot's lectures in late January and early February were very relevant to my current research, this would not be true of his lectures after the spring break. Because I had encountered so many faculty who had quite rudely refused to allow me to audit their courses last semester, I had decided not to audit any classes anyway. I contend that a scholar listening to another scholar's lecture is not the same thing as auditing an entire course. 

On February 7, 2024, as the house at 31 Hillhouse that houses Elliot's office and classroom was locked even on school days (and half of his class during the fall term had not been able to enter the building!), I asked the department secretary to open the front door for me. She refused, even though it was quite cold outside and there was no reason to doubt me (and she could have consulted with Elliot). Eventually, she told a student that the student could size me up and decide whether to let me in. The secretary's distrust was palpable, and thus very insulting. When I had been a student at Yale, the university go along just fine without locking classroom buildings and having security guards and its private police employees on every corner even during school days. I submit that the secretary was paranoid and passive aggressive even to alumni; I would have shown her my Yale ID, but she refused even to come to the front door. Petty.

I spoke by phone to Jocelyn Kane of Yale's Alumni Fund because I thought she would have a financial incentive to see that employees do not treat alumni so rudely and as if we are lethal threats. However, Ms. Kane almost immediately laid into me for auditing without going through "the proper procedures," and of course for not paying a heafy fee, which I would not do anyway as I would not be allowed to speak in class. I explained to her that Kevin Elliot had acted on the basis of collegial courtesy to another scholar in inviting me to attend his lectures that would be useful to my specific research, and that that basis is distinct from course auditing. For one thing, a visiting scholar does not participate in class, and does not typically intend to attend all of the lectures. The point is to extract specific material that is highly relevant to one's current research rather than to attend a class. 

But Ms. Kane dismissed my academic credentials and decided she knew better even though she is a non-academic employee. Somehow, from her doubtlessly, either directly or indirectly,  Kevin Elliot got the word that I would have to audit the course in order even just to listen to four or five lectures. It did not escape my notice that in so doing, Ms. Kane was not oriented to address the secretary's rude conduct toward me, and presumably not those of the faculty whom I had told her had not open to alumni auditing courses anyway. At the very least, she should have been sympathetic rather than having me in her sights. Clearly, she instantly oriented to reporting me rather than helping me. Zero donations would come from me to Yale's development office. 

Ms Kane's inability or unwillness to master her own instinctual urge to retaliate even against an alum reporting bad, and even hostile, treatment on campus evinced an overwhelming desire to "turn the tables" on people. I suspect that his mean weakness is eched in the school's organizational culture, for back in September, I had written to Yale's transportation department to report that a supervisor, Shelly, at Transdev, the subcontracted company that operates Yale's shuttles, had thrice shouted over me when I had asked if a shuttle could pick me up at the West Haven train station on that shuttle's return trip to Yale's main campus, as some dispatchers and a driver had allowed and suggested, respectively, the practice. The employee at Yale was instantly obsessed on getting my "Yale NetID" to verify me rather than to "have my back" in going after Shelly. I submit that this fits the same pattern as that which Ms. Kane evinced. It may be that this dynamic is distinct and even epitomizes Yale's dysfunctional organizational culture. 

Weeks later, I happened to meet Yale's "Dean of Ministry," a high position in Yale's divinity school. I said that generally speaking, Yale's faculty don't want alumni anywhere near the classroom, which means that Yale's promotional claim that alumni can audit courses is misleading. The ministry dean dismissively said, "We just say it's possible," to which I replied, "Not to Yale's faculty." Rather than apologize once he realized that what I was trying to describe is essentially the "bait and switch" unethical sales tactic in business, the expert on Christian ministry quickly turned his back on me and walked away under the cover of the night. I wonder what kind of ministry he advocates to his students. Evidently not that they should apologize when they or their respective churches have wronged someone. In a dysfunctional organizational culture, apologizing is weakness. I guess it's not Christian either. That's interesting in part because I was on my way to Yale's divinity school to hear a lecture on moral theology from Rowan Williams, a retired Archbishop of Canterbury. I wonder if he realized that he was in a festpool of hypocritical vipers.

All this leaves a very bad taste in my mouth concerning not only the lack of accountability at Yale, but also the taint of vituperation and and the instinctual urge to retaliate, essentially to "turn the tables" on alumni even by a manager whose task it is to ask alumni for donations! As a rationalist (and yet also a Nietzschean), I wonder whether Ms. Kane has any cognitive dissodence in that her squalid attitude and conduct towards at least one alum contradicts her fundraising task. I also wonder whether she realizes how inappropriate and unsightly it is for a non-academic employee to dismiss what a scholar says about academic courtesy and research. 

In general, I don't like the meanness that I've encountered from non-academic employees and faculty at Yale. All of their arrows point in the same direction: alumni are not members of the Yale community. To be so brazen as to explicitly tell alumni who are on campus for a term or two that we are not members of the Yale community goes beyond being a pathetic fundraising strategy; the underlying psychology is in need of a Nietzschean critique. The weak who seek to dominate resent the strong because the weak, "new birds of prey," know that they do not have the inner constitution to be innately strong. Hence, the weak are full of resentment. This sordid mentality saturates Yale's faculty and non-academic faculty. 

I might add that I raised concerns about the comments that alumni are not members of the Yale community and on the hostility of security guards who have profiled me without cause to Yale's president, the dean of Yale College, and even to Weili Cheng, the director of Yale's Alumni Association, but nothing changed through the year. In person, Cheng was dismissive. I had already contacted her organization about the hostile security guards, and when I mentioned this to her, she said, quite dismissively and even in a hostile tone, "Oh, you," and then immediately turned her back to me and walked away. Nice. 

From my experience, both Yale's development office and alumni association are hostile rather than helpful to alumni who are back on campus for academic purposes, and the faculty are absolutely not on board with the university's policy (and promotions) on alumni being able to audit courses. Even the faculty's understanding of what it means to audit a course is conveniently deficient. I would like to leave you with this observation: I am truly perflexed as to the extent that arrogance and even meanness can trump rationality. Of course, Nietzsche wrote that the content of reason (and ideas) is instinctual urges, and reasoning itself is the tussle of contending urges seeking dominance over other, competing urges. At least it can be said that reasoning is impacted, or even warped, by a person's instinctual urges. So when a faculty employee at Yale's divinity school teaches that a country should not have borders, that the family unit should be abolished, and that monogamy (and even marriage) oppresses "other lifestyles," I am under no illusion that reason is in the driver's seat.