Stealing from work: Where do you draw the line?

[Minerva]

Just remember your past can come back to haunt you big time!

When job interviewers use this!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CjVVNuraly8

:biggrin:

 

[T_Yamamoto]

20 sheets of paper. Gimme the death sentence, moral crusader.

My dad just takes stacks of printer paper sometimes, LOL.

 

[DrPizza]

When it's time to fill out requisitions for school supplies, it's usually too much of a pita for me. Plus, I cringe to have the taxpayers pay the prices that the school is forced to pay. Instead, I purchase things like pens and pencils out of my own pocket. Set's me back a whole $10 a year. Hell, sometimes I pick up cases of notebooks for students (they're currently 17 cents per notebook.)

But, I do occasionally use equipment from the school - but I take it back (plus, it's inventoried at the end of the year.) I found it funny just a couple weeks ago - I was getting ready to make wine, and had a digital scale sitting out on the table & had weighed out fairly precise quantities of ingredients - all of which were white crystals. - The recipe called for things in ounces; 2 oz, .5 oz, etc. I'd imagine that if a state trooper had come to my house for something, and saw that in plain site, I'd have a lot of explaining to do.

 

[Juddog]

I've actually done the opposite; bought stuff for work, then left it for the guy who took over my position when I got promoted.

Stuff I left:
* Grounding static mat & wrist strap
* Toolbox
* Screwdriver
* Drive adapter

I figured I wouldn't need it in my new position any more since I wasn't doing computer repairs.

 

[surfsatwerk]

When it's time to fill out requisitions for school supplies, it's usually too much of a pita for me. Plus, I cringe to have the taxpayers pay the prices that the school is forced to pay. Instead, I purchase things like pens and pencils out of my own pocket. Set's me back a whole $10 a year. Hell, sometimes I pick up cases of notebooks for students (they're currently 17 cents per notebook.)

But, I do occasionally use equipment from the school - but I take it back (plus, it's inventoried at the end of the year.) I found it funny just a couple weeks ago - I was getting ready to make wine, and had a digital scale sitting out on the table & had weighed out fairly precise quantities of ingredients - all of which were white crystals. - The recipe called for things in ounces; 2 oz, .5 oz, etc. I'd imagine that if a state trooper had come to my house for something, and saw that in plain site, I'd have a lot of explaining to do.

Dr. Pizza is breaking bad.

 

[SlitheryDee]

I used to work at a formal wear store in the department where the worn clothes would come back to be washed. Sometimes the drunk teenagers coming back from prom would forget to take the few bucks change they had left after a midnight taco bell run out of the pocket of their rental pants. It was always kind of exciting doing the returns for that reason, because you never knew what you'd find. Any valuable items like watches or driver's licenses we would turn in to the management. Any wallets with money in them we would turn in with the money still in them since the person likely would come looking for that and would probably remember how much cash was in them.

We knew that if we turned in the loose cash we found our managers would probably just end up keeping it for themselves. The chances of being able to track down exactly who was wearing those pants without any ID and return their money successfully was next to nil anyway. We were all poor as hell, so we kept it, even though that was expressly against company policy. That's about as close to stealing from work as I've ever come.

 

[sdifox]

I follow the leader.

 

[JoetheLion]

I draw the line at never. Not that there's much to steal, but I don't want it and I don't need it. And no, I am not working in a mortuary, nor a graveyard.

 

[Red Storm]

Back when I used to work as an usher on the campus arena, we had the Rockettes come into town and the audience was all middle age and old people. Our bosses told us we were not allowed to accept tips, but these nice old people in wheel chairs would give like $20 each for escorting them to their seats, which was a hell of a lot more than we were making per hour. So as you can imagine we had no problem accepting the tips.

 

[ultimatebob]

Geez... my office probably has more of my own personal property than I have of theirs.

I don't know how many times I've needed something like a set of cheap speakers or a surge strip, and I just found it easier to pick one up at Walmart for $10. It sure beats arguing with purchasing for half an hour over the correct billing code to use.

 

[Kadarin]

I don't take anything from my work.

 

[JulesMaximus]

I don't take anything from my work.

:thumbsup: This

I do have a printer at home that a friend of mine gave me from his work. They purchased another company and were going to throw out about 10 of these nice HP LaserJet black & white printers so he snagged two of the better looking ones and gave one to me.

 

[Zodiark1593]

Apart from the accidental pen, I don't steal. The company trusts me with their assets and supplies, and to knowingly steal is breaking that trust.

 

[bradley]

DA: TJ Maxx Employee Raided Merchandise To Re-Sell At Own Store
http://newyork.cbslocal.com/2013/08...ee-raided-merchandise-to-resell-at-own-store/

The items all wound up at Poyser’s East Flatbush shop, prosecutors said.

TJ Maxx conducted an audit of the store, which found that the store’s sales volume was far below the inventory being shipped to the store. The national chain then assigned internal investigators to look into the issue, which brought the alleged theft to light.

Prosecutors said an undercover investigator went in to the shop and bought some shoes, Silverman reported.

“It had a portion of a TJ Maxx price sticker attached to it,” Hynes said. “TJ Maxx price was $129, our detective paid $50.”

“Seemed as though everything was from TJ Maxx, even the racks that was storing the clothing,” said the DA’s Rackets Division bureau chief, Joseph DiBenedetto.

Prosecutors said a device used to remove security tags was missing from the Oceanside store, and found in the basement of Poyser’s Brooklyn shop.

In all, prosecutors estimate that the merchandise found in the minivan and in the Brooklyn store totaled $130,000.

 

[Tim]

I have never stolen anything from my employer. I'm sure the no-tolerance policy at work has something to do with that, and my outstanding morals help some. If I accidentally take a pen home, I bring it back the next day.

Edit: Also should add that it's a very small company, so stealing from them would be like stealing from myself as well.

Just not going to go down that road ever.

 

[mistercrabby]

A pen or a pack of Post-Its...I'll admit, not every one I took home was used for business purposes.

But some go a lot farther. What have you taken home? How far is too far?

I make a point of honest dealing with employers. I expect them to pay me for an honest day's work (and usually more) and in return I don't take their shit home. I also don't take vendor "freebies" to avoid a conflict of interest of appearance of same. Integrity isn't just an idle concept.

 

[Strk]

I don't. I don't want my stuff stolen, so I see why it's ok to steal from others.

 

[BoberFett]

Garbage. Every company I've been at ends up with boxes full of keyboards/mice that are never going to get used and just end up getting recycled after taking up space for a few years, so I've helped myself to input devices. And if there old retired switches or servers that were in the recycle pile, I've taken those as well.

 

[dank69]

The only thing I take home from work are the good looking women. In the trunk of my car.

 

[Imp]

A binder because I was too lazy to waste an hour to go to a store to buy one. It was for a course relevant to my work that I could have been partially reimbursed for, but I didn't want to tie myself down and be a bitch of the company for a fixed amount of time, so self-funded it. And probably a highlighter or two I mixed up with my own supplies.

 

[BurnItDwn]

I kept my old no longer working RSA passkey Token. Not sure if I was supposed to turn it in or what.

 

[twinrider1]

I have taken anything from DLT backup systems to full fledged external raid systems. These were surplus items we had at my old job so eventually they would have been trashed so I didnt feel like I was stealing. What i used to do a lot back in the day was swap out my home CPU with a faster one at work when we would get better systems in. I updated many CPUs that way and the work PC would work so no one was the wiser. Tons of ram which for the most part was never used. I still have bags of the useless crap. I apparently had a problem. Im much better now.

You were the inspiration for this thread.


http://forums.anandtech.com/showthread.php?t=2336675

I was working at Arista records at the time. When the power went down I went outside to smoke a cig, as the building lost power at least once a week. It wasnt until I saw many people in the streets milling about did I realize that we had a blackout city wide. So i went upstairs and shut down the servers gracefully and packed my shit and left, taking 2 brand new laptops with me. I figured I would blame the blackout for the "missing" laptops.

True story. Still have one of em left. Was my kazzalite machine.
​

 

[mkrohn]

I don't call it stealing, I'm simply borrowing...

 

[SKORPI0]

At workplace the amount does not matter, $0.01 or $100. It's the intent of defrauding your company of their property/assets. :hmm:
F*cking around and doing nothing while on the company clock is also considered "stealing" since your supposed to be working.

 

[alkemyst]

Clearly our members have issues.

Office supplies are for the office. No one is going to bat an eye if you staple a letter you will mail, but if it's 300+ pages you printed out then used their binding machine then shipped it on their carrier account...you are an idiot.

My ex oversaw a retail store in the mall...the girls thought the staplers, reams of paper, tape, sharpies, etc were ok to take home and even use for school supplies.

Sadly one day many of them were let go. Sadly some got let go for re-selling the clothing they never purchased.