Stealing from work: Where do you draw the line?

[Pardus]

Used to work for a major IT firm in NYC, when they bought new laptops. desktops for there employees, they would pull out the hard drives and ram from the old ones, then toss them in a red dumpster for recycling.

Folks would dive in and help themselves.

 

[SolMiester]

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.

Same, once the old pc equipment has been replacement, you cant really sell it, no one wants it if its more than 5 yrs old...I have old servers, LCD panels, NAS, switches etc, they make great stuff for testing\training at home....

 

[Oyeve]

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.
​

Haha, yeah. They were test donor laptops from HP. We didn't pay for them so it wasn't really stealing. HP had new models and since we were one of their largest purchasers they gave us some testers. Actually they were compaq not hp.

 

[Tommy2000GT]

stealing time

 

[alkemyst]

It really sux that our moderators don't care about stealing from work.

It's actually sad our memberbase now.

 

[brianmanahan]

it really sucks that people still spell sucks, 'sux'

i mean in the 90s on AOL it was cool to say 'thanx' and 'sux', i will admit i did this all the time

but now its just sad

 

[velillen]

Ive mostly accidentally taken things home. Pens, sharpeis, and ear plugs being the most common. Most end up just going into my desk at home. Seriously we buy more pens and shift than most companies do in a year. I have lost way more pens on the boats than i have taken home. Some places a pen drops could take 15 minutes to get too....so not worth my wage to go grab it. Same with earplugs. I put a pair in my pocket at the beginning of work and if i dont use it it ends up coming home cause i dont remember they are there. Cant exactly bring them back so i just use them while shooting. BUT earplugs my work doesnt mind if we take home for PPE. Same i have taken yard work gloves and stuff home since they allow us to take that sort of stuff home.

I have taken a couple rolls of duct tape home. It was expired (it expires for our uses) so it was going ot be tossed anyways so i took a couple rolls. Its the good stuff, not the crap you buy at home depot/lowes.

O and ive taken batteries home. But its more a reuse program for me lol. I use a headlamp a lot at work and anyone who uses a headlamp knows you get like 10 hours of good light from batteries before they dim. When they get to dim i replace them and take those batteries home and use them for remotes and things. Run them dead that way.

 

[Imp]

Ive mostly accidentally taken things home. Pens, sharpeis, and ear plugs being the most common. Most end up just going into my desk at home. Seriously we buy more pens and shift than most companies do in a year. I have lost way more pens on the boats than i have taken home. Some places a pen drops could take 15 minutes to get too....so not worth my wage to go grab it. Same with earplugs. I put a pair in my pocket at the beginning of work and if i dont use it it ends up coming home cause i dont remember they are there. Cant exactly bring them back so i just use them while shooting. BUT earplugs my work doesnt mind if we take home for PPE. Same i have taken yard work gloves and stuff home since they allow us to take that sort of stuff home.

I have taken a couple rolls of duct tape home. It was expired (it expires for our uses) so it was going ot be tossed anyways so i took a couple rolls. Its the good stuff, not the crap you buy at home depot/lowes.

O and ive taken batteries home. But its more a reuse program for me lol. I use a headlamp a lot at work and anyone who uses a headlamp knows you get like 10 hours of good light from batteries before they dim. When they get to dim i replace them and take those batteries home and use them for remotes and things. Run them dead that way.

Boats? Headlamps? Earplugs? The hell do you do?

 

[brianmanahan]

only stealing i have ever done from work is use the printer for some personal papers

 

[velillen]

Boats? Headlamps? Earplugs? The hell do you do?

DoD working on subs and carriers. You havent heard loud till youve heard a deck crawler removing the anti-skid on a carrier. YOU need earplugs from 100 yards OFF the boat. (thank god that work is contracted out now)

 

[alkemyst]

it really sucks that people still spell sucks, 'sux'

i mean in the 90s on AOL it was cool to say 'thanx' and 'sux', i will admit i did this all the time

but now its just sad

It's ok bro, keep stealing to make your mamma happy and one day she find y0 daddy.

 

[OlafSicky]

I always cry when employees steal from me , so don't do IT!!!

 

[Sixguns]

I once printed a cook book for my wife at work. I believe is was over 600 pages.

 

[hans007]

At my last job I left a test laptop at home that was probably worth $100 by the time I found it at home


Found it under my couch after I had switched jobs. Inadvertent but I never returned it.

 

[Oyeve]

On the flip side I have gotten many things stolen from me at work. Once I had 7 personal laptops at work that were legally mine and I had them under my desk while I was on vacation. Out of the 7 laptop only 3 worked flawlessly. When I came back 2 weeks later those 3 were gone and only an IT person would even know that. My manager was covering for me so I am 99% sure it was him but had no proof.

 

[alkemyst]

On the flip side I have gotten many things stolen from me at work. Once I had 7 personal laptops at work that were legally mine and I had them under my desk while I was on vacation. Out of the 7 laptop only 3 worked flawlessly. When I came back 2 weeks later those 3 were gone and only an IT person would even know that. My manager was covering for me so I am 99% sure it was him but had no proof.

Or perhaps one of the above posters worked at your company.

 

[Sonikku]

I draw the line at taking the hdtv from the waiting room.

 

[dank69]

It really sux that our moderators don't care about stealing from work.

It's actually sad our memberbase now.

Mod callout. Ban.

 

[Puppies04]

Mod callout. Ban.

Can we do a grammar callout ban as well?

It's actually sad our member base now??????

 

[TridenT]

The most I've ever done is printing out things like homework assignments or notes.

That's it. Purposefully have never stolen a single pen, paperclip, or anything else.

 

[Brigandier]

I'd draw the line but someone took my pen.

 

[TallBill]

It's ok bro, keep stealing to make your mamma happy and one day she find y0 daddy.

It's too bad our moderators won't ban this douchebag.

 

[Leros]

We have free sodas and such. I'll sometimes grab a diet coke on the way out of the office.

Other than that, I don't take anything.

 

[tHa ShIzNiT]

stealing copious amounts of time

 

[Raduque]

Depends. I'll sometimes tell my boss, "Hey I'm eating/taking home this steak" usually it's about like 6-7oz of beef, other times, I'll just eat a burger, or a couple of hot wings or the like. I'd never even consider taking home cases of food or anything like that - it's not worth risking my job for $150 of beef or chicken.