Viewing 40 posts - 1 through 40 (of 45 total)
  • Stealing from work are you?
  • chipps
    Full Member

    For some unexplained reason, I’ve just been sent a press release (from an interior design company) about pilfering from the office and thought it might make a good bit of forum chat fodder… (lights blue touch-paper and retires to safe distance…)

    PRESS RELEASE – For immediate use: 10th December 2010

    Survey reveals over three quarters of employees have stolen from workplace

    76% of employees have stolen from their place of work according to a recent survey conducted by office design company Maris Interiors. Men are particularly light-fingered, with an astonishing 82% admitting to helping themselves, compared to 71% of women surveyed.

    The stationery cupboard was hardest hit, with pens (60%) and printer paper (42%) being the most commonly pilfered. Stamps (31%), mugs (28%) and toilet paper (24%) were also frequently taken items. The stapler – often thought of as a frequent target of office thieves – was only taken by 6% of those surveyed.

    One in 20 employees admitted to having taken more valuable items – ranging from printer toner to laptops. More unusual items declared included chairs and office plants, even filing cabinets, carpet tiles and entire desks.

    Maris Interiors Chairman Michael Howard said “We all know that the stationery cupboard suffers a bit – but we were extremely surprised that the numbers were quite so high. The mind boggles why someone would take their desk home – not to mention quite how they managed it!”

    Top 5 most commonly stolen items:

    Pens (60%)
    Paper (42%)
    Post-it notes (34%)
    Computer software (31%)
    Stamps (31%)

    Jamie
    Free Member

    Stealing from work are you?

    You are Yoda and I claim my 5 galactic credits.

    wwaswas
    Full Member

    [alec guinness voice]

    These are not the pens you’re look for.

    [/alec guinness voice]

    mountaincarrot
    Free Member

    When I go round pulling used jiffy bags out of people’s bins, thus saving them from landfill…Do I use them for Ebay or return them to the stationary cupboard?

    cynic-al
    Free Member

    Paper (for printing out boarding passes) pens, envelopes & parcel tape here only, (salaried, not equity) partners steal worse!

    Pickers
    Full Member

    If I need a pen then why not?
    They’re quite happy to take my free time for out of hours working

    momo
    Full Member

    I have liberated the occasional pen from the stationary cupboard, I do make up for it though as I normally write with a fountain pen which I bought myself and buy my own ink for aswell. Although my worst crime is that my toolkit contains quite a few items that technically belong to previous employers.

    surfer
    Free Member

    They’re quite happy to take my free time for out of hours working

    Aaaaahhh…… The sweet smell of differential association!

    s
    Free Member

    Just company time, reading this 😉

    backhander
    Free Member

    Yep, I run a “fairness” account.
    My previous employer decided not to pay me for an afternoons work. Multimeter goes missing. Karma restored.

    druidh
    Free Member

    * is not prepared to comment *

    woody2000
    Full Member

    Some days, it certainly feels like it 🙂

    kaesae
    Free Member

    I can picture Yoda’s responce to this outrage already!

    Stealing from work are you? Kick your ass, I will!

    I’ve had a thought, just a random one, that has flickered through my minds eye!

    That I now feel the urge to voice.

    Are we to believe that these individuals are thieves, but not liars? 😯

    Surely! the very nature of the survey and the fact that anyone steeling will also be capable of lying, this survey is illogical and not worth conducting 😀

    Or is my reasoning fundamentally flawed, as always!

    poppa
    Free Member

    Work stole my soul, I think i’m allowed a new highlighter in return.

    Elfinsafety
    Free Member

    At a bike shop I worked in, the company boss would ‘overlook’ us taking the odd innertube/bit of cable/nuts and bolts, even though these items were all ‘stock’. His philosophy was that if he allowed staff to ‘pinch’ these essential items now and then, then we wouldn’t nick other stuff. As long as we told the manager, an innertube or whatever now and then was ok. Kept us happy.

    It is a policy that works; in another shop, I couldn’t even have a cable aglet without paying for it. So staff nicked loads. Proving the theory that if you allow a little bit of light ‘pilfering’ by consent, then people will have a bit more respect.

    ton
    Full Member

    only my wage……………. 😉

    DezB
    Free Member

    Yep.

    Best stuff for bike cleaning purposes. Why would I pay for it? (and where?) 🙂

    kaesae
    Free Member

    THEY PAY AS LITTLE AS POSSIBLE, WE LIBERATE WHAT WE NEED.

    VIVA LE REVOLUTION!

    PeterPoddy
    Free Member

    This is small stuff!

    I’ve worked in the concrete/aggregates business for many years now. The bloke that was a plant foreman at the firm I used to work for was on a pretty big scam: We were supplying concrete for the A331 Blackwater Valley road, which was to the tune of about 80,000m3 of concrete. A lot in otherwords. The contractor (McAlpine) were laid the road on a very thick concrete slab, in chunks of 100-300m3 a day becasue of poor ground conditions. He was creaming off a small amount of cement/aggregate from each load during the day (Manual batch plant, no computer records…) and doing 20-40m3 concrete pours in the evenings to other local firms, for cash. The mixer drivers took a cut, he took a cut….
    He told me a few years later that he more than doubled his wage for at least a year doing that, and once an area manager came round and said “We know you’re fiddling. PLEASE can you stop it!”

    100% Gods honest truth, that….

    Pickers
    Full Member

    He he he 😉
    How about if I need a pen for when I work from home? Is that ok? Or do I have to buy those?

    Edit – I even wait til lunchtime to look at STW, clear conscience there then…

    2nd Edit

    mugs (28%)

    And I bought my own mug!

    ebygomm
    Free Member

    I ‘steal’ Douwe Egberts coffee jars from the recycling bin 🙂

    toby1
    Full Member

    I’ve got a hangover so technically I’ll do nothing all day today and still get paid 🙂

    buzz-lightyear
    Free Member

    Back when I paid personal bills by cheque, I stole envelopes.

    I dumped a personal computer under an unoccupied desk which was discovered some time later and disposed of by the company – an exotic form of stealing

    I regularly steal network bandwidth

    TandemJeremy
    Free Member

    druidh – Member

    * is not prepared to comment *

    Remind me how you retired rich at a young age from the bank just before the crash? coincidence – I think not. You ran off with all the money did you not? Fred Goodwin got nowt on you

    😉

    crazy-legs
    Full Member

    I used to do shelf stacking work at Sainsburys about the time I was doing A levels. Most of the guys there were in the same boat, students like me, most of whom wouldn’t stay longer than about 6 months.

    The amount of theft that went on was staggering – people helping themselves to food from the chillers out the back, “accidently” dropping something so it then had to be disposed of due to a damaged lid or something. Fruit was a common and easy one as well.

    One of the night cleaners used to get bottles of milkshake and hide them in the cleaning cupboard so he could have a drink during the night.

    Checkouts and alcohol were much more carefully regulated and monitored with CCTV, even 15 years ago.

    spokebloke
    Free Member

    In the early nineties I worked for six months in a factory that made small diesel engines. On the test bed (where I worked) there was a never ending supply of diesel which disappeared nightly in 5ltr bottles. 95% of the staff had diesel cars….

    This was normal – there were some that took it further with diesel engined lawnmowers etc. Then they moaned that the company wasn’t doing well and it was the management’s fault. Now bust….

    simonm
    Free Member

    Customer of mine got marched off site recently… turned out he was selling metal to scrap man and keeping the proceeds..

    Its amazing what machinery was deemed as “scrap”.. but the plant was nice and tidy.

    backhander
    Free Member

    “Retaining” kit was a passtime for many in the forces and the subject of many urban myths, like the REME VM who managed to build a complete landrover from spares he ordered over the years.

    ericemel
    Free Member

    I have wasted some of my time at work – is that stealing?

    druidh
    Free Member

    TandemJeremy – Member

    Remind me how you retired rich at a young age from the bank just before the crash?

    Rich?

    Young?

    I fear you have me confused with someone else.

    druidh
    Free Member

    Anyway TJ – no post about the supply of your colostomy bags?

    BigButSlimmerBloke
    Free Member

    i half inched a CT scanner once – not a real on, that would have been tricky to get out under my coat but a dinky little toy one, not quite big enough to take Barbie – unless I operate on her first

    and also a single drop of crude oil from the Norh Sea

    neilsonwheels
    Free Member

    Toilet roll
    derv
    Cable.

    JacksonPollock
    Free Member

    Maris Interiors Chairman Michael Howard

    Wonder if this is ‘the’ Michael Howard trying to undermine the current Tory stance (well Ken Clarkes anyway) of ‘Prison doesn’t work’?….

    …”Look at how many common criminals there are! They all need locking up! Its no wonder the country is in the state it is in”! 😆

    TandemJeremy
    Free Member

    Druidh “retiring” (into the distance)

    joolsburger
    Free Member

    My kids absolutely love their Nobo board and A1 flipchart pads and easel. My current employer is a good bloke so I ask here but a few years back if I could carry it…..

    bassspine
    Free Member

    I’m self employed. I have all the pens and paper I need. The boss doesn’t even notice when I ‘borrow’ the works bicycle.

    KINGTUT
    Free Member

    Paper
    Pens
    Camera
    Desk
    Laptop
    Fuel
    Fan
    Heater
    Software
    Toilet Roll
    Milk

    druidh
    Free Member

    druidh – Member
    Anyway TJ – no post about the supply of your colostomy bags?

    LoCo
    Free Member

    I’m currently eyeing up a set of Rockshox Revelation RLT Ti’s 😀

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