Stealing from work are you?

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%)

Stealing from work are you?

You are Yoda and I claim my 5 galactic credits.

[alec guinness voice]

These are not the pens you’re look for.

[/alec guinness voice]

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?

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

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

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.

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

Aaaaahhh…… The sweet smell of differential association!

Just company time, reading this 😉

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

* is not prepared to comment *

Some days, it certainly feels like it 🙂

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!

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

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.

only my wage……………. 😉

Yep.

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

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

VIVA LE REVOLUTION!

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….

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!

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

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

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

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

😉

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.

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….

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.

“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.

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

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.

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

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

Toilet roll
derv
Cable.

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”! 😆

Druidh “retiring” (into the distance)

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…..

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.

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

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

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