Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

Right, one of my co-workers was fired today because he had his hand in the till too often for reasons unknown. As with most of these cases today he got off with a stern talk and the promise that every month the company would withdraw money from his bank account until they got the full sum of what he stole. I was worried for a bit that I would be sacked or reprimanded as well, seeing as I shared most shifts with him, but as our district manager explained they had all of us under investigation (When we use the till we use a personal code to log in to use it) and he was the only one in the bunch who large showed differences at the end of the day. Plus, when confronted by the facts he admitted it straight away.

Hoo boy, I didn't like working with the guy because he wasn't that knowledgeable or active, but theft? It really left me amazed and somewhat shocked. Maybe it's because we're with a small group (six people now) but theft! The guy was incompetent and a regular pain in our behinds because of his ineptitude, but theft? Maybe it's just me, but I can't wrap my head around why people steal, much less from their own employers.

On the plus side he won't be joining us on our UK staff trip early June, on the downside we're understaffed, so next week I'm up for seven long days.

I turned in a co-worker for suspicious activity that turned out to be theft as I had guessed. He handed money over himself though we had no way of knowing if it was all of it. He then said I showed him how to do it and that I had done it too. After lots of warning and being under the constant eye I quit a week later. I hate crap like this.

I'll never understand people who steal, either. They either assume that everyone around them is completely stupid or they think they're ninjas.

As well as invisible to the camera in the ceiling lol

I used to work with a chick that would sell cds and games a week or so before the launch date to people (which is a pretty hefty fine for each unit sold) she would also mark down things from $20+ to a whopping $2 for friends. I think she even stole from the register too....real winner that one.


That part that pisses me off more about people that do those things, it ends up hurting the rest of the employees. Companies have to make it up some where.....and usually thats in the hours for workers.

UUUUUUGH!! I have a real problem with theft and theives in general. Also I know what your going through. I work for an armored car company and a co worker made off with $50,000. Turns out he had a secret life with another woman and a gambling problem. Iv'e worked with the guy, a really straight laced and proper type. Never would expected him to be a thief, let alone the other stuff.

Of course we were down a guy and everyone had to make it up. I missed two gaming sessions

I manage a health club. You cannot enter the health club unless you are a member. Our membership fees are incredibly steep. We also sell various nutritional products that are on display at the entrance. We have had two instances of theft. The standing policy is that employees will call the police when theft is witnessed.

We have had one, in my tenure, case of employee theft. My standard policy is to contract employees, as opposed to actually employing them, so once the theft was confirmed I was able to invalidate his entire contract. He had signed on for 12 months. He owes us in excess of 25k USD. Our contracts are very nearly predatory.

I caught one of my cashiers dipping the till a few years back. His job was to take money from everyone who came into the club and then stamp their hand; he was simply under-ringing the till and lowering the entry figures every night. I only caught him when one of the bouncers had clocked 220 people coming in, but the guy on the till had only got 190. At £10 per person, he had lifted nearly £300 for a single nights work/thievery.

Me and the owner locked him in the club after closing and confronted him about it, he admitted taking about a grand total so we gave him two options: 1) We call the police, have him arrested and tell all his friends/acquaintances/prospective employers what he was doing. Or 2) He works for free for a month to pay it back, then he's fired but we'll give him a reference.

He chose option 2 and to my surprise actually worked the whole month. I still think he took more than a grand though, the bastard.

I used to work at Aiwa in the quality control department.

There was a guy who roller-bladed in to work, and walked home with his blades around his neck.

Small numbers of personal stereos were going missing.

He was carrying them out in his roller boots.

To put it in perspective, one weekend a gang of thieves broke into the warehouse and loaded up a 30 ton lorry with stuff.

During the short time I worked in retail, it was for a corporation who implemented serious security, specifically to deal with employee theft.

I was always a bit on edge, but most of the time the eyes in the sky didn't throw me off of my sales. Cashiering, Sales, Cleaning, Stocking... you name it, the people on the floor did it, and the gratitude was minimum wage and a very caste-based employment structure.

Just to note, the only thefts I ever heard about from employees, came from upper management in the form of using gas (managerial expense accounts, of course) to drive around for hours. Funny that... feth retail.

We had a guy at our Target who was stealing iPod touches from the electronics stockroom in the back for a few weeks. They finally confronted him and he got fired/fined for the missing iPods.

We never understood why he thought it was a good idea, seeing as how the electronics stockroom has 4 cameras in it in all 4 corners of the room, leaving no blind spots at all. There is literally nowhere to hide if you're trying to steal stuff.

DiscoVader wrote:We never understood why he thought it was a good idea, seeing as how the electronics stockroom has 4 cameras in it in all 4 corners of the room, leaving no blind spots at all. There is literally nowhere to hide if you're trying to steal stuff.

Minimum wage.

Likely a combination of being disgruntled, underpaid (at least in their eyes), and stupidity.

I have heard of enough serious theft, to know that stealing on the job is not a reliable way to make money.

Now upper-level corporate theft, is an entirely different story. It's actually a pretty easy way to make (insert multiple tons of) money, just make it sound really complicated.

I delivered pizza like 15 years ago. the shop would give each driver a "bank" of $30 in 1's and 5's to make change. Most of the drivers kept the extra cash at the end of the night. We had to fill out a sheet listing all of our deliveries and stuff like that at the end of the night, it was all recorded so it's not like they're not gonna know who's stealing. One day I came in and all those drivers were fired, I was the only guy on that night.. and if course it was one of our busiest nights ever. man that sucked. But I made a heluva lot in tips at least...

I got a comforting call from the district manager yesterday where he personally assured that nobody else was under suspicion, while I've heard my coworkers tell me this it does feel a whole lot more assuring when the man himself tells you, which does a lot to boost our spirits. We're still left with an odd feeling of betrayal and being ripped by someone we knew somewhat well. I'm really curious about why he did it. Maybe he was just that stupid? Or maybe he couldn't make ends meet or whatever its called in the UK and US.

Oh well, it's been one hell of a week, time for a drink.

BrookM - where do you work?

Well, you know what they say about the Army.

"There is only one thief, everyone else is just trying to get their stuff back!"

BrookM works for the Netherland military? Go figure.

Alpharius wrote:BrookM - where do you work?

I work for the AKO, a nation-wide bookstore that also has stores at stations, where I also work. Next to books and magazines we also sells cigarettes, do lottery, toto, scratch cards and other gambling services and to top it all off we also perform postal services. The pay is gak for the amount of work we do while understaffed, so that might be a reason why he did what he did.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Emperors Faithful wrote:BrookM works for the Netherland military? Go figure.

Implying something here?

Nah. Just didn't realise that the Netherlands had one.

In other news, the top of by screen bar reads "One of my co-workers got sacked for theft : 'Ere we go, 'ere we go."

Mine says a rather discomforting "Total! Maximum! Violence! Now!"

"One of my co-workers got sacked for theft : Our forums 'run-"

Mine says "One of my co-workers got sacked for theft. I'm wearing boots of escaping.

I guess that is one way to escape work. Though not a good way.

"One of my co-workers got sacked for theft | You know you're supposed to be painting."

"One of my co-workers got sacked for theft | All hail the Mighty Primarch Russ!"

You work with Russ?

And he's a thief? Hmm.

One of my co-workers got sacked for theft l Why talk it out when you can shoot it out?

Mhm.

Slight update, I talked with the manager about it today and he let slip that the guy who got fired stole between 20,000 and 30,000 thousand Euro's. That's between 25,000 and 38,000 thousand USD's or 17,000 and 25,000 thousand Pounds Sterling.

A new wave of WTF went through us today.

BrookM wrote:Slight update, I talked with the manager about it today and he let slip that the guy who got fired stole between 20,000 and 30,000 thousand Euro's. That's between 25,000 and 38,000 thousand USD's

Holy crap.

So if he'd been slightly more circumspect, and less greedy, and only stolen, say, 10k USD, he'd have been fine?

That is a scary amount of money to be lifting at work. Did he need a (brain) transplant or something?

I asked around about a motive but they couldn't tell, only the district manager knows. My guess is, he's an unrepentant thief and a bastard. His Curriculum Vitae showed that he has worked at over a dozen jobs over the last decade, never staying at one place too long.

Wow!

So, are charges being filed as we speak?

BrookM wrote:My guess is, he's an unrepentant thief and a bastard. His Curriculum Vitae showed that he has worked at over a dozen jobs over the last decade, never staying at one place too long.

Well, if he's stealing over 20 grand per job, no, he's not going to need to stay for long.

A dozen jobs with a "bonus" 20 grand each is a cool quarter mil.

Tax free.

Not bad, when you think about it.