Reply to: Taking "work" home

[Sysman]

On a large construction site in the 80s someone half inched a portacabin. One of those long office ones including its contents.
Organised a low loader and crane to lift it.
Just drove off site with it. Security did not even consider questioning it.
Caused a hell of a fuss.

It's rife in construction. One set of lads used to turn up at construction sites with low loaders and suitable looking paperwork to take JCBs and similar kit away. Since leasing/hiring such kit is common nobody questioned them, and by the time they realised what had happened said kit was already out on lease or hire elsewhere. They didn't make the mistake of selling the things outright.

[Cliphead]

My last permie job was working for a US broadcast company who went bust. Told me to help myself to any kit lieu of wages.

Between the office in Scotland and the hosting centre in London I scored 10 PC's, 4 servers, 2 Delta 1010's, 2 delta 44's (high end sound cards with breakout boxes), and 2 custom built sound units which I sold to the BBC for £2k apiece.

Lots of small stuff like a dozen unused win2000 server licenses, printers, ISDN kit. Basically cleaned the place out which they weren't expecting but no repercussions.

[The Lone Gunman]

On a large construction site in the 80s someone half inched a portacabin. One of those long office ones including its contents.
Organised a low loader and crane to lift it.
Just drove off site with it. Security did not even consider questioning it.
Caused a hell of a fuss.

[Sysman]

One chap was doing his best to empty a warehouse in the evenings. He spun security a good tale about the overtime he was earning and they assumed it was legit. He had legitimate looking trucks rolling up to take the stuff away.

[VectraMan]

One place I worked a security guard nicked a load of MSDN CDs. Not sure what he wanted with those, maybe he heard IT was lucrative and thought he could learn.

[Sysman]

I remember a salesman who refused to give back his company BMW to the liquidators because they wouldn't pay his £6k expenses.

Did he win? Expenses owed = unsecured credit in liquidators' eyes so you get nowt. I found this out the hard way

[Addanc]

I remember a guy who stole an Intel MDS II blue box.

No big loss there, it would have died after a couple of weeks. Even if reliable there's the problem of the 7" or was it 9" floppy disks that could hold about as much as a gnats todger. Should have been paid to dispose of it.

[RichardCranium]

One I've just remembered from permie days: The guy who was still running around in his company car a year after he'd left. Probably still had his petrol card too.

Oh, yeah. Software house, 20-odd years ago. One of the tops salesmen disappeared. The senior managers & his wife were very concerned. He turned up a month later (eventually they reported his company car as stolen and he was found that way) in a B&B somewhere. He had gone to a competitor with the sales database and they'd taken it but not him.

I think his life then turned to rattulip.

[Sysman]

One I've just remembered from permie days:

The guy who was still running around in his company car a year after he'd left. Probably still had his petrol card too.

[Zippy]

Years ago (1980's) in a smallish company. The girl in charge of accounts noticed a few cheques had been taken out from the back of the cheque book.

The MD called a staff meeting and said that if the person returned the money within a week nothing more would be done.

9 days later plod marched in and arrested the head of the research dept who had apparantly spent the lot on hookers.

I never found out how much was taken, but he got locked up for long enough to find out if he liked "Gladiator movies".

That's a hell of a lot of hookers.

Or a few really, really good ones ...

[PRC1964]

Years ago (1980's) in a smallish company. The girl in charge of accounts noticed a few cheques had been taken out from the back of the cheque book.

The MD called a staff meeting and said that if the person returned the money within a week nothing more would be done.

9 days later plod marched in and arrested the head of the research dept who had apparantly spent the lot on hookers.

I never found out how much was taken, but he got locked up for long enough to find out if he liked "Gladiator movies".

[Sysman]

According to a Dilbert book I read about 10 years ago, you hadn't taken enough floppies home until you had re-roofed your house.

I did have my eye on that 480 GB disk array I configured for Y2K testing, but sadly clientco weren't letting it go. I can't say I'd have liked the leccy bills of course.

[Menelaus]

I know of someone who (ahem) liberated a number of bits of Iraqi bakshee from Kuwait when we came back from GRANBY in 1991.

[nomadd]

I frequently seem to end up leaving a couple of pens in my pocket and taking them home and of course emptying them out before washing.

This made me think, where is the line before you get into the realms of theft?

A few sheets of paper: Ok, a whole 500 sheet ream: pilfering.


What's the most outrageous thing you know of that someone has taken home?

Worked for Channel4 Television many years ago. Guy there was "visited" at home by the police as a lot of "kit" was going missing. They found 4 top-end professional video recorders - probably worth £25k a pop in today's money - in his garage. Not a bad way to supplement a permie salary, I guess.

Nomadd

[Cliphead]

HP Laserjet 1400n