Stealing or Not???

[Dobelo17]

Good morning,
Not sure where to post this so if you need to move please do.
We have had problem arise at work and I think it shows
what this country is coming to. I have worked at the
Post office for 17 yrs in a small town here in WI. We
have very strict rules about barrowing things that don't
belong to you( Ithought that was called stealing?) We have never had a problem until the last 6-7 months
we got a new truck driver. He is supposed to leave
the mail at the door and go but likes to hang around and talk. A few months back he comes down from the
breakroom and tells me he took $20.00 out of the
pop fund becasue he needs money to put gas in his
car and is short so he will pay it back. I told him the
girl in our office that does the pop fund used her own money to start the pop fund and that it was hers. He
walks out the door and thinks nothing of it . He comes
back that afternoon and tells me he repaid it. I had to wait until she came in three days later to see if it was really there. We now take money out on daily bases.
We also have a snack vendor who supplies the snacks
for us and picks up the money once a month it has been short so many time I told him to just take the snack display out. I was upstairs with Mr sticky fingers
one morning before work and I need change for the pop
cup. He walks over to the vending for snacks and pops the back off and tells me toget the change from there.
I told him know one was supposed to touch the vendors money and they were going to take it out if it
doesn't quit coming up short. Yestureday Mr sticky
fingers was in the break room and decided that their
is to much stuff in the refrigerator. He takes someones
lunch because they will never miss it. SO that makes it ok to steal. I told him that refrig belongs to the girl whos lunch he is taking she donated it when the old
one went to junk. He says maybe she will get the hint and clean out the fridge. We have told our boss that
we do not want this guy in our office anymore. SOme times he drops of the mail before anyone is there so
who knows what he is taking. Our boss doesn't want any confrontations with anyone so he is likely to never
tell him anything. When in our society did it become
ok to steal? I'm short on cash so I can take yours.
Gives a clear indication of what it would be like if
things really did get bad. We had a discussion amongst
our selves and if the boss doesn't do something we
are going to take care of it ourselves ANd it won't be any of the nice little signs we have been hanging up.
A piece of crap is a piece of crap. >:( ???

[oldnndway]

I had an honor system snack business for several years.
The boxes were open on the front and you could get whatever snack you wanted and put the change in a slot into a drawers that was locked with a plastic wire tie.
This worked good to keep people out of the money tray.
Keeping people from taking snacks and not paying was another issue though.

My Dad always told me that locks only keep the honest people out and I see his point more and more.
If a thief wanted the change in the drawer he would cut the wire tie and take all he wanted but the fact that it had to be cut kept the honest people from borrowing.

I never got robbed by a thief for the money but I sure had a lot of honest people take stauff and never pay.
When it happened too much at one place I would tell them to either make up the difference (after counting the box in front of them) or loose the box.

If you have a thief start locking stuff up.
If he breaks into stuff catch him and have him arrested.

[reyecat]

If the boss won't do anything can the rest of you get together and confront him? Most likely no one's ever stood up to him in a productive way....
"we don't want you to quit or get fired so we thought we would give you the heads up..... a,b,c and x are frowned upon and disrespectful, petty and immature.... please don't do them anymore."

or are there not guidelines in your post office manual that has to do with disruptive people in the work force? And ways to deal with them?

if not you will have to go over your boss's head.

[CarolAnn]

I don't have patience with thieves either.

It's a clue to character - or lack thereof. You shouldn't have to work with a guy like that - and how much MAIL is he lifting?!!!!!

[msta999]

Screw that! Just call the police, file charges and get him out of your work site.

You will never be able to trust him, and will always wonder when he is around. Do something that gets the paper work started, statements from others so it doesn't look like it is just you against him.

[Dawgus]

Sounds kinda like where I work. The company supplies us with vans and gas cards. When you puchase gas, you have to enter mileage on the pump. They watch gas a lot lately with the insane prices, and noticed one of the plumber was using more gas than another, I believe they did the math and with the way it worked out, he was getting 6 mpg. Turns out the guy was filling a 5 gallon gas can every time he filled up, and filling 2 drums at home.....amazing what people will do.
Needless to say, he doesnt work here anymore

[jim]

Thieves should be fired!

[Txanne]

Lack of planning on the thiefs part---does not constitute an emergency on the part of the pop fund.

Throw the bum out.

Txanne

[docsoos]

Interesting story, Dobelo17. Here's mine:

Years ago, I worked at a "famous" Kentucky Bourbon distillery. The first week or so, I was being taken around to show me what equipment I'd be working on, meeting people, etc.

One security guard in particular that I met came into the break room one day, and the good 'ole boys that rolled the barrels around in the warehouse asked me if I had met "Old Pickle-Eater" yet. This security guard got EXTREMELY mad, they started to laugh, and he left the room.

I asked what all that was about. They in turn told me the story of how this security guard was eating people's lunches left in the frig, stealing change from tool boxes, etc.

So, one week they all got together and bought a large jar of pickles (the Sam's Club size!), and put it in the frig. Sure enough, each day, a few more pickles would disappear, until the end of the week, they were ALL GONE.

It was shortly thereafter, a polaroid picture was found in the guard shack, with a large jar of pickles on the floor, top open, and about 6 men urinating in it to "top off" the pickle juice, but they could not be identified, because the picture was "cut off" above their smiling and laughing mouths.

No more food was missing from the frig, and no more stealing, either. ;D

DocSoos

[aprilconnett]

docsoos,
How wonderfully awful!!

[Dobelo17]

Docsoos,
I love the story. Maybe a little exlax would work. WHen I wen into work this afternoon we all discussed this little problem we are having. Mr bum showed up tonight and
the boss still couldn't find time to talk to him even though
he sat on his but in our office for half an hour. So the girl whose lunch he stole asked when he planned on replacing it. He said he would make it good and bring in a lunch for her. SHe told him that it was totally disgusting that someone would take her lunch without even asking. The
cost of the lunch was not the point the fact that he took it
with no intentions of replacing it or even asking if he could have something out of the fridge. He seems totally ignorant
of the fact that everyone else in this place has been on the
honor system for 17 yrs with no problems. We are not going to start now. It will either stop or he will get told to stay the hell out. Are young people really that ignorant?
He is in his mid 20's. I have two children and they no better then that. His excuse seems tobe that he doesn't have enough money to last a whole week from pay check to pay check so he can steal what we have paid for.

[beekeeper]

Option one is to setup a video camera to film him stealing. You need evidence. Your word that he says he is stealing is not enough. Then call the police with clear video evidence.

Option two is to pre-stock the refrigerator. Since you know that he prefers to steal from one person over another, mark a lunch bag with that person's name. You can make a tuna salad sandwich using mineral oil. for example, explosive diarrhea may cause him to reconsider his stealing of other people's food.

We know that our mail carrier holds our Netflix DVDs for up to three weeks as she watches them. When he drop the DVDs at the post office, netflix gets them right away. But if you put them in our mail box, netflix will not receive the DVDs for three weeks. The only difference is the mail carrier. But it stops us from getting the next movie, so we go into town and drop off our out-going mail directly at the post office.

[flatwater]

When I was in the navy we caught a guy stealing money after payday. He would go around the ship after everyone was asleep and pilfer their pockets. We caught him one night and gave him a blanket party. They next day he didn't feel very good and eventually he asked for a transfer. It was a good thing to. I have no respect for a thief and less respect for a boss that ignores the problem.
Flatwater

[RangerRick]

Poison pickles, I love it! Thieves are the lowest form of life indeed.

Rick

[richard]

Cops aren't going to press charges for petty theft like that. Your boss possibly can't do anything more than a formal reprimand, even if he wanted to. I think that really the only viable option is some genius revenge strategy. I would caution against using ex-lax, though. Giving someone an injurious drug without their consent constitutes assault, and if he reported you, you'd be in a lot more trouble than he would be. A better strategy might involve some really mild food, such as tuna salad, or whatever he has taken a liking to before, spiked with ungodly amounts of habañero sauce. Who says you don't just like your food really spicy?

[leera]

I wouldn't tolerate it one bit.This person needs to be put in their place immediately..........I would also notify the snack vendor of what was/is happening,let the vendor decide what to do about the snacks and missing money......this person is blatantly stealing and needs to be stopped.If he's stealing form co workers,is he also stealing people's mail?

[edward_4576]

If the problem is really serious you can go to x10.com and get a cheap wireless camera, they have a little battrery pack for the camera so you don't have to run wires and such, just put it in a hidden spot the guy can't see. You can hook up the reciever to a PC or a VCR to record him doing stuff. Heck even easier (and cheaper) go to harbor freight and buy a couple of those dummy survelance cameras (they go for like five bucks) and set it up in the break room.

[12vman]

For us older folks that remember Feen-a-Mints.. (sp?)

In grade school, I used to keep a pak of Chicklets in my desk. Someone was stealing them just about daily. One day I replaced the Chicklets with the "above" medication.. 8)

I knew who was stealing the chicklets the very next day! He didn't come to school for a couple of days after, AMOF.. ;D

(Said he had a stomach flu..) LOL.. LMAO..

We had our 30th year class reunion last summer.. I informed him of the "incident".. ;)
~Don

[MooseToo]

just goes to show that muslim practices are not totally wrong - their process for handling thieves is near fool-proof -

[CarolAnn]

You know, you might not have to actually put the exlax in . .. you could let him "overhear" her say she's using some thing in the food.

Years ago, my husband would sometimes get up in the night and eat a WHOLE cake I had made for lunches. I mentioned that I might put in some cascara sagrada & if he ate the whole thing at once, he'd be in the pooper for a couple of days of agony, but one piece wouldn't do more than make him regular.

After that, the cake would go sale before it was all eaten! The thing is, I actually DID try some in a cake and it made it so bitter I had to throw it away. (I didn't tell him that part, though!) He knew I have a lot of herbal knowledge and he wasn't willing to take the chance!
;D

[WileyCoyote]

Please do NOT corrupt any food to trap thieves.

One of my good and decent firefighter friends got tired of coming back to the station only to find his food gone. He put some ammonia in his own carton of milk. Now you and I and pretty much any idiot can smell ammonia in milk, right? The thief (everyone "knew" who it was, just had no proof) supposedly 'drank' the poison... and demanded to be rushed to the hospital and have his stomach pumped out. He then had to quit his job - but not before he sued my friend, all of the firefighters, and the fire department for poisoning him. He won the lawsuit, my friend lost his job - and then the smarmy SOB went up to him and bragged, "I smelled that ammonia, I didn't drink the milk - I just wanted to teach you a lesson, not to mess with me!"

Thieves won't just steal your money and food - they will steal everything you own, including your decent reputation and your family's future - not because they need it but because they think they deserve it; they have a 'right' to everything.

[docsoos]

He won the lawsuit, my friend lost his job - and then the smarmy SOB went up to him and bragged, "I smelled that ammonia, I didn't drink the milk - I just wanted to teach you a lesson, not to mess with me!"


And this cretin is still alive? ::)

If your friend took that from him, I guess he deserved it. You ruin my life over something that miniscule, I say let's go the "full ride". Old timers would do it in a heartbeat, but most men today WON'T defend what's theirs, no matter WHAT the cost, for fear of some perceived "retribution".

I'd show that thief what RETRIBUTION was ALL about.

How very sad......

DocSoos

[edward_4576]

Another method is to use poppy seed buns when making sandwiches. I f everyone would do it he might eat enough to test positive on a drug test. Then tell the boss he's a user......

[flatwater]

Years ago when I was a corrections officer we would try and stop the trustees from making pruno(jail house wine) but we didn't have much success until we found a batch and put some syrup of epicak in it. That was all it took.
Flatwater

[Dobelo17]

Hi all,
Thanks for all the ideas. My Co worker confronted him on Friday night and told him to repay the lunch he took.
On Sat Morning he was giving us some crap about how he is diebetic and had to eat or he would have died. My son is a type one diabetic and Iknow the first thing
that you would reach for when getting low is not meat and cheese. We finally told him we know about the money he has been taking , The pop he is stealing and
also food . It is not going to be tolerated. The vendor
stopped in yestureday and will decide if he is going to
pull it or not. We will just stop having things for him to
take. THe sticking point is he sees nothing wrong
with stealing he had all the excuses in the world why it
is ok. I can't even stand being inthe same room with him. I guess it takes all kinds of nuts to make the world
go round. My shiny new paddle lock says hes not taking
anything of mine.

Becky

[HockeyFan]

Spike something with ex-lax and wait for him to steal it. He wont be stealing from the frig anymore.
As far as the other stuff, unfortunately, if the boss isn't going to do anything, then I'd just let it play out on its own. He'll keep stealing until the snack vendor stops service. Then let everyone bitch at him for being responsible. Sooner or later, he'll get the hint or he'll just be hated.
I can live with it. You're at work. It's a job. It's a way to earn a living so that you can go home and have a good quality of life there. If it sucks at work, that's okay. At least we get paid for being there.

[MYellowRose]

Dobelo that comment about being a diabetic really got to me as I got fired from a former job because another employee came into the employee's cafeteria, ripped the plastic off of the meat & cheese tray and grabbed the cheese with his hand. When I confronted him he just shrugged then went across and reported me for being rude. Excuse me, it was my job to enforce common sense sanitation to keep everyone from being sick. When the supervisor wrote me up she told me he had done it because he was a diabetic and needed to eat to elevate his blood sugar. I immediately popped back with "So is my brother and if he needed to raise his blood sugar what he really needed was some orange juice or some honey, not some cheese!"
As for his stealing isn't there some way he can be reported to someone in the post office such as an inspector general or the like on an anonymous basis? He needs to loose his job, like now! As someone else said, is he also stealing mail?
I had a carrier who would read my issue of BWH before dropping it in my box, or so I thought. The PO denied it until I took it in and showed the coffee stain in it to the carrier supervisor. Turns out it wasn't the carrier, it was the guy at the post office itself that dropped bundled mail off for the carriers to sort before it was delivered. He got a written reprimand for it and had to pay me for the magazine with the coffee stain.

[bedwere]

Good morning,
Not sure where to post this so if you need to move please do.
We have had problem arise at work and I think it shows
what this country is coming to. I have worked at the
Post office for 17 yrs in a small town here in WI. We
have very strict rules about barrowing things that don't
belong to you( Ithought that was called stealing?) We have never had a problem until the last 6-7 months
we got a new truck driver. He is supposed to leave
the mail at the door and go but likes to hang around and talk. A few months back he comes down from the
breakroom and tells me he took $20.00 out of the
pop fund becasue he needs money to put gas in his
car and is short so he will pay it back. I told him the
girl in our office that does the pop fund used her own money to start the pop fund and that it was hers. He
walks out the door and thinks nothing of it . He comes
back that afternoon and tells me he repaid it. I had to wait until she came in three days later to see if it was really there. We now take money out on daily bases.
We also have a snack vendor who supplies the snacks
for us and picks up the money once a month it has been short so many time I told him to just take the snack display out. I was upstairs with Mr sticky fingers
one morning before work and I need change for the pop
cup. He walks over to the vending for snacks and pops the back off and tells me toget the change from there.
I told him know one was supposed to touch the vendors money and they were going to take it out if it
doesn't quit coming up short. Yestureday Mr sticky
fingers was in the break room and decided that their
is to much stuff in the refrigerator. He takes someones
lunch because they will never miss it. SO that makes it ok to steal. I told him that refrig belongs to the girl whos lunch he is taking she donated it when the old
one went to junk. He says maybe she will get the hint and clean out the fridge. We have told our boss that
we do not want this guy in our office anymore. SOme times he drops of the mail before anyone is there so
who knows what he is taking. Our boss doesn't want any confrontations with anyone so he is likely to never
tell him anything. When in our society did it become
ok to steal? I'm short on cash so I can take yours.
Gives a clear indication of what it would be like if
things really did get bad. We had a discussion amongst
our selves and if the boss doesn't do something we
are going to take care of it ourselves ANd it won't be any of the nice little signs we have been hanging up.
A piece of crap is a piece of crap. >:( ???


The government has always been stealing from the people so of course people think it is OK to steal. They have been learning that it is ok all of their lives.