Although I agree with the surveys that the most commonly listed items (staplers,scissors, paper, pens etc) are your most commonly stolen items because of their portability as i've been guilty of regularly leaving my church with a pen each week because I usually forget my own, I cannot accept the fact that Ink cartridges are common based on the simple fact, that with so many makes and models of printers, not everyone has a printer that uses "HP 61" ink.
With that being said, I’ve received some benefits from employee theft through myself, people I know or i've known. My mom’s ex-boyfriend when he was working at an Italian Restaurant, would not only give us “free” food (pizza, lasagna, chicken Parmesan, spaghetti etc.), this guy would go as far as to bring us home dough balls pre made. Containers of sauce, cheese, pepperoni, Italian sausage, mushrooms etc. He eventually got fired, and over time because of these thefts, and piss-poor management, the restaurant closed. To tie into the restaurants, even I will admit when doing free work at a snack bar when working high school basketball games, myself and the rest of the crew were known to grab a hot dog, a soda, some nachos, and/or a pretzel (or any combination) every now and then. Even my father, when he was alive and working for the county,would xerox copies of things we needed for either school or personal use. I remember getting a copy of a strategy guide book for a video game (Super Mario Bros. 3) So my dad would a three hole binder, clear two sided sheets, and placed each page of the guide in those sheets for preservation of the book. Another story that I’ve heard from one of my friends, who were a former employee at an Indigo Books & Music in Canada, told me a story about an employee who would void receipts and pocket the cash. Over the course of 5 years, he stole round $30,000 before he was caught and eventually convicted.
My personal opinion is that, it is okay if you take a pen,
or little nick nacks occasionally, or use some paper for non-work related
tasks. I am against those who steal ink, or other high value items. If you're at a restaurant, you're more likely able to get by with stealing a hamburger than a case of meat and cheese. Obviously, it is a big hell no when it comes to theft that
hurts people, or rather large amounts of money or items, because that's just plain greedy. This entire paper has me thinking about when I enter into
another job at an office or restaurant, and thinks about theft, how every
little penny adds up over time, and what happens when you have people stealing
dollars, and that in the end, its not worth it, and I don’t want to be a bad
employee.
For this paper, I wanted to look at a genre that has always
interested me, Crime. With that being said, the workplace is a hotbed for
crime, so why not talk about employee theft in aspects of what an employee
commonly steals, consequences of employee theft in both personal matters,
as well as the effects on retail.
WHAT IS STOLEN?
According to a survey taken through boston.com[1] 40% of
working adults admit to simply “borrowing” things from work with the
intention of bringing them back, though some never no…so let’s look at what
they list as the most popular items to steal.
1. Pens, Pencils,
highlighters, which was admitted by 82% of respondents admitted to seeing
missing from the workplace
2. Paper products
(notebooks, sticky notes) 35% of workers noticing them disappearing
3. Paper or product
clips (28)%
4. Staplers (22%)
5. Scissors (20%)
6. Tape Dispensers
(14%)
7. Printer Ink (9%)
8. Binders (8%)
Nevertheless, to be fair, I figure I would go to another
source and see what they say. At Careerpath360[2] popular
items stolen are: Envelopes and Paper “If you write a letter at work or use
paper for any other drawings or doodles then it is theft as it is not part of
your employment and the paper cannot then be used for your employers business.
If you then take an envelope and send your letter through the works-franking
machine, then you are stealing even more from your employer.
Sticky tape “Lunch break gives you the opportunity to nip to
the shops and buy a present for your friend’s birthday. It needs wrapping. You
buy the pretty paper but do you remember the tape to fasten it? Again, it is
theft. You are using equipment provided by your employer for your private use.).
Printer cartridges “These can seem expensive to supply for
home use, but ordering extra for home when stocking up the office, is still
theft, unless part of your employment contract includes this as a contractual
clause. Even doing your personal printing in the office can be seen as a theft
of equipment and time.” Private phone calls as “incurs a cost to your
employer, not only the actual call but also your time in making the call.”
A Third source from laywers.com[3] states: “Turns
out the majority of office workers (58%) have taken office supplies for their
personal use, according to a new survey conducted by Harris
Interactive® and commissioned by LexisNexis Martindale-Hubbell's
[http://www.martindale.com] lawyers.com [http://www.lawyers.com], the most
comprehensive and trustworthy online resource for finding lawyers. Among those
who admit to taking office supplies for personal use, the most commonly stolen
office supplies include pens/pencils (77%), followed by self-adhesive
"sticky" notes (44%) and paper clips (40%). Some employees (2%) are
even taking decorations like plants, paintings and office furniture (2%).
"People often forget that workplace resources are not their own and are
actually considered company property," said attorney Alan Kopit, legal
editor of lawyers.com [http://www.lawyers.com]. "We are not just talking
about pens and paper here, employees are also stealing expensive things too
like computers, software and books.”
Likewise there was a story that was posted in late August on collegehumor.com that surfaced that had me laugh. It has to do with an employee who kept
stealing another employee’s turkey sandwich…I’ll admit it had me laughing at
the antics. [4]
A popular
story that came out in 2006 I (which was later featured on American Greed[5]) involved twin sisters Charlene Corley and Darlene Wooten who were caught charging the government
ridiculous amounts of money for shipping items to various bases ($998,798 to
ship two 19 cent washers).
Yup, you read right almost...............
This all happened because the government would
automatically pay these invoices as they were deemed the highest of priority,
how the fraud was started was when one of the sisters accidentally listed a high
shipping charge (For example; $5,000 instead of $00) and the government auto
paid it. While the sisters returned the money then, they did not the rest of
the times. Eventually costing the United States Department of Defense over
$20,000,000. Ultimately, the sisters were caught, in 2006 after being
approached by federal investigators; Darlene committed suicide and left a check
for $4.5 million to the Defense Department. In 2009, Charlene was
sentenced to 78 months in prison (the minimum for wire fraud and money
laundering) and ordered to pay back $15.5 million in restitution. [5] Compared to what's happened in the retail world, the damage of $20,000,000 is just a drop in the bucket.
According to the 26th Annual Retail Theft Survey[6]”. When it came
to cracking down on internal theft, the survey revealed that apprehensions for
dishonest employees rose 6.5 percent and recovery dollars rose 2.5
percent…Employee Apprehensions: 78,085 dishonest employees were
apprehended in 2013, up 6.percent from 2012. Employee Recovery Dollars: Over
$55 million was recovered from employee apprehensions in 2013, up 2.5 percent
from 2012.
The survey also points out that one out of every 39.5
employees was apprehended for theft from their employer in 2013; this based
over 3.0 million employees. The survey also shows that on a per case average,
dishonest employees steal approximately 5.4 times the amount stolen by
shoplifters ($706.21 vs $130.80)
To quote from the article: “Employee theft is perceived by
many to be the most severe problem facing industry today! Many people often
think of theft and abuse in companies as being isolated acts, which in
themselves cost an organization little. Unfortunately, this is untrue! It is
also not true that most employees are caught stealing inexpensive items such as
‘pens, pencils, and paper clips’ from their employers. Over the years, Hayes
International has witnessed a steady and significant rise in this serious
problem. Each year thousands of employees are caught stealing from their
employers and co-workers. Furthermore, our studies reflect that this group of
thieves are being caught stealing far more than a few insignificant supplies.
Below are a few highlights of our most recent survey:
Highlights from Jack L. Hayes International’s 26th Annual
Retail Theft Survey
§ One out of every 39.5 employees was
apprehended for theft from their employer in 2013. (Based on comparison
data of over 3.0 million employees.)
§ Apprehensions: Survey participants
apprehended 78,085 dishonest employees in 2013, up 6.5% from 2012.
§ Recoveries: Dollars recovered from
dishonest employee apprehensions totaled over $55 million in 2013, an increase
of 2.5% from 2012.”
A table from the same survey that shows the difference in
consequences of dishonest employees over a year
DISHONEST EMPLOYEES
Difference
2012
2013
#/$
Pct.
Apprehensions
73,297
78,085
4,788
6.53%
Recoveries
$53,790,325
$55,144,201
$1,353,876
2.52%
Avg. Case Value
$733.87
$706.21
-$27.66
-3.77%
As show with tables,surveys, and real life examples,
employee theft is a big issue and the consequences can be enormous, and affects
everyone from the employees, to retailers (which ultimately passes costs onto
consumers), even to as far as our government if someone is scandalous enough to
steal from them. The consequences can be severe and will ruin lives. Even more
so, some of the most thievish employees can be the ones at the top and
this just has me thinking about when I get my next job and things I’ve seen in
the past……which leads me onto part two (or the I Say part)
Sung to the parody of the "Cops" opening song "Bad Boys" by Inner Circle. The words try to follow along with the original version...ideally the minute long opening heard on some episodes which i included a youtube clip of down below for relevance)
Employee, whatcha wan
Watcha wan, whatcha wanna steal?
When Mr. Boss Man's closin' the deal
Tell me whatcha wanna steal, whatcha gonna steal?
Bad Employee
What you gonna do? What you gonna do?
With those pens and some glue?
Bad Employee
What you gonna do? What you gonna do?
With those sticky notes too?
Printer ink that i'm going to take
A stapler that i'm going to take,
A phone call that i'm going to make
And some dollars that i'm going to take, ching ching,
