I’ve worked retail for a long time and petty thieves always irrirtated the crap out of me. From scam artists who switch sales tags to try and save $5.00 or so, to people who lie to try and get a price match that doesn’t really exist, to all the little mind games people will play to sell their inegrity for a couple of lousy bucks.
I work in a music store now and people will steal, guitar picks, power supplies, tubes out of amps, reeds for sax and clarinet, etc etc. Today I saw the funniest and most pathetic example of petty theft I’ve ever seen. On lunch break at Wendy’s I saw a young adult who was on his way out go to the napkin vendor and pull out a huge stack of napkins, several times. He tucked his 500 napkins under his arm and walked out. Is he saving money buy stealing from Wendy’s rather than buy his own? Who knows.
When I used to work for the state I was friends with a kind of strange woman who worked there who was in her early forties. At some point I found out that the toilet paper she used at home was all stolen from our work. I asked her why she would steal that cheap, scratchy, waterproof, low-bid state toilet paper when you legally could buy four rolls of soft, absorbent toilet paper that didn’t actively repel bodily fluids for $1.00. She said it was because “Stolen toilet paper feels better.”
Is that like how a sandwich always tastes better when someone else makes it for you?
Where I used to work a couple of years ago, we employed a pair of stupid (I mean like a 17 year-old Paris Hilton here) girls that stole from our store regularly with some of their idiot friends. I worked in the shop of a framing store, and they were stealing little miniature jewelled picture frames, art supplies, and piddly crap like that. They’d stick them down the front of their pants and then wait until the manager was in the back, and let their friends go out with the stuff. It wasn’t even junk they could resell or use really, most of us wouldn’t have taken it for free. I don’t remember how they eventually got caught, but the girl everyone disliked anyway got fired. The dumber of the two was just assumed to be going along with the skanky one and unable to think for herself, so she got chewed out but managed to keep her job.
I think the guy with the napkins wasn’t necessarily a theif; he may have spilled something in his car or needed them right away for another reason. Some people will take extra ketchup packets and free or complimentary stuff like that just because they’re cheapskates. On the other hand I think petty thieves just steal for the thrill of it. My bf used to hang out with a girl who was a total klepto. She’d go to the mall and just rip off anything she could for the sake of it, even if it was junk she didn’t even want. Not suprisingly he didn’t hang out with her for very long.
One just happened tonight to me. I was tabling at a local YMCA that does a Halloween carnival type thing, and I brought along a lot of our shark outreach stuff (ooh, scary predators!). A couple of Plankton (character from SpongeBob Squarepants) stuffed animals are kept in the outreach bin, but I decided to leave them in there and not to use them. As I packed up to go, there was only one Plankton doll left. Pisses me off, first that someone would steal from an educational non-profit :mad: .
It also makes me sad because some young kid (they were almost all 5-11) probably just got their first experience stealing.
Unless he’s carpooling with Flipper and Aquaman, I doubt he needed that many napkins. I’ve been known to keep fast food napkins in my glove compartment, but never that many.
Minor TMI coming
Not exactly “theft,” but when I worked for the state of New York via a job at a state university I used to always take a dump on the job. Nothing like knowing that my and my friends’ tax dollars were funding my bowel movements.
I don’t think taking a shitload of napkins from Wendy’s is the same as stealing merchandise. The napkins are there for people to take; short of handing out napkins at the counter individually and not setting them out, what should the restaurant do? If he was buying food, it’s even less of an issue. The way I see it is that once you’ve bought the food, that gives you the right to all materials associated with the eating of food. It may be excessive, but it’s not “stealing,” those napkins are there for patrons to use.
When I swim laps, every now and then I’ll take my goggles completely off and swim a slow lap without them just to cool my eyes and such.
I was swimming at a nice, community-owned, pay-to-swim pool in a fairly affluent neighborhood. A bunch of summer camp kids, from a camp that must have cost plenty of cash, were around. That is, RICH KIDS.
This little kid, maybe 7 years old, ran off with my goggles. He didn’t just pick them up by mistake, he grabbed them and took off, knowing he was doing something wrong. I saw him do it, chased him down, and brought him over to the counselor. I was upset, but more than that, he was too damn young to be stealing and had no reason to do it. His parents could have afforded to buy him all the goggles he needed.
This is such a weak rant, but I’m still pissed off. My husband and I go to the store and on our way in, we decide to pick out a few good pumpkins from the large bins outside. We spend several minutes digging through the bins, looking for the perfect pumpkins for carving. Satisfied with the three we’ve chosen, we head inside for the remainder of our shopping.
We step away from the cart for a minute or 3 and when we get back, there is only one pumpkin left. Someone stole the pumpkins out of our cart! We spent time finding nice looking pumpkins, and someone just took them! Lazy fuckers. Who the hell walks around and shops from other people’s carts? “Hmm, that pizza they’ve got there looks pretty good. I’ll just take it and they can go get another.”
I know I shouldn’t have turned my back on my cart. I just really didn’t occur to me that someone would take the groceries from my cart while I’m shopping. I was having a bad day as it was, and that just shit on my last hope that people aren’t rotten to the core.
Although, it was kinda fun for Hubby and I to stalk the isles looking for the pumpkin thief. It was like a hunt. I have no idea what we would have done if we had found the lazy bastard, but we were ready.
Are you sure it was kids? There were no parents or other adults? If there were, it’s possible that an adult used the faulty logic of “Hey, it’s the Y; I’ve donated to them. What’s a stuffed animal, anyway?”
I’ve told the story enough times about my Peter Arno cartoons and the two magazines. Point is, my view on that is that the book and magazines weren’t stolen; they were taken. Stealing would have been lifting one of the leather jackets, purses or backpacks that were temporarily housed in the cloakroom along with my stuff. Those things were worth enough money that anyone reporting their loss would have been taken seriously. But a book and two magazines? Or a stuffed animal, or goggles, or pumpkins? What’s anyone gonna do? Just take 'em, man!
And sorry about your pumpkins, Strangelove! I know what it’s like to search for the Perfect Produce. And after you’d done all that work, someone else got the benefit of your time. :mad:
Law-abiding citizen that I am, I was once accused of petty thievery - of a relish packet. One. Relish. Packet. I had sat down with my friends at a restaurant, a little place on the beach. I had ordered a burger and fries. I put ketchup, mustard, and relish on my burger. I was holding one more packet of relish, but decided not to put it on. I set it near my plate, in case I should decide I wanted it later, and then forgot about it.
We finished our lunch, chatted for a little bit. Somewhere in that time, I absentmindedly picked up the relish packet and was just fiddling with it while I spoke to my friends. We paid for our meals, left a nice tip, got up to leave… and the owner YELLED at me, calling me a stupid thief, and sarcastically asked me if I had a relish shortage at home. Startled, I looked down and realised I was holding the little packet, and red-faced, apologised and set it on the counter. I said that I didn’t even realise I was holding it, and I was very sorry. He accused me of knowing what I was doing all along, and flung the packet back at me, and told me to keep it, since I was obviously suffering from a shortage of relish. I picked it up and threw it in the trashcan. He yelled at me the whole way out the door.
I’m such a thief. I should just turn myself in now and hope I can be rehabilitated.
I think you make a valid point. Lot’s of people will grab more than they need and have some in the car or at work rather than throw them away, but this was really extreme. They are there to use for the meal you bought form them not to provide your napkins for home. How would it be if someone was filling up their pockets or their “to go” sack with ketchup, salt and pepper, I’m not saying that kind of thing should be prosecuted, but a little embaressing ridicule was in order. Buyuing a burger doesn’t give you a permission slip to supply your home with their stuff.
There are lots of petty little scams that people think are perfectly fine. A friend suggested that I go through the drive through and not order fries and when I got to pick up to insist I ordered them or meant to so I could score some free fries. Another work acquaintance bragged about a resturant where he often got a free meal by complaining that something was wrong with the one he ordered. A friend where I work now will sell new merchandise as used if he likes the customer {pretty freindly girls qualify} Another is the buy something to use it for free and then return it for a full refund. It can’t be prosecuted but as far as I’m concerned, it’s stealing.
You’re right that is perhaps even a more pathetic example of petty theft than the Napkin guy. Do you think you would have recognized your pumpkin? Of course they would have denied it. Perhaps a pumpkin line up.
I was once paying for my groceries when I saw someone take a huge bunch of plastic shopping bags from the container. The type you get free every time you shop! Who needs a handful of plastic bags. The only other thing they are good for putting regular garbage outside.
The local Y in my home town had so many balls taken from their pool table by teenagers that they stopped replacing them. What was left was all the mismatched leftovers.
Another local guy who ran a pool and bowling center had the same issue with the pool table he put in the arcade area for the young teens, and had the same solution.
Here’s a question? How far would a co worker or friend have to go before you would
a, turn them in
b, warn them to stop or else
c, not associate with them.
As far as I know it’s still there, but then again, a lot can happen in two years (years since I left my hometown) and even more can happen in seven years - which is how long it’s been since I set foot in his establishment, or any other establishment that guy owned - except for one more time. He owned several little places in that small town… same guy kicked me out of one of his other restuarants several years later (I hadn’t realised it was his establishment when we went to eat there). I don’t even think he recognised me as the relish-thief, either. That time was because I complained to the waitstaff because it took 45 minutes for someone to come and take our order. He got so angry, he kicked me, and everyone who was with me, out of the restaurant, (while the waitress begged him not to do it, and stepped outside to apologise to us for him being such a prick) and from that day forward he banned anyone 18 years or younger from his establishment. One problem there: I was 23 at the time. So though I refused to return, my friends would go there and just loiter or only order coffee, spending hours in there, taking up his tables, until he eventually banned just my little group of friends and anyone under 18 - for good measure, I suppose.
I can’t account for my friends… but me? I just wanted some noodles.
Anyway, I know for sure that establishment went out of business, because there’s a credit union there now. Ah, well. Stories like these make me look like a rebel in my otherwise tame life.
“I was kicked out a restuarant once.”
“What?! You? I don’t believe it. What for?”
“[SUB]I complained that it took 45 minutes to be waited on.[/SUB] But I was banned permanently!”
So though I refused to return, my friends would go there and just loiter or only order coffee, spending hours in there, taking up his tables, until he eventually banned just my little group of friends and anyone under 18 - for good measure, I suppose.