I’ve taken pens, paper, envelopes, stamps, laptop computer, CDs, DVDs, etc. It’s my business, so why not?
I take pens, mostly through absent-mindedness, but I try to use those pens only when I’m doing work at home, so I hope it all works out, and I also take my own pens to work through the same absent-mindedness.
I absentmindedly both bring in and take home pens all the time. Considering that the ones I accidentally provide are nicer than the ones I accidentally take, I figure it’s a wash.
In ten years I think I’ve taken two pens and a roll of clear packing tape.
Once by accident I took a this 4 in one screwdriver my manager let me borrow. I was trying to get into IT for whatever reason so I ended up getting hired for a contractor position at a huge company. Mostly the job was setting up printers and whatnot. I stayed there like a week before I got a full time job at a consulting firm in Boston.
Anyhow, the manager lent me this screwdriver to fix something or another. It wasn’t even a particularly nice tool. Like one of those cheap things a vendor might hand out at a trade show. I was pretty sure I left it on his desk when I was done but for the entire week he would make stupid comments about me swiping his cheap plastic screwdriver while I would swear up and down I left it on his desk and how someone else must have grabbed it.
So a week after I left, I’m in Boston unpacking my shit and I find the screwdriver in the pocket of one of my pants.
15 years later I still have it actually.
I sometimes bring home a stack of scrap paper. When we print out reports at work, we get a page at the end of each one with “report completed” printed on it. What a waste! I tried talking the boss into using those pages again by flipping them over but it’s apparently not professional enough, so they all get tossed in the recycling. Since I’m ok with using already-printed-on paper at home for my printouts of directions and recipes, I’ll sometimes make a small stack of the reject papers and bring them home with me. Nobody cares.
I think I have a couple of work pens, but they’re the ones they give out when they’re doing stupid employee engagement bullshit, so I guess they’re not really “company property”.
I print personal items all the time at work and take the paper home.
And then I feel real bad about it because the boss is a real nice guy.
But then I remember that I’m the boss. I’m such a nice guy that I forgive myself.
No. Why would I steal from my employer?
I wrote a computer program to allow me to keep all the fractions of a cent that no one was using.
Heck, I have to every once in a while round up stray pens from my house and bring them back to work (someday I’ll put in my grant to study their migration patterns). But I’ll admit that the used-and-relabeled folders in my home files probably were never purchased by me. Probably the post-its, too. I draw the line at stealing blank CDs though.
My office is weird. We’re so virtual and on-line that the only pens at my desk are ones I’ve gotten from trade shows, and I don’t know anyone that even has a tape dispenser or stapler.
I can’t imagine swiping TP or printer paper - both are such nasty quality. I’d much rather buy my own and get TP without leaves.
I was thinking that pens sometimes migrate back and forth, but I buy all the pens I use myself, so that’s not a problem.
Once in a while, probably about twice a year I use the office copy machine to copy something personal and take it home, so that’s technically taking a few sheets of paper and some toner.
Same here. :smack:
I take whatever I dam well please. (self employed)
Since I did most of my research at home, sure I took stuff, mostly paper. Pens they didn’t supply and in the end I found where old computer printouts were thrown away and took large quantities of them for my scribbling. Once I remember finding that I had taken the backs of the carbons of all the professors’ salaries. That was interesting.
No, unless I’m going to be working from home and need specific supplies. Other than that, it’s just not something I’m interested in doing.
There are things I wish I could take home from work - specifically, some of the IT kit when it’s written off - including interesting stuff like digitiser pads and plotters that still work, but have been superseded.
Not allowed to take it - not allowed even to buy it. We pay a disposal company to take it away (and they probably ship it to some awful dump in China or Africa). Ah the joys of local government red tape!
I’ve taken stuff, little things, but the type of stuff that is used up, like pens, pencils, markers.
I’m retired from the State of California, and towards the end of my career, I had to smuggle supplies IN to work. All employees became adept at stealing supplies from coworkers, especially Scotch tape and red pencils. I joked that we were even going to have a sign up sheet for toilet paper and soap.
Lined tablets and pencils became scarce when school started.
I actually recycled many office supplies. People were careless about folders, paper clips, binders, and I would salvage them and make them available to others. Now that I’m retired, I bet no one else even bothers.
~VOW
Only by accident. If I put a pen in my pocket I might forget and take it home. There is nothing I need so badly that I have to take it from work.
For some reason I accumulate pens.
as a programmer I often had beeper calls and worked nights at home. I printed reports and logs from the computer to fix problems. I took some paper home to print on. Not much, maybe a ream a year of fan fold and my boss knew. Once in awhile a pen in my pocket went home with me.
I had no need for most office supplies at home. I had no interest in having a home office.