Fucking junkies (long-ish)

The BBQ Pit
1

I’m normally the last to leave the office. Most of the staff head out around 5:00-5:30 pm. Most days I flip off the lights at 6 or 6:15pm. Tonight I was busy coding a new project and ended up attached to my computer screen as the last person left at 5:15pm.

Our office covers two spaces. Think of it as a large square space with an “L” shaped public hallway between the main office and our healthcare call center. Our main office is “L” shaped as well. The entrance to the office is at the top of the “L” on the right side, the conference room is across the front hall from the main entrance and my workspace is at the bottom of the “L” near the bend. From my desk I can’t see the front door, hallway or conference room. This is the reason I like to lock the door if I’m the last one working.

Of course tonight I was distracted when the last person left.

Around 5:40pm I stood up for a break. I decided to check the call center to make sure the doors were locked and the lights were out. I also figured on my way back I’d lock the front door.

As I reach the front hallway a young man walks out of our conference room. He puts his head down and walks toward the front door. At this point my brain realized I have no idea who he is. “Hey” I said. With that, he runs at the door and pulls it open. Without thinking my brain tells me “You need to catch this guy. He’s done something wrong”.

I take off after him.

“HEY!” I say as I make it through the front door right behind him. He’s about 4 meters in front of me as we go around the first hall corner to the left. He drops something and it hits the floor with a crash. I look down as I pass to see our brand new video projector bounce off the wall and land upside down on the hallway carpet. Ok, now I’m pissed. I spent a bit of time researching that unit and getting approval to buy it and now some fuck is going to break it before I even get a chance to play with it. You can mess with a guys stuff but don’t EVER break a sysadmin’s tech toys.

I’m gaining on him in the hall straightaway. I’m only 2 meters behind him. He’s got something else in his hands.

“Stop right now mother fucker. On the ground NOW”.

That must have freaked him out because he kicked on turbo mode and broke away from me as he took a right turn down the hall towards the stairwell.

A few meters before he reaches the stairwell I shout “STOP FUCKER!” in my best outside voice. He drops the thing in his hands which lands hard with a thud. Before I knew what it was my brain kicks in again. “You’ve got whatever else he stole. Don’t chase him down the steep stairway. Cut your losses and stop running.”

I slow to a stop at the dropped item and hear him crash down the stairs. It sounded like he fell or stumbled but when I peaked down to the first landing there wasn’t a twitching body flopping around. I decide to focus on the item. It’s a backpack.

HA Fucker. Now I’ve got YOUR stuff.

I pick up the backpack (which has a little weight to it) and go to check on the projector. I gather it and the cables and drop the items at my desk. I decide I should lock the front door now. I swing through the conference room and find his jacket, gloves and a pullover sweatshirt. I head back to my desk.

I decide to look into the backpack. I wonder if it’s our stuff that made it so heavy. Nope. It’s a boltcutter. Hey, what’s this? CD’s! Anything good? NELLY?!?! Fucking asshole. I hate him more that I can’t even keep his CD’s. What else is in here? Papers, a new mini maglite, a bag of chips… Oh, this is neat. Hypo’s. About 20 of them.

Fucking junkies.

Oh wait! Junkies have drugs. Perhaps he’s got some cool drugs. I dig around a bit more. Yup. Drugs. What kind? METH!?!?! Nothing good; just dirty, tan, tweakhead, meth. I guess that explains why I couldn’t catch him. Fucking asshole. What ever happened to the days when a proper junkie would always have a handful of valium? What do I expect? These new junkies are getting high off a concoction made from cold pills, anti-freeze, lamp oil and who knows what else they found in the garage. Fucking no-class junkies.

No Oxy or Demerol but I feel good I’ve got your coat, bag of shit, drugs (a fair amount as well) and you don’t. HA HA. I wonder if you’re sitting outside in the cold without your warm clothes wishing you could fix. But guess what, you can’t. I’ve got your rigs, meth and your other shit you fucking junkie.

I decide to pocket his mini maglite (consider it payment for making me run after his junkie ass) before calling the police, the owner and our alarm company. By the time everyone arrives, the story is retold, the cops dig though his bag and find the useless meth, and leave, I’m an hour late for my other gig installing a commercial sound system. Now it’s going to be even later before I can get home and eat dinner.

The good news is our projector is undamaged.

Oh yeah, and I got his drugs (well, the cops do now).

Fucking junkies.

2

So you…got your fingerprints all over everything?

More importantly, is the projector broken? (says one tech monkey)

Oh well, at least he didn’t get to just walk off with it.

3

:smack: :smack:

I should learn to read. Yay for non-brokenness!

4

You can identify meth by sight?

5

Interesting. You’re a criminal.

6

At least he had a fresh supply of clean needles. Me, I wouldn’t have wanted to handle any of someone else’s stuff. God knows where it had been.

There’s a lot of stuff people self-inject at home, such as insulin or Epogen or an epi pen. Of course, they’d usually have a prescription label on 'em. I know I have a bag in my car that’s got a ton of (plastic) syringes in it, but it’s also got other crap in it with my name and medical insurance number on every bag.

Keeping the mag light… eh, wouldn’t have done that. That might have been useful for fingerprints (depending on the barrel), or for a cop to prove “aha, so it was you in that darkened room!” or some shit.

7

I would never confront someone who had the 'nads to steal stuff from a business. You don’t know if he’s armed, crazy and desperate, or what. Glad you’re ok.

8

You guys are funny. You think the cops have enough time or inclination to attempt to gain fingerprint evidence for what amounts to attempted burglery and drug posession.

9

That’s right. I was burgled twice in one week and they didn’t dust for prints. They really don’t have time, money, manpower or the inclination to investigate what amounts to petty crime. Physical assault in addition to the burglary would get something that amounts to a meaningful investigation. Anything other than that is merely another brick in the wall of stats.

10

I don’t see how. The guy’s stuff is just going to sit in an evidence locker until it gets thrown away. It’s not like he’s going to come forward to claim his backpack o’ meth, or anything.

11

I detest thieves. Too bad you didn’t get the opportunity to kick him full hard in the stones.

12

Yeah, but you overlook the fact that if we look at it that way we deprive some of the law and order types of a delicious opportunity to be self- righteous prigs.

13

Probably not. Anything of value would quite likely end up in the possession of a cop. This happens more often than not IME.

14

Oh, yeah, no doubt. Which is just as much “stealing” as the OP taking it. I was arguing what would happen if no one at all pocketed the mag-lite: it ends up in the trash.

15

I would have kept the maglite, too. Fucker. There are people who are struggling to make ends meet and then people like him.

Glad you’re OK - that’s awfully dangerous, what you did.

16

Well, yeah, but the odds are astronomically against the Mag-Lite not getting pocketed somewhere along the way. FTR, I’d rather the OP had it than some random gummint employee.

17

I totally agree: my post was just pointing out that, no matter who pocketed it - the OP or a random cop - it wouldn’t be stealing, because the alternative to not taking it is throwing it away.

Hey, Duck, where did the OP lie to anyone? And any response to the fact that the junkie is never getting the light back, no matter what happens? How is it stealing if the only alternative to the flashlight ending up in someone else’s pocket is the flashlight ending up in an incinerator?

18

You’re an idiot. Written off? Free of charge? Nothing is free, bucko. The costs just get passed along to others: the customers of the OP’s company and/or the customers of that company’s insurer.
I don’t care that the shit-stinking junkie in question was a junkie. I believe he should have the freedom to slam whatever chemicals he likes into his veins. What matters is that the shit-stinking junkie was thief. He got off with far less than he deserved. If he’d broken his fucking neck falling down the stairs, we might be creeping up on excessive punishment, but then again we might not. He chose to steal. He was unsuccessful. His losses are his own fucking fault.

19

I hate tweakers, even if they don’t steal.

Because of them, when I want to buy Sudafed (read: be able to breathe through my nose at all), I have to go to the pharmacy counter and wait in line, rather than just getting it off the shelf like I used to.

Fuck 'em all. Glad you got his stuff- always nice to hear about something bad happening to one of them.

20

Not only that, but as a matter of moral principle, if some fuckhead breaks into my place, tries to steal my property, and in the process of being chased out happens to drop his backpack, he forfeits any claim to that stuff.

Breakdancing Duck, you must have spun on your head once too often, because you’re a complete idiot.