I work at a fairly small office (about 20 employees), and we’re in the process of relocating. I’m in charge of ordering all of the A/V equipment for our new office, and today I received a set of Polk speakers that I’d ordered last week. Inside the package are the forms necessary to register the speakers, and there’s an ad that says to register online for a chance to win $500 of Polk audio (apparently a set of free speakers).
So in the process of a brief daydream, the thought occurred to me: what if I won? Do the speakers won in the drawing belong to me, or to the company?
My instict tells me that my firm would have every right to claim them since this all happened with company money and (most of) my researching and purchasing was done on company time. (And realistically, in my firm, they’d probably just give them to me anyway.) But I know that all of you are a creative bunch, so I’d love to hear arguments on both sides.
I’d ask the office manager if I could have the entry forms. It’s dishonest just to take them. Should you win, the nicest thing to do would be to put the speakers up in the office, or in some area where all the office personel could enjoy them, but you’re not obligated to do so if you had permission to take the forms.
You know, an almost identical situation comes up in my field. I sometimes have serve on a team to pick a vendor for a construction project that may run to a billion dollars or more. If one particular vendor offers me a bribe to select their proposal do I have to split it with the rest of the team?
Legally, I don’t know. Ethically ? Depends on what your employer is like. As I see it, if they treat you fairly, you should treat them fairly in return. If they are squeezing as much work for as little pay as possible out of you while treating you with contempt, take them for whatever you can get. Tit for tat.
Lots of the places I have worked for in Japan were near electronics stores, and I was making stuff that would work with various kinds of electronics. So every once in a while I would need to go buy a WiFi base station or whatever, and for that I would use my electronics store point card. So I got 5% of however much I purchased for the company towards whatever I next buy for myself.
I asked my manager if they had a “company point card” or something that I could use, first. They said no, so I said, “Well then I’m going to use mine…” Which they were fine with. No sense in the 5% going to waste.
I work for a government department and our policies don’t allow us to keep even insignificant gifts but things won on the government dollar are OK. This came up when someone won a laptop which was offered as a door prize at a seminar they attended during work time. The director took the view that our employees shouldn’t be at a disadvantage when it came to winning a prize awarded basically for attendance. I think it has happened a couple of times since.
“How does this compare to Frequent Flier Miles?” asks the infrequent flier. I think employees generally get to keep those, even though the travelling is on the company dime, and the employee pretty much is guaranteed to get a “prize” in return. There may be another factor a play here, but I think if you get to keep your miles (and use them for personal instead of business travel), you should ethically be allowed to keep the speakers, should you win.
When I worked in the distribution center for Grand Auto, I was in charge of ordering office supplies. One particular vendor always offered small gifts in exchange for a certain dollar value of orders. I would keep my supply orders until they reached that threshold simply to get the little gifts that they would send. I always kept them. I shared, on occasion, with a woman who thought she was my superior. We got little sterling photo frames, dumb plastic flashlights, coasters, etc. I had no qualms about keeping the stuff. They wouldn’t have even known about it had I not mentioned it.
FF to working at Peterson. Any time a “perk” came along with an order I asked my boss if I could have it if I wanted it. Sometimes it was an Igloo cooler; those I gave to him to hand out to the technicians. Once I got a folding camp chair. That I got to keep. He never told me no, and the things I couldn’t use got pooled for distribution to others. Grainger often gives away “tooly” type gifts with purchase. I also have a scale Grainger racecar and multi-purpose tool.
I would most definitely keep any sweepstakes entry and if I won I’d trumpet it to all that were around. They wouldn’t even have taken the time to open the box, that would’a been my job. What they don’t know don’t hurt 'em.
Let me clarify a couple of points and see if this helps at all.
I would/will be registering the product online regardless. The entry into the drawing is automatic. So I wouldn’t really be asking anyone’s permission to have access to the forms.
My employers don’t treat me unethically (for the most part), and I’m not trying to bilk them out of anything. In the scenario, I’m not contemplating hiding the prize from them – just wondering if I have the right, ethically and legally, to claim the prize.
There’s no common area in our office where the sprize peakers could be set up for everyone to enjoy. They would only be viable for a single person to use.
I think the analogies pointed out by Cheesesteak and Sage Rat may be the closest to my own situation, as is don’t ask’s. Does anyone else disagree with their logic, or think that wouldn’t apply to me for any reason?
As a related aside, about a year ago, I purchased a hard drive for the firm. It came with a form for a $50 rebate. I have been told in the past that the firm doesn’t bother with things like that (for some reason, they find it more complicated to take in unexpected money – I’m no accountant, but I don’t get that). I was thusly tempted, briefly, to simply fill out the form and give the rebate to myself. But that felt plain wrong to me, and I decided against it. I think it’s wrong for the firm to let $50 of their money evaporate, too, but I still had no claim to it.
How is a rebate unexpected money? Bookkeeping mystifies me, no wonder I never balance my checkbook.
In the case of the $50, i would have filled out the rebate form and [del]spent it on hookers and blow[/del] gotten something nice for the whole office, like a lunch or something.
In the example presented by Cheesesteak and Sage Rat the company has given explicit approval for employee gain on the company dime. Just ask, what can it hurt?
Since you’re acting as an agent of the company by registering the speakers, and the entry into the drawing requires no other action than you would normally take as an agent of the company (I assume you’d register any other company purchase for warranty, insurance, proof of purchase, volume discount or whatever) then I could make a pretty good argument that anything won in the drawing would belong to the company.
Where I worked, prizes won like this went to HR, who would then raffle them off to make money for future employee parties or charity or whatever. That way, any employee had the chance to win (as long as they chose to participate) rather than only having the buyers or supply managers always getting free stuff. Seems kind of unfair to your co-workers if you get 500$ worth of extra stuff just because you did your job.
I say talk to your boss, see what they think, but I think if you win, you should find a way to share it.