# I Pit the Conniving Tattle Tale (i.e. Me) **URL:** \ **Category:** The BBQ Pit\ **Created:** [May 1, 2009, 8:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-the-conniving-tattle-tale-i-e-me/495023 "2009-05-01T20:45:25Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 4\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![Clothahump](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/51bf81/32.png) [@Clothahump](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Clothahump)\ **Post date:** [May 5, 2009, 2:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-the-conniving-tattle-tale-i-e-me/495023/41 "2009-05-05T14:03:45Z")
> [@SiXSwordS](#): > > At work, I am responsible for a very boring, very mundane task which basically involves cleaning up files for use in billing. > …snip… > Part of me is pissed that I even noticed and part of me is pissed that the dumb fuck didn’t cover their fucking tracks better so I could have looked the other way. If you had looked the other way, you would have been as guilty of theft as the dumb fuck is. You did the right thing by reporting it. ---
**Author:** ![Hypno-Toad](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/b2d939/32.png) [@Hypno-Toad](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hypno-Toad)\ **Post date:** [May 5, 2009, 5:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-the-conniving-tattle-tale-i-e-me/495023/42 "2009-05-05T17:34:08Z")
> [@SiXSwordS](#): > > Honestly, I feel shitty because I don’t want to be “that guy.” When I see this person in the parking lot, they’re going to glower at me for being an uptight, penny-pinching prick. You are NOT the one who did wrong. They are. If that person glares at you, glare right back. YOU have a real reason to be angry. They don’t. ---
**Author:** ![Dr.Drake](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/ad7895/32.png) [@Dr.Drake](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dr.Drake)\ **Post date:** [May 5, 2009, 8:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-the-conniving-tattle-tale-i-e-me/495023/43 "2009-05-05T20:08:25Z")
> [@SiXSwordS](#): > > I should make this clear again that the chore I was doing is mundane. Doing it well would mean putting too much energy into it. This sentence really bothered me. _Anything_ worth doing is worth doing well, mundane or not. ---
**Author:** ![Irishman](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/b487fb/32.png) [@Irishman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Irishman)\ **Post date:** [May 6, 2009, 3:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-the-conniving-tattle-tale-i-e-me/495023/44 "2009-05-06T15:52:07Z")
I’m confused: **SiXSwordS** said: > [@](#): > > But it’s such a piddling amount. Part of me just wants to avoid the embarrassment of having a customer call and point out something like this on a bill. This suggests to me that the money is coming out of the customer’s pocket. Ergo, it is theft from the customer. Now maybe the customer will think the amounts are piddling and not a problem. But because it bothers you that a customer will notice and say something, this indicates that the customer is the one getting screwed. **SiXSwordS** said: > [@](#): > > I’m not sure that everyone would agree it is theft. > > To use a till as an analogy: the honor system means that the cashier can write “$5.00 Petty Cash” on a slip of paper, drop it in the drawer and take out five dollars and no one would blink. I would call it commonplace. Somethings faulty here. So any employee can just put in a note “I took some money”, and nobody will ever try to verify why they took the money, what they did with it? What is to keep every employee from dropping in a note “I took $5” every day? Or “I took $100” every day? And when the company goes broke, how do they rectify the problem? Is it a dollar value? Anything below $5 is acceptable? How often? Once a day? Once an hour? It’s padding the paycheck. Now for a nickel a pop once a day, it may feel like chump change, and depending upon the size of the company and the margins of profit, it may be chump change, but it’s still theft. The take a penny/leave a penny jar is exactly it. Theoretically, you leave your pennies for the next guy, who takes the penny to finish his buy to an even nickel. But if everyone only takes pennies, nobody leaves them, that is loss to the vendor. Okay, maybe the vendor decides it is worth it and the loss isn’t significant. Then factor in the guy who dumps the penny drawer in his pocket every time he walks by the counter. > [@](#): > > I’m seriously questioning myself, but there seems some intuitive point where the amount does matter. In accounting there is an idea of materiality. I also think most people have some point at which they just don’t care. So it would be like the total bill to the customer is $500, and that includes one charge for 20 cents for a phone call that didn’t happen. Nobody is adding up the phone calls to see if they actually occurred, and one 20 cent phone call charge is negligible. It is, though, still dishonest. If it happens now and again, the customer probably won’t notice, and even if they do, write it off as a mistake or whatever and not say anything. But if there’s a pattern every bill, they might notice and say something, not necessarily for the dollar value itself, but the principle. “Hey, that’s systematic, it’s intentional, and if you’re willing to screw me for 20 cents, how else are you screwing me I haven’t found?” > [@](#): > > …if you were charged a dine-in fee when you bought ready-to-eat food, would you be upset? ($.90) You mean I bought stuff to take home and the checker squeezed in a “dine in” fee? Yes, I would be upset. If it happened 1 time, I might not say anything and think it an error, but if I saw it on my receipt before I left, I would say something to the cashier then. And if it happened more than once, I would complain. Or take my business elsewhere. It is theft. > [@](#): > > …if you (as the waitstaff) negotiated a price for service and then received no tip would you make adjustments to increase your [WAGE]… your [TIP]? Yes, that is theft. If you change the total dollar amount I pay, you are stealing from me. If you change the bookkeeping on how the money I paid is recorded, then you are cheating someone on the receiving end. If there’s a dine in fee, that fee is for some reason - paying for maintaining the seating area and clearing the tables? So you take off the dine in fee and make that a tip instead. The money goes directly to your pocket rather than the store. It may be negligible, but it is theft from the store. They are charging the dine in fee to cover some expense, rather than write that expense off. You are negating that fee without permission. The store is losing that money, seeing the expense they thought they covered. So why is the store willing to eat that cost when you do it, but not willing to eat that cost to benefit the customer? If it’s negligible, then don’t charge the customer for it. If you have to charge the customer, then get pissed when the employees pocket it instead of filing it. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-the-conniving-tattle-tale-i-e-me/495023.md?page=2)