Some scumfucker stole my iPod off my desk at work

The BBQ Pit
101

Otto:

Let us see if we can reason together and come to an accord:

There is a concept in certain areas of the law called the “prudent man rule.” The prudent man rule means that while acting on behalf of others you need to exercise the good judgement and discretion that a prudent man would in similar circumstances.

For example, if this was somebody else’s ipod, and it was entrusted in your care on their behalf, and it was stolen just the way you describe, the owner of the ipod might demand that you replace it, and that you are liable for it because you did not exercise the judgement of a prudent man in your care of it.

The argument would be:

  1. You were a temp and therefore did not have the experience to truly know and judge the character of your coworkers and potential office visitors.

  2. Despite this you left a small and valuable and easily stealable device in plain view

  3. There was no reason why you could not secure the ipod in a safer place (in a desk preferably locked,) or on your person, or somewhere else where the hazard of theft was significantly reduced.

  4. You failed to do so.

You seem to be willfully resistant to what is an obvious point.

I agree with you that the person who stole the ipod is responsible and to blame for it’s theft. It is inexcusable.

You are however responsible for unnecessarily, and imprudently exposing your ipod to the hazard of theft.

You are responsible to secure your ipod with prudence commensurate with it’s value, desirability and ease of theft. You clearly failed to do so and are at fault for that to the extent of your failure.
Does that sound reasonable to you?

I do hope that I can get more than fuckspeak from you in terms of a reply.

102

I agree with Scylla.

Had this been a thread where Otto ranted about the scum who stole his iPod, then no problem.

However, the moment he said that leaving the iPod unoccupied was a wise thing to do he opened himself up to very warranted assholish behavior from Scylla.

103

I “stole” a workmate’s Ipod off his desk a couple of weeks ago. A short while later he came into a meeting to find me showing the Ipod to people. I said, “Hey Jerry I don’t need to buy an Ipod now, I found this one.” He was impressed by my good fortune and asked where I had found it. When I told him that it had been just lying around on his desk, he began to call me names and took it off me. He still leaves it lying around.

104

Otto, sorry about your iPod. People who will steal shit, even trendy shit, are pond scum. And you have a right to rant about it.

Your response to duffer was unkind. If you ask for sympathy, you should be prepared to give it. Even if you’re all pissed off about your iPod.

105

My father has this obsession with writing his last name on everything. Doesn’t matter if it’s a hammer or a trailer, somewhere his name is written on it.

Several years ago, someone stole his trailer. It had some belongings in it, nothing too valuable, but some paintings he’d done and pedestals for display, stuff like that.

He reports it stolen, and goes on his way.

Several months later, he’s driving down the road and what should he see but a truck pulling his trailer! He follows it, calls the police, and they pull the guy over.

Of course, at this point, it’s just my dad’s word against the driver, until my dad remembers he writes his name on everything. The cop shrugs, pulls out a flashlight, and they start looking. Sure enough, written in a corner of the trailer, behind a beam, is my dad’s last name.

The cop looks at the driver, and tells him he has 10 minutes to unload the trailer before he gets arrested for possessing stolen property.

I’m sorry you lost your iPod, Otto, but your response to Scylla and duffer has been appalling. (I know, you couldn’t give a rat’s ass about what I think, either.) I would suggest a company-wide e-mail about how it got “misplaced” and see if that works.

If you get it back, write your name on it.

106

: Swipes trilobite :

Yes! Now if I take this to Pewter City I can get an Omastar!

107

That really sucks - it’s a sorry state of affairs when you can’t trust the people you work with.
I’ve learned a lesson from this as I always leave my iPod on my desk when I go to meetings but from now on I think my lockable desk drawer will be seeing a whole lot more action.

108

Arch Trout, it is indeed a sad state of affairs when you can’t trust a fellow human being to leave your shit alone. I do fell for Otto in the sense that when you actually go to work and make the money to buy something, you shouldn’t have to worry about it being stolen. If a person didn’t work to earn the money to buy something, they don’t get the toy. Yet we get shitbags everyday that feel entitled to something because of whatever persecution they feel is thrust upon them by The Man. It’s prevelant and pervasive. And we have people (many of them here) that attempt to explain it away because of disadvantage/racism/prejudice/etc. Yes, the analogy of locks on cars and homes is valid. Car door, front door, all valid. They are barriers more secure than leaving an iPod on a desk with unknowns about.

If you didn’t do something productive to earn the iPod, you don’t deserve it. Period. If you didn’t earn the money to buy a subwoofer, you don’t deserve it. (Though I’d have little sympathy for the neighbor of mine that insists on letting all of us know he has one at 2 am. Steal that fucking thing) I love being told I’m a rigid stalwart when it comes to thievery. The one thing I can agree on with Islamic fundies if cutting off a hand when found guilty of theft.

If you didn’t fucking work to earn the money to get one, the fact that you take advantage of someone that did actually earn the money to buy one is assholish beyond reproach… The shitbag that stole Otto’s iPod is worthy of extreme punishment. But Otto is also guilty of leaving it out to be stolen. I’d like to someday have the majority realize how locks should be seen as unneeded. But that will never happen. (Well, maybe most will see why locks shouldn’t be needed, but the excuse makers will never allow this idea to really take hold.) A thief is a thief. And he will always trump others as worthless.

Otto, I was a bit rough in hoping you never see the iPod again. In fact, I hope the scum gets caught and pays dearly. But the fact that you have yet to admit your own culpability in this thing makes me wonder if that’s a valid wish. How you claim to be such an intellectual superior yet set yourself up this way makes your otherwise valid claims invalid.

Are you ready, yet, to take some form of responsibility in this thing? In any way?

109

Quite a few of us don’t believe he has any responsibility for it, not in any way.

Because I can walk past assorted valuable and tempting items and not steal them, because there is no place that is safe enough, and because blaming the victim sucks, I hope he doesn’t take any responsibility for the actions of someone with no excuse.

110

duffer, what the fuck? YOU’RE the one who brought it up again.

111

Great timing there. How long ago was the quoted post? What is the time limit, anyway?

112

Otto, sorry that your iPod was stolen. When I initially read your OP, I was going to make some comments, but I’m glad that others have chosen to…

Did you purchase your iPod with a V/MC/AmEx that has theft protection on it? That might be one way to recoup your loss. Perhaps even your homeowners/renters insurance covers theft. Good luck to you.

113

I really like Scylla’s post, because it gets us away from “blaming the victim” to clearly indicate what is and isn’t “responsible” with respect to securing valuables. If this were your iPod he was borrowing for the day, would you blame him? Maybe you wouldn’t because a workplace should be somewhat secure.

How about if he left your iPod on a park bench instead of a desk? I’d have a VERY hard time not blaming him if it vanished then. Yet if this were what happened to Otto, we suddenly can’t blame him at all because he’s the victim?

Victim or not, we all have a certain level of responsibility for securing our property in a reasonable manner. Otto refuses to accept that he even made a mistake with respect to securing his property.

114

When I was temping, my default assumption was that I didn’t know my co-workers, wouldn’t be there long enough to get to know them, and so didn’t trust them with my stuff.

On the other hand, as a permanent “regular” employee, I would be there long enough to get to know them, and could figure out if I could trust them with my stuff. I still took care to secure it, on the off chance a temp or a custodian or a co-worker would steal it, because that’s what I do with the stuff I care about.

:shrug:

Robin

115

There’s only one problem with this idea (not that I’m totally disagreeing with you or anything :D).

If I loaned you something, and you took reasonable precautions to keep it safe, etc, and it got stolen, I don’t care if the opened up your safe deposit box by doing a mission:impossible through the ventillation system, you owe it to me to replace it. Why? Because I loaned it to you and you owe it to me to return it, period.

If the bank loans you money, and on your way out the door someone robs you of the cashier’s check, guess what? You still gotta pay the bank. And, whether you realize it or not, when you borrow something from a friend, the same thing is expected of you.

116

Scylla appears to be the sort of knob who always says “Watch your head!” after you’ve smacked it against a low doorway. I suspect he also derives great pleasure from asking people if it’s “hot enough for them” when the temperature breaks 100.

Yeah, it was a mistake to leave the iPod unattended at work, a lesson which was already perfectly illustrated by the fact that the iPod is fucking gone. I’m not sure what purpose you think your continued hectoring serves, except to make you feel like an expert because you can point out the blindlingly obvious. What knowledge do you think your posts are going to impart that the loss of a valuable piece of personal property has not already communicated? Shut the fuck up and just say, “That sucks, hope the guy who did it falls down a well,” already.

Oh, and you’ve got my condolences, Otto. I’d sooner give up a kidney than lose my iPod.

117

We had a lot of stories of this in the medical hold squadron at Air Force basic training. Because of the nature of our squadron, every once in a while someone would be away from the dorm for a couple of days or more–at the psychiatric ward, or AWOL, or in inpatient treatment at medical–whatever. Every trainee is required to keep his/her uniforms in a very specific manner in an unlocked locker. Without fail, every time someone was out of the dorm for more than a couple of days at a time they came back to find shit missing. Sometimes even people who were in the dorm every day and night had uniforms stolen–I had a full set of BDUs nicked. When you discharge from basic training you have to pay the Air Force for any BDU or service uniforms you’re missing–so someone was missing a BDU blouse here, a pair of trousers there, a service dress coat here, etc., and decided to grab someone else’s and write over the laundry mark instead of buying a new pair. Then that person stole some from someone else, then that person stole some from someone else, and pretty soon everyone’s missing uniforms by the time they leave. We had a couple of trainees who had all four sets (each) of BDU uniforms missing when they came back to the dorm (one from the psych ward, one from a cunning escape) and we had to get people who weren’t already missing uniforms to donate theirs–and pay a fee later. I don’t know what parts of “Integrity First” and “Service Before Self” escape these thieves.

Somehow this seems to be an appropriate choice of vocabulary considering the item stolen.

I did this in boot camp. People would leave their security drawer open while they’re several feet away not even thinking about it. I would grab their credit card and say “Hey, look, I got a new credit card!” Whoever’s card it was would snatch it back and call me something unprintable in family publications and then throw it back in his security drawer, leave it unlocked…and walk off and do something else again.

When I became dorm chief, the name-calling stopped, but the idiocy didn’t. How people could leave their cash, credit cards, ATM cards, etc. lying there free to the world when they just had their uniform stolen a couple days ago was bewildering to me.

Nobody’s suggesting he should take responsibility for anyone else’s actions.

118

I must be getting older and crabbier, because I find myself agreeing with Scylla’s posts more and more. The first thought through my head upon reading the OP was surpirse that anyone would leave an iPod unattended at a foreign workplace for any amount of time. (And I normally tend to being a trusting individual). I once left over $5000 of camera gear at a bar in Budapest. I expected it all to be gone the next day. Much to my good fortune, the bartender was honest and made me a lifetime customer by returning my equipment. However, I was completely prepared to accept responsibility that I was a fucking idiot for drinking enough to forget the fact I had walked in with my entire livelihood. Sure, it would have been the theif’s fault for taking my stuff, but it would have been my fault for being irresponsible and idiotic in my actions.

119

This is why I specifically didn’t say “loan.” I said “watching it for you,” or “watching it on your behalf.” Rather than a loan situation, I sought to convey a trustee type situation where due diligence must be exercised to avoid liability in the event of catastrophe.

Of course you are correct in that if it was a loan, one might be liable no matter what.

120

When I lived in a 200 year old house, I usually issued such a statement as a warning to avoid such mishap.

What is blindingly obvious to you and me seems lost on Otto. He does not seem to be willing to concede that he made a mistake of judgement, or committed an error. In fact, he has taken a strong position against any fault being levied towards himself. He has gone so far as to state outright than any attempt to assign any fault or blame to him is the same as blame a rape victim for getting raped.

I too, am quite surprised that such a strenous argument for the blindingly obvious is necessary, and perhaps it is hopeless and nothing is to be gained.

I must admit to a small conceit. It being so blindingly obvious, it was perhaps in my power to convey meaning to Otto. I hoped to do that. As it turns out, twas all vanity. He’s denser than molybdenum.

I thought you just asked this question. Perhaps by doing it twice, you seek to emphasize it. Very well, I’ll answer it again.

The loss of the valuable piece of personal property has not imparted knowledge, as Otto is denying any mistake and appears baffled by the phenomenom of theft, suggesting that the party who took it didn’t understand the concept of “personal property.”

The problem is the opposite. They understood it better than Otto. I sought, through vanity, to correct his viewpoint. Twas for naught.

I agreed that it was unfortunate, and even offered a strategem for recouping the ipod.