A few years back I got fired from a corporate job with a bit more notice than usual. My immediate boss thought the termination was bullshit and so gave me a quiet head’s-up on a Friday afternoon; the termination was scheduled to take place the following Monday. This I stopped working that afternoon and took all my personal possessions out of my cy cubicle. I came in Monday for the not-really-surprise-firing. Anyway, my boss’s boss dropped the hammer, security escorted me out of the building, and HR was tasked to clean out my desk and mail everything to me. The functionary in charge of doing the latter also thought the dismissal was BS, and so she decided to consider all the office supplies in my cubicle as mine too, and FedExed it all to me with a note saying she was sorry and hoped this helped.
Anybody else ever get and keep things you weren’t entitled to?
A silver nut dish from the bar of the Hotel Milford Sound in New Zealand. I didn’t steal it myself, but kept it when it inadvertently came into my possession.
It was in 1985, when was working for the New Zealand Wildlife Service. I was with a team surveying for the last remaining Owl Parrots (an almost-extinct giant flightless nocturnal parrot) in the high valleys of Fiordland. These were very difficult to reach on foot, so we were lifted into our camps above timberline by helicopter.
We had finished surveying one valley when the weather socked in. It rained for five days straight, and our chopper couldn’t fly. We spent our evenings drinking beers at the hotel bar. A waiter there became fascinated with what we were doing. He started bringing us free beers and hanging out with us. (Business was pretty slow at the bar.)
When the weather cleared up, he decided to quit his job and asked to come with us as a volunteer. The team leader agreed to let him come along, since there was space. He didn’t have any camping gear, though, so he swiped a silver nut dish to use as his bowl for food.
As soon as we were choppered in, it began to pour rain again for another five days, and we were stuck cooped up in a tiny shed with our three tracking dogs. Eventually we were able to get out and catch a few parrots.
After the trip was over and we parted ways, I found that our runaway waiter had left the nut dish behind with the gear. I appropriated it, and I now use it to hold a collection of coins from the various countries I’ve been to.
The year we moved into our house in July, we received by mail, in December, what was clearly a business Christmas gift for a client, addressed to the former occupants. It was one of those big, fancy-schmancy food gift boxes with cheeses, smoked salmon, summer sausage, mixed nuts, petits fours, etc.
We had no forwarding info for the former occupants, and the gift card only had the name of the business that sent it, no address. We could have written “refused” on it and put it back out in the mail, but we figured, “Why waste perfectly good food?”
such a lucky bird, seeing a kakapo up close and personal. i do try to keep up on the population. they really do have a tough time keeping them alive, happy, and producing.
Hmm, after the last [del]Nerd Party in the Woods[/del] Physics Department Fall Party, one of the communal ketchup bottles ended up in with my things when I packed up (I made sloppy joes on site, so had brought my own ketchup as well). I only realized when I got home, because it was Heinz, and I always buy the generic. By that time, I figured it’d be more trouble than it was worth to return it.
Legally, at least, you were in fact entitled to that. Unsolicited packages received in the mail are legally considered gifts, and the recipient is under no obligation to return them.
Actually, it does kind of look like the cross between an owl and a parrot.
As for the OP, I sometimes stick an office pen in my pocket and don’t remember until I’m emptying my pockets in the evenings. So I end up with a pile of office pens at home. I’ve also ended up with other small office supplies, but nothing significant.
But, but, but…it was addressed to a person who was not me. I understand the concept of an unsolicited package, such as the greeting cards or address labels the Disabled Veterans Association or whatever sends me, but this was someone else’s mail.
At one job, I got an extra two weeks’ paycheck after I quit. The management there was clueless as shit, so I was practically expecting it – things were really messed up at that company, so for salaried workers, extra paychecks happened all the time due to nobody firing them in the payroll system. They called me once and left a voice mail about it, but I didn’t return the call and they didn’t press it.
Frankly, I felt I was owed it anyway since I quit with well over two weeks vacation on the books, as they’d never let me take any in any reasonable quantity (more than a day or two in a few months’ stretch). I guess I could have called in sick for the whole last two weeks after I gave notice, but I didn’t want to be a dick to my largely innocent co-workers. Anyway, their policy was that you lost paid time off as soon as you gave the company notice that you were leaving; I’m not sure how that would have been managed as a salaried worker, but I didn’t want to chance it. I figure it worked out pretty well.
Somehow a pound of bacon ended up in my grocery bag. I fried and ate it. It’s not like they would have taken it back the next time I was there and sold it. Yummy bacon. At least it was a good mix up.
Several years ago I sold a 64 Chevelle, I paid $75 for it at a towing impound auction, my mother drove it for about a year then it sat for about 6 months. I sold it for $300 to a kid that needed transportation. The buyer stated he had a new 350 engine and turbo 350 transmission for it. A few months later I got a letter from some guy wanting me to remove my car from his property.
I went to where the car was located and found the car with the new motor and transmission in it, some body work done and a bunch of other new parts. The title I had signed over the the buyer was still in the glove box. The property owner asked me if I had heard of the kid that had been arrested a few weeks earlier for killing his girlfriend. It was the same kid who bought the car from me.
If I didn’t take the car he was going to have it towed and because it was still in my name, I would get stuck for the towing and storage. I took the car home and after sitting for 6 months, I finished the running gear installation and took care of a few other things like brakes and exhaust. The buyer got 19 years in prison so I figured he wouldn’t be looking for the car anytime soon. I sold it the second time for $2000.
Even if it is not addressed to you, as freckafree indicates? That can’t be right. So if I order a $10,000 piece of electronic hardware and someone makes a typo and it gets delivered to my neighbor instead, it’s his?
Now that you mention it, I’m not sure. You raise a good point, but on the other hand, you could pull the same sort of money-grubbing not-quite-scams by “mis-addressing” mail that the law was intended to stop: I could send some chintzy, not-worth-it merchandise to your address but with a deliberately wrong name, and instructions that if you’re not Mr. Wrong Name, you should send me a check or send the merchandise back. Are there any postal lawyers in the house?
That happened with my dad with a tin of rosemary last year. Since Dad wouldn’t know what to do with an herb if it bit him on the tongue, he ended up passing it on to me.
There is something about unlawful enrichment by whatever. I don’t know what the term is. It comes down to you know it’s not yours, but you don’t try to correct the wrong delivery and you are enriched by keeping it. It’s not the same as if it’s addressed to you and unsolicited.
