The computers are all still there and untouched on all the desks, but the Lean Pockets in the freezer are gone.
The Ray-Ban, Oakley and Maui Jim sunglasses (which run up to $400 a pair) are still there and untouched in the display cases, but everyone’s lunches in the fridge were pilfered.
The millions of dollars worth of surgical equipment is still there and untouched in the surgery area, but someone went into the boss’s office, used his toothbrush and took a dump in his toilet (and didn’t flush).
There was a halfhearted attempt to break through our back windows into the bank which shares our building.
There’s a puddle of crusty, dried-up barf on the floor.
I’m torn between anger, amusement and sadness. Anger because, well, we were broken into, and stuff was damaged, stolen and vandalized. Amusement because the burglary was so inept and unambitious. An enterprising criminal could have stolen tens of thousands of dollars worth of equipment and merchandise in a very short time. This criminal, on the other hand, appears to have spent hours in the office and accomplished very little aside from gorging to the point of vomiting and incontinence. And I’m sad because, mentally ill or not, drug-addled or not, his own fault or not, the person was almost certainly hungry. But my office (ophthalmology practice) is within spitting distance of two or three homeless shelters - breaking into our building to steal Hot Pockets doesn’t strike me as very clear thinking.
One emotion that is definitely not in question is the feeling of violation. I mean, I’m not normally much of a germophobe - I’ll let you drink off my bottle of beer, or borrow my sunglasses - but I’m a little freaked out. Someone was going through my stuff, quite possibly sitting in my chair, who was sick enough to vomit on the floor, not to mention drunk, high and/or crazy enough to do all the aforementioned mischief. I get a little queasy every time I touch a hard surface in this office today.
A few years ago the theatre that I was working in got broken into, and instead of stealing our very expensive sound system that just arrived still in the boxes, or the multitude of tools we had out, they took a case of beer and half a bottle of vodka from the bar. We were thankful, but you just have to wonder sometimes.
I worked at a theatre in Baltimore once runnng the prop department. Our scene shop was burglarized on night - I discovered it when I opened up that morning. They had come in through a window and left through the loading dock. They had been moving stuff to the dock to haul it out, but got distracted or bored and ended up leaving all the expensive (heavy :rolleyes: ) power tools behind while making off with a bunch of shiny props, including some fake spears and stuff. I was cataloguing the loss outloud to the cops taking the report and I reached into our prop gun closet and whipped out one of the two “prop” Thompson Sub-Machine guns we had. Oh yeah, I said, They got one of these. The look on their faces!!!
You just can’t think about the germs. If it makes you feel any better, as of Friday I’ve been a public librarian dealing with more homeless crackheads than you can count and the worst I’ve gotten from it is pinkeye and ringworm.
Once a bunch of what I assume had to be kids broke into my car in front of my parents house (very nice neighborhood). They missed my CD player, phone, CDs, expensive textbooks (a hot commodity for theft in a college town) - all kinds of stuff. They took a little card wallet full of credit cards which we immediately cancelled and a cupholder’s worth of change.
We’ve been broken into several times over the years. But one time was memorable, they left the seafood, the computers, the cash laying out, never even set foot in the office, all they took was our scales.
Friends of mine described the burglary of their house as being a trash removal. The thief (who they suspect was a guy on the block who was in serious financial trouble and was evicted some time later) waited until they were at work, broke windows to get in, and took:
DVDs, which they never watched. He left behind a couple like a same-sex romantic comedy, plus missed the hidden porn.
Power tools, minus the charging cords and power packs. They hadn’t been used in forever so they had no charge.
An ancient laptop which no longer had a functioning battery, also leaving the power cord.
I think that was it. The thief had unplugged but left behind the desktop computer, which now has a “tracker” installed on it after this incident. He missed two places where there were small stacks of cash, plus a very nice laptop. My friends have since improved their home security. They can’t imagine that the thief got much from a pawnshop for that junk, and they didn’t bother to make an insurance claim. The most expense incurred was replacing the glass and their security improvements.
I work at a university where we obviously have more intelligent thieves. They broke into our Admissions section and stole a dozen desktop PCs. These were replaced over the coming week and the staff were told that our IT section had ordered security packs to chain/bolt the equipment to the desks but it would not arrive for a few days.
In between the new PCs arriving (with upgraded TFT screens etc) and the arrival of the security packs, the thieves came back and stole all the new equipment.
This is easy to explain. They were drug dealers and they got what they wanted. Ironically, they didn’t want any trouble, they just wanted your scales. It’s happened many times in my department.
I think so - it’s all a clever marketing ploy - none of the drives ever work, but you can buy media for them to test if it’s a problem with your drive or corrupted media, and you can buy new drives in the hope that you’ll be able to put to use all the extra media you bought when you were troubleshooting your previous drive. None of it works though.
Some eejits broke into my Dad’s old bank sub office (where bank staff come every now and again to get sandwiches from the pub and collect change from the elderly) and took away a safe full of pennies.
It conveniently allowed the bank to close the sub office on the pretext of security without having to admit it was for cost’s sake.
