Refresher Course in Who can you Trust?

[dieselsmoke1]

Happened to glance in an employee's pickup body and there's a 3/8 Makita drill, just like what we use in the shop. I look a little closer and there's the inventory number etched in the side of the case just like we do.........Hmmm.

After going for years without losing enough tools to be concerned with, we've had a few disappear recently...small hand tools mostly. Sometimes we don't actually miss them at first, may not be evident till a periodic inventory.

Got the Maint. Mgr. and a camera. After photos, we took the drill in and verified it had turned up missing over a year ago. The chuck had oxidation from being left in the weather.

Brought the guy in to a conference room with 2 witnesses, when he saw the drill and the photo of it laying in his truck body, you could read "busted" on his face. Asked him if there was any valid explaination as to why the drill was in his truck......no response. Asked if he had anything else to talk about and we would decide whether or not to call the Law based on his answer, implying we would ask them to search his truck box ( don't know if they could have but it sounded good).

He confessed to the theft of 2 more items (they were probably in his truck). We added up the values and he signed a debit slip for us to deduct the replacement value from his last paycheck, which pretty much wiped it out. When he got up to leave, I handed the drill to him, telling him he had paid for it handsomely, he might as well take it with him...said he didn't want it.

This guy was a Dept. Lead Man...a "good" employee.....9 years with the company.....a family man living less than a mile from the shop....and whizzed it all away for a few hundred dollars worth of used tools.

Go Figure....

[GaryM]

This is not an excuse for his behavior, but my Dad was Chief Engineer for a manufacturing company before he retired 30 years ago. And he would occasionally borrow tools over the weekend, or we would go to the shop and use tools such as a DoAll saw. All with permission of the company owner of course.

I wonder if perhaps this fellow "borrowed" a few tools that he needed for a project, then neglected to return them before they were noticed as missing. Then it was too late to return them I'd guess. Or at least he might have thought it was too late. This might not be the case at all, but I can see where it might have happened that way.

Is the company the type where something like that could have happened?

[dieselsmoke1]

Yes, we would have lent him the tools if he had asked, but not the case here. Only 3 of us have the authority to lend out stuff and he didn't ask either one of us. But maybe you've got a point...perhaps he didn't "steal" them, just borrowed without asking and never returned.....make it not sound as bad.

[Highbeam]

Thanks for the story, a good reminder.

[Doc_Bob]

Originally Posted by dieselsmoke1

This guy was a Dept. Lead Man...a "good" employee.....9 years with the company.....a family man living less than a mile from the shop....and whizzed it all away for a few hundred dollars worth of used tools.

Go Figure....

People do some strange things. Now it will take 9 years to get back to square one, assuming he still has a job? Can you trust him?
Bob

[EddieWalker]

I spent 8 years as a union steward back in a previous life. Theft was always a huge issue, and as the steward, it was up to me to protet the idiots who stole stuff.

One guy took a ragedy ann doll. He makes $60,000 a year and stole a $2 doll for his kid. Most of the thieves I had to deal with justified it because they felt they were underpaid and under apppreiated. After so many years working for a company, some people feel they deserve some sort of extra compensation. None of them were good workers, but all of the ones I had to deal with felt entitled.

The drug uses rarely stole, nor the gamblers. They are all well known and most everyone is watching them all the time anyway.

Eddie

[dieselsmoke1]

We can't let him work here again. One tool.....maybe a chance it was like GaryM said, borrowed it and afraid to bring it back. Three on separate occasions looks to me like a pattern. To steal anytime is wrong, to steal from where your family's paycheck comes from is wrong plus very bad judgement.

I could have gritted my teeth and said "dung happens" if he had accidently crashed a router or wrecked a truck..have had both in the past costing 10 times or more than the tools and both guys are still working for us.

No, I can't trust him.

Regretable....our loss too. Lot's of training and experience down the drain.

We live in a small town and know everybody in our type business, most are friends. I hope we don't get a reference call.

[wroughtn_harv]

Back in the day, 1977, I was twenty nine and was a partner in a fence company. We had seventeen employees.

There was one that I loved like a brother. Him and me were the smallest guys in the company and we got a lot of pleasure out of outlifting and generally out working the bigger boys. He would stand there and match you stroke for stroke while working and laugh the whole time. He was a man amongst men in my book.

One of the guys on a crew came to me and told me that Andres was stealing surplus materials and doing jobs on the side. I didn't believe him. But I still confronted Andres about it. He admitted doing it.

I fired him that morning.

What I remember most about that was the tears in both of our eyes. Two grown men pushing thirty that shared a love for the work breaking up. And that literally best describes what happened.

When I see someone reach down and pull out that little something most people don't have to get the job done I think of Andres. He had that thing that can't be taught. You either have it or your don't.

And if I'd known then what I know now, well, I think I'd have handled it different, mostly because of respect for the work, his.

I don't understand stealing but in forty plus years of working I've seen it on every level. One has to wonder what the real difference is between a man lifting a tool or a piece of material than a salesman taking his wife to lunch and turning in the receipt as an expense. They're both about feeling entitled to more than an agreement.

[Soundguy]

Originally Posted by dieselsmoke1

We live in a small town and know everybody in our type business, most are friends. I hope we don't get a reference call.

Our HR dept. has told us that if we get a reference call all we can say is whether the employee is eligible for re-hire or not.. and that if we say anything negative.. we could be legally liable... go figure..

Soundguy

[ejtaylor822]

These are good stories.

Understand its tough letting someone go, been there myself, but trust is something that you have to have. Especially if you have to depend on this person in your job/duties. Know this is not on the same level as what you guys have been through, was in college, but I was a "lead" in a retail store stock room. Became really good friends with a guy who I later caught putting a new car radio behind the dumpster. When I asked him about it, he said that it wasn't a big deal and with what he made and the work he did it was owed to him. I told him I would not turn him in if he would put it back and not do it again. He put it back and gave me his word he would not.

Found out, years later, all I did was make him more careful - he told me this! he also told me he was taking stuff all the time and "hooking" up his frineds. Had he been caught and the manager found out what I had done we would have both lost our jobs! Was a big lesson for me.

I believe you guys that have had to let people go stealing made the right decision. If your in charge and don't deal with it, YOU will be dealt with I would imagine. Know its tough, but you have to do what is best and right, which is not always easy.

Eddie