Stuff acquired from work
Discussion
AndyNetwork said:
I once had a nice little side line in laptop computers, and other computer components, all with the knowledge of the management of the company I was working for at the time.
We had a large number of field engineers who would regularly break their laptops. Rather than fix them, it was cheeper for the company to buy new ones to replace them. I then took the broken ones, rather than have to pay to get rid of them as scrap, and make one good one out of two or three broken ones.
We also got rid of some early bladed servers, which were again going into the skip. To most people, they were useless, as they needed a big rack mount enclosure to house them in. However, on closer inspection, they were running standard high end PC server motherboards and processors, just with a fancy interface card plugged in to allow them to connect to the enclosure. A few hours one evening after work, had these stripped out, and on ebay.
I have also been allowed to have kit from offices we have closed down.
That sort of thing seems to be the norm in IT circles - we provide outsourced support and end up taking in dozens of older PCs and laptops for disposal every month - we destroy the HDDs as a matter of course, but RAM cards, processors, GPUs, chassis etc are all fair game to anyone who wants them. It's usually 2 years old minimum so no longer cutting edge stuff, but we've had some pretty decent Quadro and GTX GPUs in 10 core Xeons, 6 core i7s and some of the younger lads have built themselves up gaming machines with them. My laptop at home was a 6 week old i5 based 17" job that a client dropped and cracked the case - they needed a replacement NOW, the model was new out so no parts where available for it with the guy who use to repair them so it was scraped and replaced - it's currently wearing 2 tiny bolts through the lid to hold it on (they're almost invisible) but it's been upgraded to 8GB RAM, Windows 10 and Office 2016 ProPlus all legitimately from work for free to save it being thrown in landfill or shipped to china to be recycled. We had a large number of field engineers who would regularly break their laptops. Rather than fix them, it was cheeper for the company to buy new ones to replace them. I then took the broken ones, rather than have to pay to get rid of them as scrap, and make one good one out of two or three broken ones.
We also got rid of some early bladed servers, which were again going into the skip. To most people, they were useless, as they needed a big rack mount enclosure to house them in. However, on closer inspection, they were running standard high end PC server motherboards and processors, just with a fancy interface card plugged in to allow them to connect to the enclosure. A few hours one evening after work, had these stripped out, and on ebay.
I have also been allowed to have kit from offices we have closed down.
about 10 years ago, I worked on a service desk for a major UK insurer (you will know the name) and their offices network was very locked down, with web filtering etc. You would struggle to get to any website that they did not want you to get to.
One of the 3rd line guys had his own office, and it was noted that he had a laptop on the corner of his desk, which was regularly open on Eba, showing items of a computer related nature being up for sale.
This raised suspicions, and someone took a note of the ebay seller name, and found that a large number of high value computer related items, servers etc had been sold recently.
These items tied up with items that had been ordered, and delivered to the company, but had strangely "gone missing"
He got several years "holiday"
One of the 3rd line guys had his own office, and it was noted that he had a laptop on the corner of his desk, which was regularly open on Eba, showing items of a computer related nature being up for sale.
This raised suspicions, and someone took a note of the ebay seller name, and found that a large number of high value computer related items, servers etc had been sold recently.
These items tied up with items that had been ordered, and delivered to the company, but had strangely "gone missing"
He got several years "holiday"
I'm sure most here will condemn outright theft, but there are grey areas. The main one is when companies scrap something, and have no clear channels of disposal, except the rubbish bin. I don’t see anything wrong with that, it often recycles things, which is good. The other grey area, is when the company buys something you use for your job, and over a long period of time it becomes ‘yours’. So when you move on, it goes with you. Again, very few companies would want it returned I’d guess.
robinessex said:
I'm sure most here will condemn outright theft, but there are grey areas. The main one is when companies scrap something, and have no clear channels of disposal, except the rubbish bin. I don’t see anything wrong with that, it often recycles things, which is good. The other grey area, is when the company buys something you use for your job, and over a long period of time it becomes ‘yours’. So when you move on, it goes with you. Again, very few companies would want it returned I’d guess.
Quite. The cost of disposal (safely, environmentally accountable) would normally make bringing old, depreciated kit back a non-starter. Reuse is fine for big ticket stuff like laptops, but who in their right mind is going to want a secondhand wireless headset, even one that cost £100?Even iPhones and the like seem to be fair game. When her iPhone 4 was replaced a year or so ago my wife was given a 'Recycle-a-Phone' bag and told just to send it off to them "or give it to a charity shop etc.". It may have ended up on Ebay with 10% going to NSPCC...
Back in 1986 I used to work at a local sainsburys, as the new boy my duties involved chucking crap into an electric compactor skip.
It didn't take me long to figure out when the bakery non sold stuff came out, along with the out of date food which almost always found itself hidden behind a bush in a bin liner for me to pick up later on. A lot was shared out between mates. Another thing was to help ourselves to sweets from the boxes in the warehouse, or use a bic pen without the insert jabbed into a carton of juice.
Hardly professor Moriarty I'll grant you, but when you're earning £2 an hour any freebie is a bonus.
It didn't take me long to figure out when the bakery non sold stuff came out, along with the out of date food which almost always found itself hidden behind a bush in a bin liner for me to pick up later on. A lot was shared out between mates. Another thing was to help ourselves to sweets from the boxes in the warehouse, or use a bic pen without the insert jabbed into a carton of juice.
Hardly professor Moriarty I'll grant you, but when you're earning £2 an hour any freebie is a bonus.
I accidentally took the master recording (on DAT) of a Level 42 album from Battery Recording Studios. It really was an accident, they had left it there! Someone got into big trouble.
Never nicked anything though. Not my style. Mainly as my dad worked for London Transport and most of our house was made up with bits stolen from lost property.
Never nicked anything though. Not my style. Mainly as my dad worked for London Transport and most of our house was made up with bits stolen from lost property.
My former employer was getting the office heating system changed from kerosene to gas and we ran down the storage tanks to coincide with the changeover. Unfortunately without our knowledge, someone at our head office had changed the oil supply contract to one where the supplier automatically topped up the tanks whenever they got low.
Friday afternoon before the work was due to start on the Monday we discovered that the tanks had just been filled with 25000litres of heating oil. We contacted the supplier who offered to remove and 'dispose' of the 'now waste' oil for an exorbitant cost.
I offered to dispose of the oil free of charge, no questions asked, this was accepted and after frantically calling in a few favours, became the owner of about fifteen thousand pounds worth of fuel over the weekend. The job went ahead on Monday as planned, my boss was delighted, and I heated my house for free for the next 5 years.
Friday afternoon before the work was due to start on the Monday we discovered that the tanks had just been filled with 25000litres of heating oil. We contacted the supplier who offered to remove and 'dispose' of the 'now waste' oil for an exorbitant cost.
I offered to dispose of the oil free of charge, no questions asked, this was accepted and after frantically calling in a few favours, became the owner of about fifteen thousand pounds worth of fuel over the weekend. The job went ahead on Monday as planned, my boss was delighted, and I heated my house for free for the next 5 years.
GetCarter said:
I accidentally took the master recording (on DAT) of a Level 42 album from Battery Recording Studios. It really was an accident, they had left it there! Someone got into big trouble.
Never nicked anything though. Not my style. Mainly as my dad worked for London Transport and most of our house was made up with bits stolen from lost property.
Which one? I am a huge fan!Never nicked anything though. Not my style. Mainly as my dad worked for London Transport and most of our house was made up with bits stolen from lost property.
Trevatanus said:
GetCarter said:
I accidentally took the master recording (on DAT) of a Level 42 album from Battery Recording Studios. It really was an accident, they had left it there! Someone got into big trouble.
Never nicked anything though. Not my style. Mainly as my dad worked for London Transport and most of our house was made up with bits stolen from lost property.
Which one? I am a huge fan!Never nicked anything though. Not my style. Mainly as my dad worked for London Transport and most of our house was made up with bits stolen from lost property.
My brother is a website designer and when the company he worked for laid off a lot of people, he asked if I wanted any of the IT stuff they were getting rid of. I ended up getting a year old Dell XPS laptop (about £1500 at the time), a Toshiba laptop (about £600), a Sennheiser headset (about £75), a Z-Board gaming keyboard (about £50 I think) as well as some other stuff like network switches and stuff that I have no idea what they are. Apparently, the staff in the company were asked to pick their own IT kit and it seems a few of them basically picked out gaming stuff. I kept the headset (for several years, it was brilliant), put the rest on eBay and made a fair bit of money out of it.
robinessex said:
When the Plessey factory started to close places in Iford in the 1970's, loads of machinery was sold of to employees for scrap value. Of course, turn up with truck to buy your lathe, and lots of very costly accessories and hand tools would be chucked in a box for your attention as well!! I think it’s fair to say, when office, factories, etc., close, lots of stuff is exported shall we say unofficially. Of course, lots of it is basically written of, and has virtually no book value anymore anyway.
Indeed back in 1995 I worked temping clearing out a huge factory and offices, can't recall the name.But I and another young lad were responsible for throwing away all the old office equipment.
I remember there was like an electronic store containing those old massive mobile phones with batteries and old IT equipment.
Too big for 2 young lads with no cars to dispose off so they were launched from the fire escape into the skip below.
Plus with us being 16 or 17 had no idea what most of it was
Working as a contractor at a large ship yard we needed some extra wire twin and earth.
We were allowed to use stores, needed 5 metres, but got given a reel and told to keep it as it was hard to return to stores.
Next day we needed an extra 2 metres of twin and earth, we had forgotten to laod the van up with supplies that morning!
We were allowed to use stores, needed 5 metres, but got given a reel and told to keep it as it was hard to return to stores.
Next day we needed an extra 2 metres of twin and earth, we had forgotten to laod the van up with supplies that morning!
I have never pinched anything from work and I doubt I ever would.
However I am quite chuffed to have gained some decent work boots from a couple of employers as they legally had to supply them as part of my uniform and obviously didn't want them back when I left. So I now have 2 pair of very comfortable works boots, steel toe caps, one pair has a steel sole and is heat resistant too.
Not easy to come by or cheap in a size 15!
However I am quite chuffed to have gained some decent work boots from a couple of employers as they legally had to supply them as part of my uniform and obviously didn't want them back when I left. So I now have 2 pair of very comfortable works boots, steel toe caps, one pair has a steel sole and is heat resistant too.
Not easy to come by or cheap in a size 15!
DaveGoddard said:
mel said:
It's safe to repeat now as alas the "offender" is no longer with us (even though the bounty still is)
I had a close family friend who was the Commander (Engineering) for Chatham Dockyard for the 6 years prior to it's closure, under his remit came all engineering tasks throughout the dockyard including refits for both Submarines and Warships, his passion however was sailing and competitive off shore and ocean racing. He purchased legitimately from a boatbuilder a bare hull of a state of the art 46' racing yacht and had it delivered to the Dockyard and stored in an unused shed. MoD Police had absolutely no concern for anything coming in but would relish searching everyone leaving the gates and would love nothing better than to get an Officer with a "crowsfoot" spanner or something equally pathetic, the punishments were severe and draconian. Anyway "Yacht Club" was established and dozens of young Dockyard and Artificer Apprentices used to enjoy their rota'd afternoons when they would learn "traditional boatbuilding skills" that would stand them in good stead for the rest of their careers. Over a period of several years this Yacht was slowly fitted out to the most incredible and exacting standards, using only the very best materials and to skill levels way above anything seen commercially, it was basically floating perfecting. She was eventually finished in the most dazzling high gloss black with a genuine gold leaf "pencil line" (thanks to the refit of HMY Brittania) When the day arrived and this beauty was finished it was simply sailed out and then moored at Upnor directly opposite the Dockyard. I sailed it and raced on it throughout the 80's long after the Dockyard closed (ironically the old disused shed she was built in was one of the last buildings standing) and can honestly say that for years after she was made that yacht was the pride of the Medway she was without a doubt a thing of beauty, thanks very much Your Maj'
What's she called and is she still sailing? I'd be interested in seeing that.I had a close family friend who was the Commander (Engineering) for Chatham Dockyard for the 6 years prior to it's closure, under his remit came all engineering tasks throughout the dockyard including refits for both Submarines and Warships, his passion however was sailing and competitive off shore and ocean racing. He purchased legitimately from a boatbuilder a bare hull of a state of the art 46' racing yacht and had it delivered to the Dockyard and stored in an unused shed. MoD Police had absolutely no concern for anything coming in but would relish searching everyone leaving the gates and would love nothing better than to get an Officer with a "crowsfoot" spanner or something equally pathetic, the punishments were severe and draconian. Anyway "Yacht Club" was established and dozens of young Dockyard and Artificer Apprentices used to enjoy their rota'd afternoons when they would learn "traditional boatbuilding skills" that would stand them in good stead for the rest of their careers. Over a period of several years this Yacht was slowly fitted out to the most incredible and exacting standards, using only the very best materials and to skill levels way above anything seen commercially, it was basically floating perfecting. She was eventually finished in the most dazzling high gloss black with a genuine gold leaf "pencil line" (thanks to the refit of HMY Brittania) When the day arrived and this beauty was finished it was simply sailed out and then moored at Upnor directly opposite the Dockyard. I sailed it and raced on it throughout the 80's long after the Dockyard closed (ironically the old disused shed she was built in was one of the last buildings standing) and can honestly say that for years after she was made that yacht was the pride of the Medway she was without a doubt a thing of beauty, thanks very much Your Maj'
Re Supermarkets.
I am sure that there was a bit of a fiddle going on in one of our local ones a few years back.
Mrs and I were in there mid day on a weekday for some odd reason and as usual gazed at the reduced shelf. To our surprise we saw 6 bottles of very expensive champagne on there reduced to something like £5.38 a bottle.
Very nice it was too.
As we drank the first bottle that evening it dawned on us that we were in the UK and not France and that perhaps this wasn't the bin end sale we had initially assumed it was. This was backed up by the fact that that shop to this day still sells that brand, although obviously the design of the label has changed over the years.
I am sure that there was a bit of a fiddle going on in one of our local ones a few years back.
Mrs and I were in there mid day on a weekday for some odd reason and as usual gazed at the reduced shelf. To our surprise we saw 6 bottles of very expensive champagne on there reduced to something like £5.38 a bottle.
Very nice it was too.
As we drank the first bottle that evening it dawned on us that we were in the UK and not France and that perhaps this wasn't the bin end sale we had initially assumed it was. This was backed up by the fact that that shop to this day still sells that brand, although obviously the design of the label has changed over the years.
Not me I hasten to add .....
In the early Nineties - moved to London, 1st job after School working for the Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO) I was based just off the Royal Mall in what is called the Old Admiralty Building (OAB) Attached to which is a Concrete Bunker (Citadel) where the Royal Navy had their London Comms Centre (COMCEN) HMS St Vincent I think the name was ......
The Navy COMCEN had it's own Security/Loading bays etc So quite often you would see the Blue Royal Navy trucks arriving/leaving.
Where attached to the OAB building - were what looked like Steel Vault/Blast Doors - which could only be opened from the COMCEN side.
Rumour had it several Photocopiers/Furniture etc had disappeared overnight into the COMCEN, and be spirited away in the Blue trucks in the early hours ....
Not wanting to cast dispersions on the Royal Navy either - as that was my Plan B if the FCO didn't work out - goto University, take up a deferred Scholarship, and become an Artificer.
In the early Nineties - moved to London, 1st job after School working for the Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO) I was based just off the Royal Mall in what is called the Old Admiralty Building (OAB) Attached to which is a Concrete Bunker (Citadel) where the Royal Navy had their London Comms Centre (COMCEN) HMS St Vincent I think the name was ......
The Navy COMCEN had it's own Security/Loading bays etc So quite often you would see the Blue Royal Navy trucks arriving/leaving.
Where attached to the OAB building - were what looked like Steel Vault/Blast Doors - which could only be opened from the COMCEN side.
Rumour had it several Photocopiers/Furniture etc had disappeared overnight into the COMCEN, and be spirited away in the Blue trucks in the early hours ....
Not wanting to cast dispersions on the Royal Navy either - as that was my Plan B if the FCO didn't work out - goto University, take up a deferred Scholarship, and become an Artificer.
A few reams of paper and white spirit when I was in the print 
Old man was Sgt PTI in the RAF, and therefore in charge of ordering all the sports equipment, I always had the latest football kit, cricket kit, camping gear, etc.
Along with all the usual items with a crowsfoot stamp - it almost seemed the done thing in the forces back then!
Old man was Sgt PTI in the RAF, and therefore in charge of ordering all the sports equipment, I always had the latest football kit, cricket kit, camping gear, etc.
Along with all the usual items with a crowsfoot stamp - it almost seemed the done thing in the forces back then!
When I contracted on a large Electronic Patient Record project, we shared a building with one of the big four consultancy firms, (think blue suited yanks) who basically made a dogs dinner of the project, and when they pulled out of the project, they abandoned the building never to be seen again.
A couple of days later my boss asked if I wanted to work late as he had a special mission, as soon as all the other staff were gone we set to work and
re-homed a whole bunch of office furniture, supplies and tech. Mainly Herman Miller desks and chairs and enough supplies to keep our office going for at least 3 years.
We both kept a desk and chair each which is still serving me well a number of years later.
A couple of days later my boss asked if I wanted to work late as he had a special mission, as soon as all the other staff were gone we set to work and
re-homed a whole bunch of office furniture, supplies and tech. Mainly Herman Miller desks and chairs and enough supplies to keep our office going for at least 3 years.
We both kept a desk and chair each which is still serving me well a number of years later.
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