Stuff acquired from work

[robinessex]

A very large company I did my apprenticeship took a more positive spin of stuff being acquired. You could buy anything they had in the store(s) at cost price, off cuts of metal from the bin were sold at scrap price. and if you wanted to make something for yourself, you could come in on Saturday mornings, and do it as long as it didn’t bugger up production work.

[LordJammy]

My pals and I have a pretty good caper going. Some days we do absolutely nothing, but we still get paid the same. It's ace.

[9patch]

We have 9 cameras watching us and tags on nearly every door [including the lunch room and toilet] so you can't do anything without being on a camera.

The best thing I have found if there anything lying around 'scrap' and you want it for home just go and ask for it.

[SteellFJ]

Apart from the odd bit of stationary I've always been pretty honest with employers, have mistakenly lifted a tie but returned it the next day.

I did WIN a PS4 recently though in the office monthly draw, that was good and some colleagues felt robbed.

[DervVW]

droopsnoot said:

.....

Not sure if either are actually true. Many tales of people around the Longbridge area having houses entirely painted in BL colours, as well.

Having grown up near longbridge, I too heard that rumour and I also saw plenty of 'austin brown' and 'yellow' in and around houses. I suspect that it might be more than a rumour!!

[anonymous-user]

P-Jay said:

Similarly to that I suppose, a work mate was once tasked with picking the bones of a recently bankrupt carpet company - the bank we worked for had financed their fleet of vans on a secured basis so we wanted them back so got in touch liquidators so they knew which were ours. Armed with a last set of accounts they gave us, and a list of our vehicles he and someone from the liquidators set about the place trying to find them all. The liquidators kept bumping into a problem where they found all the vehicles they could, but they in no way added up to the total amount of vehicles (in £) on the books, not even the most bare faced Accountant dealing with a failing businesses would over inflate it by such a degree.

I'm not sure how they found it, but they did - a completely unused XJ220 walled up in the middle of the shop. Don't know if it was genuinely forgotten about because it had been their for a decade or more, or the directors were hoping to sneak in and take it later on.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/wales/3005938.stm

[Alfa numeric]

I once took a 12 person dinner service home- with permission. My department was about to move into the head office and we were told that we could take anything we wanted (bar the electrical goods) as none of it was needed in the new place- the only catch was we had to take it that day and we had to be able to carry it out of the building. I was about to move into my first flat and had no crockery so I filled an archive box with as much as I could and headed for the exit. I had to walk from Gresham Street to St Pauls, change at Oxford Circus and cross Euston Station in order to get the train home. By the time I made it my arms were about three inches longer than when I started..

[Echo66]

A lad i worked with 15 or so years ago was given a job to manage by the gaffers. It was a full refurb of two floors of offices. Had only recently been done so all the kit in there, desks, chairs, printers, etc was less than 18months old. Client had bought the place inc all fixtures & fittings & just wanted all the stuff gone so he could get the refurb going & start doing business.
Savvy lad gets his mate back in Yorkshire & owned a couple of vans to tender for the strip out part of the job. Somehow said mate wins the contract with a low bid.......
Over one weekend our lad plus his mate empty this place of all the stuff, lock stock etc. Client is happy, our gaffers happy (but unaware what our hero has been upto), all is good. Happy chap & his mate make thick end of 21k selling all this equipment back onto the market. There was masses of it in pretty much brand new nick inc about 800sq m of raised access floor. Ends up being able to buy a second hand red MX5 off the profits.
Dozy tt bubbled himself during a boozy session in the pub a few months later, gaffers went nuts but couldn't really do much as they were responsible for dispersing the contracts, our hero was given the job cos it was relatively small & the Client was easy to manage. Good racket if you had the balls, which i didn't.

[Aprisa]

DervVW said:

Having grown up near longbridge, I too heard that rumour and I also saw plenty of 'austin brown' and 'yellow' in and around houses. I suspect that it might be more than a rumour!!

I used to spend my weekends as a kid helping to repair/service cars that mainly belonged to Austin-Rover employees at a friend of my Dad's house so that I could learn the art of mechanics.
The garage was full to the brim with almost every mechanical and subframe part you could wish for but should a larger item such as an engine or gearbox be needed a quick call to someone in the commercial vehicle testing dept would see it delivered same-day on a pallet for around £20!
It's not hard to see why BL never turned much of a profit especially given the rate at which the cars fell apart and needed fettling.

[Quhet]

I live within smelling distance of Cadburys in Bournville and know quite a few people who have worked there.
If you're on the production lines, there is a policy that you can eat as much as you want. I think the idea is that you stuff yourself stupid and get ill off it and are then put off it and get on with your job.

[Rude-boy]

Jasandjules said:

Never even crossed my mind.

I think i might have still got a disposable pen i took home with me to do some work with once, a number of rubber bands to hold the lid on my lunch box and possibly a note pad. When we closed an old office i took home a load of old envelopes which the gum had hardened on - but i did ask first and they were going in the skip.

Then again i work at home at least a few hours a week so it all gets used for that, as well as plenty of my oven stuff.

[DervVW]

Quhet said:

I live within smelling distance of Cadburys in Bournville and know quite a few people who have worked there.
If you're on the production lines, there is a policy that you can eat as much as you want. I think the idea is that you stuff yourself stupid and get ill off it and are then put off it and get on with your job.

Yes I heard this too - I'm pretty sure my uncle that has worked there 30+ years hasn't eaten chocolate in 30+ years either!

[LordHaveMurci]

An old girlfriend about 20yrs ago used to work in a supermarket, she was far from silly though.

Her trick was to purchase a bottle of spirits or something similar, take it home at lunchtime & keep the receipt so she could take another bottle home at the end of the day. Not sure it would work these days but she got away with it all the time back then.

She also used to mark stuff down as reduced for me when I went in to shop for my dinner after work, one of the cashiers sussed it & had a jealous gripe at me so we stopped doing it.

The amount of military lads I've known over the years I can confirm previous stories were commonplace!

[Camaro]

This was going on down under a few years ago.

Mind boggles how they managed to get that many engines and gearboxes out, also how Holden had no idea it was happening until the Police found one on a separate investigation!

http://www.news.com.au/finance/business/thieves-ta...

[PositronicRay]

It was usual in the licensed trade, any drinks bought for you can be consumed, but not taken out. I remember working in a place where a barmaid was allowed to take her tips home. A case of ale and 100 fags most nights.

[robinessex]

Camaro said:

This was going on down under a few years ago.

Mind boggles how they managed to get that many engines and gearboxes out, also how Holden had no idea it was happening until the Police found one on a separate investigation!

http://www.news.com.au/finance/business/thieves-ta...

Bloody amazing thay X engines went in, and only Y came out !!!

[Morningside]

Not sure about stolen but someone I know had lots and lots of greenshield stamp books. He used to work at a garage and either never gave them out or was given them. He had goodness knows how many tools from them books.

[Willy Nilly]

Johnny Cash wrote a song about this subject

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rWHniL8MyMM

I've not bought any potatoes for 15 years.

[Alfa numeric]

Morningside said:

Not sure about stolen but someone I know had lots and lots of greenshield stamp books. He used to work at a garage and either never gave them out or was given them. He had goodness knows how many tools from them books.

An old work colleague once told me about a family member who was fired from Sainsburys for using his nectar card every time a customer didn't use theirs. He racked up thousands of points in a matter of weeks and was surprised when they caught him!

[opieoilman]

I never have to buy oil or air fresheners, but that's all above board.