Have you ever come home with a pen from work in your bag or took some toilet paper for blowing your nose on the commute home? Did you know that is classed as work place theft?
Admit it, we’ve all been in a cute little independent coffee shop and admired their milk bottles or cups and thought I wish I had those. Right? You wouldn’t take them though…. Or would you?
Theft is a huge issue for small business owners like myself, whether it is someone just walking off with your pen and notepad at a client visit or half inching your equipment – I know I’d take a huge crippling hit if anyone walked off with my laptops.
My Granddad went through a phase of taking supermarket baskets in the early 90s to use around the garden because “the sign next to the door on the way out said please take one, so I did”. Amusing when you think of my wacky 80yr old granddad wandering round with a basket from a huge supermarket chain, but if it was a small independent shop, it could be the difference between meeting that months wage bill or not. So whats’ the difference?
People often think taking a cup or two from Starbucks is fair game as they are such a huge company it doesn’t matter but they still have wages and bills to pay.
Data-Label, a market leader in asset security tags, recently carried out a survey with shocking results. Out of the almost 2,000 people questioned, a whopping 20% of people admitted to stealing from their work place. Food, stationery and toilet roll were the most common knickable treasures with people claiming no one would notice.
Trust me, when you go to the stationery cupboard and there’s not a single post it note or biro to be had – we all certainly notice that someone has half inched them!
As you all know, I am self employed and home based and I definitely think someone has stolen from me….. my posh shampoos keep disappearing from the bathroom and my nice water is always empty in the fridge. Paul says it’s because I don’t pay him enough to help me! The cheek of it!
My good biscuits keep vanishing from the cupboard too but I think that’s my Mam. Maybe I should just start asset tagging everything in the house?