Theft at Work

witch_ie

So recently my digital camera and sunglasses disappeared and I'm pretty sure they were stolen from my cubicle at work. I've already taken steps to lock up all my belongings even if I'm simply running to the water cooler for 30 seconds. I"m pretty sure my items were taken by someone who works within the building. I would speak to our security officers, but they're pretty much a joke in our building and don't do much of anything. What else can I do to ensure this doesn't happen again?

jotate

I'd bring it up with HR. If nothing else, they could send out a notice that if some things were taken by mistake, then they can be returned to the HR department. And otherwise notify everyone that they should take care in securing personal items. Might not get any of your stuff back, but it could discourage it from happening again to yourself or someone else if the perpetrator knows people are suspicious.

noir_blood

Don't leave stuff you care about laying around.

Sure, we would like to be able to trust co workers, and such, but that's just being stupid. I'm always shocked by the things people leave out in the open, and even more shocked when they are surprised to find the items missing.

RUNN1NGMAN

I'm not saying that it's not your co-workers, but it's pretty common where I live for random people to wander into office buildings and just take whatever isn't nailed down.

Nastyman

noir_blood wrote: »

Don't leave stuff you care about laying around.

Sure, we would like to be able to trust co workers, and such, but that's just being stupid. I'm always shocked by the things people leave out in the open, and even more shocked when they are surprised to find the items missing.

It was YOU!

Elrosst

We had some crazy stuff happen in our office a year ago, and never pinpointed it between a crazy, crazy former employee or the night cleaners. Food was stolen, papers were shredded, all kinds of stuff.

And by "crazy", I mean lying about having a fake leg, making up crazy nicknames (mine was "silent man"), screaming at banks that we worked with because they took too long to process huge checks that she was trying to send to relatives in a "-stan" country (understandable). Oh, and once she decided to change her name. Just at work.

Unfortunately, you cant really alot of the people you come in contact with on a daily basis =/

noir_blood

Nastyman wrote: »

noir_blood wrote: »

Don't leave stuff you care about laying around.

Sure, we would like to be able to trust co workers, and such, but that's just being stupid. I'm always shocked by the things people leave out in the open, and even more shocked when they are surprised to find the items missing.

It was YOU!

I will not answer those wild accusations! I'm far too busy staring fearlessly at the sun and taking pictures.

Forar

witch_ie wrote: »

I would speak to our security officers, but they're pretty much a joke in our building and don't do much of anything.

While this may in fact be the case, what do you expect them to do that wouldn't be a joke? Go all CSI on the scene? Search people as they leave the building?

Common theft like this is pretty hard to combat, especially on the small scale. I'm not sure what level of security force your building has, but I work in a mall with 3 office towers totalling over 100 stories and the population of a small town, and the security force does all they can in regards to major issues (fights, medical emergencies, children who wander away from their parents amidst the crowds, etc). Sunglasses & a camera might not be a high priority simply because there's not much they can do about it in terms of investigation or collecting evidence.

witch_ie

Just for the sake of clarity, our security officers don't even pay attention to someone who has been standing in front of them for 3 minutes trying to get their attention instead of talking to their buddies about what they want to drink from the cafeteria. If they were even half-way competent, I would let them know what happened so that they could be on the alert for any suspicious behavior or at least let other people know about the recent thefts so that they could watch out for their own belongings. This however would require them to do more than smiling stupidly at the stickers on each other's foreheads.

Sadly, I'm not exaggerating when I describe their behavior.

Forar

witch_ie wrote: »

Sadly, I'm not exaggerating when I describe their behavior.

I don't doubt it. I've been in the security field in one capacity or another for 7 years now, and like all large groups of people, there are officers who range from Supercop to Useless Wastes of Space and Air.

A shame, but I just felt it was worth noting that even with a competant security force, it's hard to do much once a situation like this has happened.

bowen

Bring up the theft to HR and mention the lack of security from the guards.

Why did you bring the digital camera to work?

If you needed it for a project you may be able to file a claim with the insurance. Sunglasses you may be SoL but you might be able to get compensation for it. If you just brought it in then you're probably, again, SoL.

TexiKen

Ask around or keep an ear out to see if other people have had stuff disappear. This can help pinpoint a time down as to when it might have disappeared. If they last used their iPod Thursday afternoon and Friday morning it was gone, that puts it more on the cleaning people.

SammyF

Forar wrote: »

witch_ie wrote: »

Sadly, I'm not exaggerating when I describe their behavior.

I don't doubt it. I've been in the security field in one capacity or another for 7 years now, and like all large groups of people, there are officers who range from Supercop to Useless Wastes of Space and Air.

A shame, but I just felt it was worth noting that even with a competant security force, it's hard to do much once a situation like this has happened.

It's probably also worth noting that the amount of legal authority private security folks have to conduct an investigation is pretty much non-existant.

ceres

SammyF wrote: »

Forar wrote: »

witch_ie wrote: »

Sadly, I'm not exaggerating when I describe their behavior.

I don't doubt it. I've been in the security field in one capacity or another for 7 years now, and like all large groups of people, there are officers who range from Supercop to Useless Wastes of Space and Air.

A shame, but I just felt it was worth noting that even with a competant security force, it's hard to do much once a situation like this has happened.

It's probably also worth noting that the amount of legal authority private security folks have to conduct an investigation is pretty much non-existant.

This.

Most security guards (my personal experience is with Allied-Barton Security, formerly Spectaguard, where I worked for about 4 years) have all the authority of... well... you. They are nothing more than civilians hired to be an extra set of eyes or to call the fire department if the building is burning down in an obvious way. Having them on site can help bring down insurance and liability costs for companies and office facilities.

If you tell them something was stolen, they need to at the very least write up an incident report to be submitted to a supervisor, but the reality is that the very most really isn't much more than that. They can try to do more frequent rounds by your desk, keep a closer eye on cleaning staff, and keep an eye out for items that match the description of the things you lost. None of these things are terribly like to up the chances of figuring out who did it, though.

Your best bet is to leave anything unnecessary to your job at home in future, and when you do need to bring in something expensive, make sure you're locking it up or at least putting it out of sight. Even if you don't lock things up, spontaneous theft is a lot less appealing when you need to dig through drawers to find anything.