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]

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]

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

 

[Soundguy]

That reminds me of a store in my home town where the only the manager was allowed to take the trash out.. guess they had had some of the same sort of problems.

Soundguy

 

[PineRidge]

Years ago we had a knowledgeable HVAC technician (Jack) that had been with us for years and was a trusted employee. His wife had a good job (some kind of X-ray technician) with one of the local hospitals. She accepted a transfer to a different state in which her parents resided so naturally the tech turned in his notice with us. About that same time we had an emergency and needed a special part that was in Jack's service truck. When we pulled the part out of Jack's truck we quickly realized the inside the new box was an old defective part. And after further inspection we found lots of old parts in new boxes.

Turns out Jack was using our truck, our gasoline, & our parts to do a bit of work on the side. He kept throwing the old parts back in the new boxes within his truck to avoid being caught when inventory was taken.

From that point forward doing inventory meant that every box was to be opened.

 

[Bird]

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

They probably also told you can you provide the dates of employment; i.e., from (date) to (date), eligible for rehire or not, and that's it. I'm afraid a lot of people have no idea just how ridiculous it's gotten and how long ago it happened. Even police departments will not give any information to another police department on ex-employees. And that's been the case now for over 20 years.

 

[Soundguy]

Yep.. you're right.. date to/from and eligibility for rehire.

Soundguy

 

[RonR]

You guys are right about the legal answers on referrals.

In my former life, we got calls for referral all the time. If it was a good employee and they'd informed me about a referal request, I'd tell them "you need to call HR at xxx-xxxx and they will confirm the information. That's all I can say on the record. Personally, I've worked with ____ and found them to be................."

The one that got me was we fired a long time employee who was a female hater--said publically all women should be kept barefoot / pregnant. He was always getting into cussing arguments with other departments, and I ran interferrence for him for awhile, counseling him, etc. But I knew some day, he'd turn on me and he'd be gone.

Sure enough, he turned on me and began his cussing tirade. I calmly said "John, that's it, you're gone". He was off the program that day and out the company a short while later.

About a yr later, my boss got a call from an employer saying John _ had given her this name and number saying you would be a reference for him. Boss broke out laughing and said "You're kidding me right--John said I'd give him a reference?????????"

I think that reaction was enough for the potential employer! Boss didn't have to say anything else.

Ron

 

[Bird]

You guys are right about the legal answers on referrals.

The lawyers don't even want you giving good recommendations because they say if you do that, then not giving any recommendation for someone else implies a bad remark.

Now I'm generally a "go by the book" kind of guy, but once in awhile . . ..

Before I retired from the police department, I had a captain from a small town in Rhode Island call me one day. He had an applicant for the job of police officer, the guy was a native of that area of Rhode Island, but had been a Dallas police officer. That captain said everything looked good except he couldn't understand the guy leaving Dallas to apply with them since Dallas paid considerably more. The captain had called our Personnel Division (they call'em Human Resources now) and, even though he was a captain in another police department, Dallas wouldn't tell him anything at all except the dates the guy worked in Dallas and that he was eligible for rehire.

The Rhode Island captain called me because we had been in the same class at the FBI National Academy a year or so earlier. So I called our Personnel Division and they wouldn't even let me see the former employee's personnel records, even though I had been Commander of the Personnel Division several years earlier. However, I did learn in which division the former officer worked and who his sergeant and lieutenant were. So I contacted them. I found that the young man from Rhode Island had been a fine officer, his supervisors were sorry to lose him, and would love to have him back. But his wife was also from Rhode Island, had never been far from home until they moved to Dallas, and she insisted on moving back there, so he did.

So I violated the rules (statute of limitations has expired) and told the Rhode Island captain what I'd learned. I'm sure he hired himself a fine young officer.

 

[Richard]

Although the standard answer seems to be "Joe schmoe is (or is not) rehirable"..I think you can give more information without fear of reprisal **IF** you have your information documented.

We once had a gal that was abusing the system so I ended up keeping track of her every movement. It was full work day, hour lunch and leave at 5. She was to answer phones... sort of like ahem...a receptionist?

When her 'boss' left for what ever reason, she'd simply walk by my office and say "Dan's gone for the day so I'm leaving too"

(hmm... who's our receptionist now?)

Her "lunch" breaks ended up being 90 minutes, then 2 hours, then 4 hours if not the rest of the day.

Her paycheck of course, never reflected this absence.

I documented her activities for something like 3 months before I finally brought it up and confronted her.

She played the "crying opressed woman" theme on me but it wasn't flying.

Bottom line, she quit and by happenstance, moved away thereafter. Her new firm sent us a letter to confirm her employment and instead of answering the letter, I physically called them so I could speak to the guy (and I'll admit, have nothing in writing )

I told them of her abuses (and others I've not listed here)

In my business (securities, as in investments), you can be unemployed for 2 years and still keep your registrations. If you go unemployed for 2 years and 1 day, then you have to start from scratch & retake all the tests.

Prior to her coming to us, she'd been out for 1 year 11 months. She left us and it was 1 year 11 months before she joined this firm

I tried to tell this guy to LOOK at her history, along with what our experiences were and she was just abusing the system to keep her registrations. He would do himself AND the industry (self regulating??) a FAVOR by delaying her registration by several weeks and let her lapse.

Unfortunately, I think he had a quota to make on recruiting and hired her on the spot, which reset her 2 year clock.

She of course, is no longer there and continues to abuse the system.

 

[dieselsmoke1]

I expect lots of us have had our share of situations that boggle the mind, twist the gut, and pull at the heart strings at the same time. Hard to deal with anger, friendship, betrayal and sympathy simultaniously. You can second guess yourself batty.

 

[ToadHill]

In the late 60's I worked for a manufacturing company that had a large Maint department. All of the employees were long time workers who had at least 25 years with the company. We knew that one of them was taking copper and we had a good idea who it was.
We had not been able to catch him leaving the plant with any but he was the only one on his shift who had access to it. I called him into my office and told him that a lot of copper was missing ( over 700 lbs) and that It would be appreciated if it was returned.
We were never able to catch him taking it out but we did catch him bringing it back in.

The end of a 25 year career, with loss of benefits and pension.

 

[riptides]

Your company should offer a course or refresher on business ethics. Or at least a ten minute session on what is expected of employees.

Entitlement comes as people don't hear the right message. One has to be accountable and held accountable for ones actions.

Good luck with the rest of your crew.

-Mike Z.