Today’s Dilbert reminded me of one of my office stories.
One day I was walking back to the break room and I noticed a thick orange extension cord plugged into the wall. Someone had propped the back door open. Curious to see what was being charged, I followed the orange extension cord outside. It was an RV. A pretty good sized one too.
Turns out one of the employees was heading out on a weekend trip to the desert and thought it was a good idea to charge up his RV on the company dime. I hinted to the employee that it took guts to be so openly stealing electricity. Despite the fact California had gone through rate hikes and rolling blackouts, he didn’t seem to think charging up his RV was theft. It took all day to fully charge his vehicle.
That employee was eventually promoted to Vice President.
TigerAl
Apr 28, 2009 — 4:29 pm
The scarier part of your story is that this petty thief’s actions could have cost the company more than the electricity dollars since he was probably providing access to a secure building by propping the door open.
MAS
Apr 28, 2009 — 4:46 pm
The ironic twist to the story is our company was in the energy field. We sold services to help other companies reduce their electric consumption.