Have you ever created your own job perks?
When I was working minimum wage at a gas station many eons ago, we would have '2 for $x' specials where x is less than 2 times the individual price of whatever item.
People would often not want to buy 2, but I would ring up 2 in the till for the special price and charge them for the single. Then when the next person did the same, I would charge them for the other single.
So over the day, I would sell 10 energy drinks at say $4, but ring them up as 5 '2 for $6' specials. This would put the till up by $10, and then I would use that $10 to have a free meal.
Anyone else do anything like that?
Uhhhhh honey what you're describing is called "theft". Also known as "fraud" if you want a different name.
But to answer your question, I usually shit during working hours, so I get paid to shit. It's a great feeling.
Lol not much to lose when you're on min wage.
Haha thanks buddy
Boss gets a dollar, I get a dime. That's why I always shit on company time
The shop is getting the correct amount of money, nobody loses, nobody cares.
I guarantee some busybody middle manager would care, especially if they wanted to fire someone and were trying to find a reason.
@PeachMan wasn't saying this because they have some ethical problem with what OP is doing, they are saying this because this is technically what OP is doing, and could be held liable for if it was ever brought to the wrong persons attention.
Is it?? I get it might be bending the rules slightly, but I can hardly believe it counts as theft
Yeah, the $2 for X deal is a gimmic to increase sales. It’s the company saying “I am willing to sell these cheaper if it gives me an extra sale.” But by applying that sale price to customers it didn’t apply to, essentially you just stole a dollar from your employer every time you sold an energy drink.
I’m personally pretty forgiving of something this petty when done by someone making an unlivable wage, but it’s still theft.
Those deals are usually at the manufacturer-level, so the employer would likely be getting the same amount of money. The manufacturer would still be selling the same amount of the product, but would get less than if the items were rang up correctly.
So, for me at least, I give even less of a shit. Oh no, OP cost Nestle or whomever literally nothing but non-existent "opportunity cost"... how will they ever recover?
It’s still theft, even if you dislike the victim.
I didn't say it wasn't. I just said I don't really care.
It's actually theft by conversion.
Close, its conspiracy
Don't know whether you're kidding or not, but the defining trait of a conspiracy is that more than one person must be in on it. Lemmy being told about it doesn't count.
I don’t think that’s entirely true. Sure, conspiracies usually involve more than one person, but aren’t there crimes along the lines of “conspiracy to commit x” whereby a person acting alone can be charged for planning to commit a specific crime? I’m thinking if a person is found with tonnes of fertiliser, the blueprints to a building, a makeshift detonator and a manifesto they could be charged with conspiracy to commit mass murder, even though no one else was involved in the planning.
Nope. By definition wouldn't be a conspiracy.
TIL! Thanks for that!
You're welcome 🙂 Have a nice day!
It's a very valid reason to fire you. You'll most likely get caught when the inventory starts to be way off.
Why would the inventory be off?
Maybe OP didn't explain it well, but I would imagine that:
For the purposes of inventory, 1 drink per person is the same as 2 for every other person.
You're correct on all counts.
It won't be off though. Every bottle is accounted for. I sold 10 bottles for $40 but they are added to the till as 10 bottles for $30 at the special price.
Still illegal, at the absolute least it's tax fraud.
Not saying I care, just speaking as a matter of fact
What if you pay income tax on it?
If you never mess up, they'll probably never catch you. But you are committing a felony and if you do get caught, there are consequences. I wish you the best, truly. But you are taking a risk.
A risk 20 years ago when I was a stoner on minimum wage. It's all in the past now.
Felony? I think it's more of a misdemeanor.
Depends on how much money they take over the long term I assume.
It probably totaled less than $100.
Personally I don't care and I don't really think it's THAT unethical, but it is definitely theft. So be aware if you pull little tricks like that in the future. If you get caught, you'll DEFINITELY get fired and your employer MIGHT press charges (and they would win).
It might be more obvious if you increase the volume.
Immagine that your employer has instructed you to sell 1 bottle for $3, but you can sell a whole pallet containing 500 bottles for $1000 (coming out at $2 per bottle). So you ring up the whole pallet and pay it off over the next few days by adding $2 to the cash register and keep $1 for each sale. Over those days, you have made one single sale of a pallet, while pocketing $500.
The work hours which was meant for you to generate sales of $3 bottles has been reduced to effectively selling $2 bottles, while the remaining expected value ended in your pocket.
As others have said, I don't really care about big corporations losing out on some money, but you are 100% stealing when you reduce the expected sales value and pocket the difference during your work hours.
Per https://solink.com/resources/top-types-employee-theft/ it’s basically “Skimming”:
Your implementation sounds pretty close to the coupon version.
Are your bosses ever going to notice? Unlikely. And if they did they’d probably fire you at worst, rather than press charges.
Now, that said, if your manager or employee handbook or any other source of authority at your job says it’s okay, then it is (excepting, of course, if they explicitly tell you it isn’t) - but that’s because it’s a benefit your employer has given you rather than one you’ve taken.
Hmm similar yes. I wouldn't get fired, I would get a warning at most. We have employee protection laws here.
I own my own company, I am the sole employee. I win all the company raffles, it's great.
My wife owns a small business and I work for her. I get all kinds of perks including being able to sleep with the boss.
Nice.
I'm reporting you to HR. Is that you or your wife?
Madison in the Linus tech tips office desperately trying to answer this question, lol
The owner of the company also being the head of HR would be a conflict of interest, so you're going to have to report him to himself.
I hope you're also employee of the month every month too.
Nah, his cat won it a couple times. To be fair, she's a very effective mouser!
No, but I had a small company and asked the worker bees to define their own perks.
There were four employees. Three of them played paintball together and wanted paintballs. So I brought a case of their favorite balls into the office before their outings. The fourth guy wanted to have baby carrots to snack on. He ate ~3 lbs a week. Dude would code for hours as long as he was crunching carrots.
I couldn't have guessed what any of them wanted but they were absolutely cranked by getting it. This was a huge lesson for me: ask people what they want.
That's an excellent idea!
I want to go back to bed, boss.
That is playing with fire my dude. and i'm someone who slits the throats of businesses to make jobs tennable for myself and customers.
Uhaul for example...I dont give two fucks if you committed a heist with one of their trucks and there was blood and bullet holes upon check it. ill just mark it in the system as prior damage and uhaul sends a mechanic to fix it. done...some uhual dealers are fucking douches tho, you'll know because of the 'prior damage' stickers all over. fuck those gougers. Its free money for no effort, no reason to jam the customer up or take more time out of my day 'inspecting'. that's the job of uhauls mechanics.
When I was the Buyer for a chain of bike shops I basically became like a co-owner. I managed to link up all of the point of sale systems merge all the preseason ordering so that it was centralized and I could negotiate better terms on inventory. I managed all data entry and got the system unified so that it was easy to search our stores and available products from distributors. I took on responsibilities and improved the place well enough that I set my own hours and could do whatever I wanted. I was the boss but without any people drama responsibilities. I could set other peoples schedules and arrange for anyone I wanted to work with, but like I never told people what to do or had any of the negatives of managing. Like, "I am just doing X, Y, and Z today and if you'd like to help, come join me, otherwise I'll do it myself." Working with me, my style, and taking on responsibility without being told is how people got a pay bump. No one ever talked about it, but if I asked for someone to work with me across a couple of schedules, the owner bumped their pay. I loved that I could work a few hours before the shop opened or a few after it closed and have the whole place to myself. If I wanted to do a weekday race or it was just a nice day for a ride, I just left and went riding. I picked my demo bike and custom gear to ride and constantly got new stuff given to me. It was a fun life more than a job. The pay sucked, but it was fun.
That sounds like a dream job except for the pay.
I used to work at a place on an hourly wage. There were two PCs you would clock in on. Most of the time, people would just use the one. But one time, I had to use the other. And I noticed the clock was behind on the other. By about ten minutes.
So after that, I would clock in on the computer showing the prior time stamp, and clock out on the computer with accurate time. Ten minutes a day, five days a week, for a whole summer? About a free $100
Nice!! That's the kind of perk I like.
sorry to burst your bubble but if there were two PCs capable of clocking you in, then 99% it wasn't either of them keeping track of the time, but rather a separate server they were connected to
I've worked in IT. You are most likely correct, and anyone with any sense would do it that way, but I would absolutely believe that someone could be incompetent enough to use the computer's time stamp. I also wouldn't be surprised if users had access to change the clock.
You underestimate how shitty most software is written.
I've absolutely used timecard software that used the local device time instead of using a centralized time source.
I wasn't really sure that it would work, but I checked my paycheck and it seemed to be working. This was in 2006 at a country club. So it's not shocking that a) they had a paid some nobodies to give them a bad time keeping software and b) it was designed to not need the internet.
So we simplified the whole thing. We rounded them all down, dropped the remainder into an account only we have access to. It's like Superman III.
Looks like someone has a case of the Mondays.
PC Load Letter?! WTF does that mean?!
Afternoon naps at my old job (working from home). My boss knew, but he didn't care as long as I got my 40 hours in at some point in the week.
I worked at a restaurant that had a contest once for which server could sell the most orange juice. At the time, sodas were $0.99 and orange juice was $1.98. So, any time a table ordered 2 sodas, I'd ring it up as 1 orange juice. I won by a landslide. The customers would occasionally ask why their receipt had orange juice, but I'd just explain it's the same price as the 2 sodas, and that was the end of it.
Whoever was doing inventory must have been so confused.
Nah, they'll just fix the excess inventory with another contest! It worked really well last time!
I steal time constantly and no one seems to notice or care. Take a two hour lunch break, leave early and punch out electronically hours later... I get paid nothing but at least I can spend more time with my family and videogames.
Productivity at my job is quantifiable. I play video games all day working at home, watch stuff all day (usually King of the Hill), shower whenever, nap every day…
And I still do twice the work of the next person down from me. It’s insanity. Some days I do the same amount of work as everyone else COMBINED. It’s daft.
The other job perk I created was when I was suddenly made redundant and the whole business went under the day before payday, I left with $30 worth of tools in my pocket and a mug.
I worked at a gas station selling hot dogs, baguettes and baked goods. I was told to not eat or take the leftover food at the end of the day, but knowing where the cameras was, I consistently grabbed a few items at the end of the shift. They would be spoiled by the next day anyway, so who would care.
Looking back, I understand the policy. The policy is there to ensure that employees dont overproduce towards the end of the shift. Without even realizing, I totally consistently ensured that there was a few extra items at the ready.
It was totaly theft. Even though I didn't realize what I was doing at the time.
Naaaah I wouldn’t call that theft. That’s your employer subsidizing your meals.
Also a great hack to lower your personal rate of inflation.
absolutely. I work at a phone/computer repair shop.
I have a policy called the "front desk fix policy". pretty much, if I can fix it at the front desk in under a few minutes, I'm not charging you for it. common culprits are simple software fixes and charging port cleanings.
I give free screen protectors with every repair instead of charging customers for it. the screen is the expensive part not the screen protector.
I also tend to give a 10$ discount if people are just cool to talk with. if we genuinely enjoy talking to each other, they've made my day better, so I might as well do the same for them.
I think this is kind of the opposite of what OP was asking about.
What "perks" did people create for themselves?
Good karma generator?
hm. yeah I def read that wrong. more on point I can get any part I need for my own repairs very cheap through our wholesalers so that's a good perk I guess
When I worked at the window of a national pizza chain, if you paid in cash and told me to "keep the change," I'd mark your order as cancelled and pocket the whole bill.
I still feel shitty about it but I was making $7/hr as a college student and it sure beat my AM selling pressed pills from the backdoor after close
Don't feel bad. You stole $10. The CEO probably stole $100 million.
ay dont diss ceo they probably worked hard to steal that money
Not quite like this. But I started my own business so I (and anyone who works for me) can work to outcomes as opposed to butt in chair hours. I hate sitting around after completing my work just because I have to get an 8 hour day - who cares how long I work if the work gets done.
This is similar to what I thought in response when I read the question, "I created my own job. Perks!" I don't have to come in early and found I really enjoy working in the middle of the night. All kinds of freedoms, but also all the responsibility. I also found I'm not that great at wearing all of the hats, but that's just part of personal growth.
Ah yes. The crushing responsibility. Still worth it for me though.
I (with permission, but without oversight) take home all the broken computers, obsolete cables, and other junk from work and either:
Nothing goes to waste/landfil on my watch. Everything I sell is exceptionally cheap. If someone needs a computer but has no money, I give it.
Dude you're a fucking hero for preventing those things from going into landfill.
God, this is genius. When I worked at my hometown grocery store, I would take the prepackaged deli salads as payment for not taking my legally required lunch and eating over my 15 minute break. We'd also have to destroy any product that was damaged, so on Sunday's at the slowest point in the morning, we'd "find" damaged cinnamon roll dough and cook them in the pizza oven.
When I worked at Aldi, I'd "forget" to pay for the coffee creamer when we needed more. At the peak of the pandemic, we very happily used the store purchase perk for our groceries, even though they were meant for break time meals.
Sounds fair to me. If you have to work during your lunchbreak you're entitled to have, then they probably came out better off than you when it comes down to numbers.
Not me but when self checkouts were first a thing my friend would offer their countdown rewards card to anyone who forget there's and racked up heaps of points for free. I can't remember what the points go you except cheaper fuel.
Not really related, but I did ring up some flowers at a self checkout but instead of flowers, it rang up as a rewards card. I did tell the cashier who didn't give a shit, then went outside and used that "rewards card" to get money off my gas. I think it came out to about $1 a gallon
That's another great idea
🤯
When I worked the closing shifts at a grocery store years ago, we would go take donuts that were gonna get tossed.
My dad's friend took me out around midnight one night when I was a freshman in college. We went by a gas station that closes at midnight and the workers just gave him like 30 donuts that didn't sell. Apparently he does this at least once a week lol. They had the donuts already in a bag waiting for him when we walked in, and all knew him by name. It's a great life hack. I think the secret to making it work is actually making the workers like you. Gotta spend a few minutes for fun conversation before they give you free stuff.
That’s awesome. Just gotta build a little rapport and you’re golden. So many places throw so much food away. It’s sad. When I did Food Not Bombs years ago, we would get entire bags of leftover baked goods from a local place. They’d give us literal trash bags worth of bagels, donuts, pastries, all wrapped up. Some grocery stores have gotten strict and won’t give that stuff away anymore, but you can still find the right people that don’t give a shit about the rules.
When I worked at a motel, I got first pick of a bunch of leftover shit by taking the initiative to sort out and organize and purge of trash several months of backlogged lost crap. I don't think anybody else actually wanted all the tarot and oracle cards, but the ring light would have been wanted.
Creepy.. did anything wierd happen after you got the cards?
No? They're hardly the first tarot cards we've owned. We have several sets. They were bizarrely left with some lingerie (which I declined) the aforementioned ring light, and the absolute motherlode of gel pens. There were enough gel pens for multiple employees to take home a set and to leave some around the motel office and lobby. I still have some more than six months after I left that job.
Wow I hope you don't get caught because that would be serious, manipulating item prices without authorization. Maybe gas station management is more lenient but I personally wouldn't bet on it.
It was 2 decades ago, I'm not worried.
Definitely no reason to be worried now, but I probably wouldn't do that again. Worst case you could be arrested for it.
I won't be working a minimum wage job again this lifetime, so no worries.
King Missile has a nice song called Take Stuff from Work.
__
^posted^ ^from^ ^work^
This is quite clever.
To be honest if you agreed to cover the cost of the drink if the day ended on a odd number of cans. I reckon you should have at it, it’s a good little bonus incentive.
Just in case anyone around their first job is reading this, many businesses would consider this theft
You can always go the safe route:
Ask the customer if they want to go halves with you on the deal instead of buying the single. You both get a cheaper drink. The store gets more money. Good customer service. No harm no foul.
Sure. But probably don't do it in the energy drink case. At least not several ones each workday 😳🙃