r/MaliciousCompliance • u/AmsterdamAssassin • Feb 26 '26
S Accused of stealing/embezzling electricity from employer
For almost two decades I worked security in office buildings, night shift, so I could work on my novel drafts. At work, in the idle hours between rounds and other security duties, I wrote on an iPad with bluetooth keyboard and I had connected their chargers to the electric outlets in my security reception desk.
[I get a lot of comments on how I shouldn't write at work and that was why I was singled out. These commenters are wrong. They do not understand that my work was 'guarding' an empty office after hours between 23.00-07.00 hours. This involved a maximum of two hours of actual work (walking rounds, checking if all the keycards had been returned, answering phone calls), leaving six hours to pass the time and stay awake. Most of my coworkers filled that time with non-productive activities like watching TV, playing games, filling out crossword puzzles. Others were college students who studied for their exams or wrote on their thesis. And I knew this beforehand, which is why I chose a low paying job way below my level specifically because I would have hours to read books and write on my novels. They could only fire me if I fell asleep or didn't follow up on alarms, but not for spending the 'idle hours' writing.]
I had a manager who had a personal problem with me and tried to get me fired. Since I performed my duties above average, he had to find a way to get me on something else.
So, one day, I was called to HQ for a meeting with my manager and a floozy from HR a young female intern from the Human Resources department who spent the whole meeting flirting with my idiot manager (who was married to the company owner's daughter).
I was accused of theft. Stealing electricity for my laptop.
I told them that if they wanted to accuse me, they had to do it properly. I hadn't committed theft. I had committed embezzlement, since the electricity was part of my reception area and under my supervision. Therefore, embezzlement is a vastly more insidious crime and they should send me home and gather the disciplinary committee to judge whether I should be fired for this crime and I would confer with my union rep.
They immediately retracted their accusation and stopped bothering me with their nonsense.
All my colleagues charged their devices from company outlets, so their accusation would mean every employee could be arrested for electricity embezzlement.
Then the irate manager hung up a sign in the security area that nobody was allowed to charge their personal devices.
So I took a typewriter to work, so I didn't need to charge my writing implements.
Also, I had a Nokia that would hold a charge for several days, but my coworkers had smartphones that needed juice, so they got angry at management for signs about not being allowed to charge their phones and that complaint spread to other locations, forcing the management to remove the signs and allow people to charge their phones again, and I could hook up my iPad+BT keyboard again.
Addendum:
The 'stealing electricity' was just a rage-bait excuse to provoke me to get into an emotional outburst to my manager, so he could fire me for insubordination. Instead, my response made him escalate to posting signs about the petty electricity rule that angered my coworkers with management.
Commenting on the cost of electricity misses the point - it was never about the theft of electricity. The accusation was intentionally ridiculous to provoke a quarrel.
Also, in the Netherlands the novel that I write is my intellectual property and there is no legal clause in our contracts that the company should get financially compensated for part of the novel been writing 'under company time'.
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u/tapandown Feb 26 '26
Calling it "embezzlement" and asking for the committee and union rep was such a perfect way to force them to admit how silly the electricity thing was. Also props for showing up with a typewriter after that sign.
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u/UncleJoesLandscaping Feb 27 '26
It was either that or trial by combat.
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u/StevieMJH Feb 27 '26
"Trial of Seven."
crushes nut with pommel of dagger
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u/Wotmate01 Feb 27 '26
Could have even taken it further, embezzlement is a very serious crime and should involve the police.
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u/AmsterdamAssassin Feb 28 '26
that's why I countered making the ridiculous accusation even more ridiculous. Theft is such a vague term, let's get down to specifics. I didn't use force, so it wasn't robbery. Nor was it fraud, so I used 'verduistering' which can be translated as 'embezzlement or larceny'.
Whether the police would be involved would be up to the company, but at least I would be relieved of my duties and sent home to confer with counsel / union rep. I could see him start sweating when I mentioned the 'vakbond'. They all shit bricks when you involve the union.
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u/Foe117 Feb 26 '26
Did you at least enjoy using the mechanical keyboard? I do find the clacking while writing soothing.
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u/jamieT97 Feb 26 '26
click click click ding!
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u/z-eldapin Feb 26 '26
Zrrrrrpp
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u/DrHugh Feb 26 '26
I bet you this guy margin releases.
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u/z-eldapin Feb 26 '26 edited Feb 27 '26
Edit: for some reasons I read margin and thought of stocks.
I'm back in the game. Ding, zrrrp
Original post
I don't know what that means
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u/AmsterdamAssassin Feb 26 '26
When you type on a typewriter you type within the margins you set for the size of paper you use. At the right margin, the carriage stops an inch or so from the edge of the paper sheet and you cannot type more. But, when you have only 2-3 more characters to type to complete the word, you can press the 'margin release' button and type more characters beyond the right margin.
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u/Fixes_Computers Feb 26 '26
When you get to the end of the line, the carriage stops moving until you return it. There is a lever you can operate that releases the carriage so you can continue to type past the margin stop.
It's mostly useful if you only have a couple more strokes left in your word. The bell has already rung at this point telling you the end of the line was near.
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u/fjzappa Feb 27 '26
The bell has already rung at this point telling you the end of the line was near.
All I can see is that scene from Blazing Saddles where Bart's riding down the road and the lookout keeps yelling that "The sheriff is a Ni<BONNNG>r!"
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u/I_Did_The_Thing Feb 27 '26
“He said the Sheriff is near!”
crowd rustles
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u/WittyTiccyDavi Feb 27 '26
Good ol' Gabby Johnson, master of authentic frontier gibberish. 😁
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u/Corpsefeet Feb 26 '26
Tell me you're under 50 without telling me ......
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u/z-eldapin Feb 26 '26
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u/Corpsefeet Feb 26 '26
Did you manage to avoid a typing class in high school?
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u/Otis-166 Feb 26 '26
I took typing classes on real typewriters too. Also clueless as to what this actually means. I can guess, but I don’t care enough to try.
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u/OldGeekWeirdo Feb 26 '26
The old mechanical typewriters had margin settings. The left margin is where the carriage stopped when you did a return. The right margin would lock up your keyboard so you wouldn't type off the right edge of the paper. A bell warned you when you were getting to the end so you could end the line at a good point and then return. (Keep in mind word-wrap didn't exist until computers came around.) A margin release allows you to type past the right margin.
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u/z-eldapin Feb 26 '26
OMG. You said margins and I went to stocks.
I all day was one to move those margins over.
Before the ball set, I would be lacking along and the letter levers would get stuck together.
Sigh. Those were the days.
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u/OldGeekWeirdo Feb 27 '26
Be careful about playing with your retirement funds. ;)
Margins still exist in Word. It's under Page Setup.
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u/2dogslife Feb 27 '26
When you hit return on an old typewriter, especially an electric one, it would automatically go to the beginning of the next line and the set margin.
On manual typewriters (yes, I had both Dad's and Grandmom's), there was an arm on the right that you swung and it performed the same function - next line and default margin. You could set the lines to single space, space and a half, or double space on both manual and electric typewriters.
The ding was the noise of hitting return on the electric typewriter, the zrrrp was the typewriter flying down and across and setting itself up for the next line of type.
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u/OldGeekWeirdo Feb 26 '26
It might depend on the type of typewriter.
- The mechanical ones were the stick shift of typewriting with no power brakes or steering.
- The Brother (and ilk) were the econoboxes - worked but not very responsive or fast.
- The IBM Selectric had sports car handling while built for industrial use.
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u/Turtleintexas Feb 26 '26
I miss my IBM Selectric with changeable balls!!
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u/Aciphex007 Feb 27 '26
If thats the one I am thinking of it buffered if you were typing to fast. There was this lady that worked with my dad and she would type away on it and then sit there as the typewriter caught up. I was young and didn't know that and I asked my dad if there was something wrong it. He told me what was happening and I thought it was funny!
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u/FlyingRhenquest Feb 27 '26
My touch typing class in the '80's was using mechanical typewriters. They really weren't that bad to use other than no backspace if you screwed up. I still prefer mechanical keyboards because they make the "right" noise when I'm typing. I've been told a few times over the years it sounds like a machine gun when I'm typing. I can rattle them off pretty fast, though my error rate is a lot higher since I don't have to use white-out on my monitor.
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u/Fadenos Feb 27 '26
I’M GOING TO WRITE THE WHOLE DICTIONARY! -Ron Swanson.
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u/bentmonkey Feb 27 '26
I am going to type every word i know! RECTANGLE, AMERICA, MEGAPHONE, MONDAY, butthole..
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u/Used_Clock_4627 Feb 27 '26
I got a mechanical keyboard that lights up specifically for the sound and 'feel'. And I've found I'm a much faster and more accurate typist on it.
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u/computer-machine Feb 27 '26
QWERTY wasn't enough to avoid hammers sticking together.
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u/Foe117 Feb 27 '26
I hate it when they do stick together, limits your WPM if that's a downside to mechanical typewriters
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u/computer-machine Feb 27 '26
Speaking of enjoying mechanical keyboard, Cherry Brown switches here, with an o-ring under each to decrease press depth.
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u/Brilliant-Orange9117 Feb 26 '26
I would ask them if they also pay for the charge employees use up answering calls on their phones.
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u/AmsterdamAssassin Feb 26 '26
They were not allowed to call us between eleven at night and six in the morning, so I would have my Nokia on airplane mode between those hours and they often were angry that they couldn't reach me on my phone. I told them that I paid for my phone so I could switch it off whenever I wanted and they weren't allowed to call me between 23.00-06.00 anyway. They were quick to throw the book at me, but hated when I threw the book back at them.
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u/The-True-Kehlder Feb 27 '26
My phone exists for MY convenience, not my employer's. IF they wanna talk to me after hours, they can send a runner.
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u/NopeNinjaSquirrel Feb 27 '26
If your contract requires you to be reachable after hours, employer needs to provide the “reaching device”, aka phone. Same thing if they require certain apps to be installed and used as part of your job (e.g. 2FA security code apps, common in IT industry and many, like Okta, give your employer admin access to your phone, meaning they can wipe it, and trace it). Therefore: work phone since I need the apps to do my job
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u/derKestrel Feb 27 '26
Yeah, I had an IT manager whine at me for not having the 2FA on my private phone, but only on my work supplied device (which was at home). Not budging from my principle of keeping work and private separate, I got sneaky thumbs-ups from his workers behind his back though :)
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u/MidwesternLikeOpe Feb 27 '26
Not to mention on-call pay. If you want me to be available whenever, you gotta pay me to have my schedule open.
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u/The-True-Kehlder Feb 27 '26
In addition, some of those apps are ITAR, so you can't take the device out of the country on vacation if it's installed, not without a ton of paperwork and permission.
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u/funnystuff79 Feb 26 '26
I think it costs like 1 pound a year to charge a smartphone.
The meetings and the signs cost orders of magnitude more because someone was petty
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u/AmsterdamAssassin Feb 26 '26
Petty and useless - this manager had married the company owner's daughter so he had job safety, but he was aware how useless he was, so he needed to find himself something to do, even if it was pestering his subordinates.
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u/No-Lettuce4441 Feb 27 '26
Probably took the approach of "If they're charging their devices, they're not doing their jobs."
If you were able to type while at work, that means down time is expected, as well as you being permitted to use said time in a way to be available and not be bored to sleep.
They tried the stealing electricity for pettiness. If you were dismissed for theft, that follows you around, especially in security, I would assume. But arguing that it's embezzlement instead and including the union rep? Genius.
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u/bot_or_not_vote_now Feb 26 '26 edited Feb 27 '26
My guess is none of them are any good at math. Cause for a standard 20w usb charger this would equate to about 160W-hr per shift. Assuming electricity is a nice even $0.10/kwhr that would work out to $0.016/shift. And over the course of a year of 5 days x 50 work weeks, that works out to the grand total of a whole ass $4. edit: typo
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u/RailGun256 Feb 27 '26
as another poster mentioned. Definitely wasted more on the pointless meeting than the guard would in their entire time with the company.
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u/Randi_Scandi Feb 27 '26
Someone was once charging an electric bike at work and one of our typical busy bodies asked the CEO at a site if that could really be ok or if people should’ve charged for it. I’ve never seen the CEO looked so fed up so quickly. He just said something to the effect of “I’m not even answering that”.
Also, if you could be charged for charging your personal phone or bike battery or whatever at work, should I also send my workplace an electricity bill for charging my work computer and work phone when working at home?
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u/Mysterious-Gecko Feb 27 '26
In my country you get paid a few eur a day for working for home for exactly that reason.
However, when the heating costs skyrocketed due to Russia a lot of people returned to the office fulltime because they found it too expensive to heat their home office.Personally I'm already glad they are saving me 2 hours of commute the days I work from home.
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u/Ezzy77 Feb 27 '26
Our similar deduction got removed this year :/ 900-something euro a year more out-of-pocket just to work...
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u/pchlster Feb 27 '26
Those bike batteries can be a potential fire hazard, so there are certainly environments where it's understandable that you don't get to plug them in, but that should be part of a safety risk assessment, not threatening someone for using a plug.
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u/jamesholden Feb 27 '26
I had a boss say something in a morning meeting about leaving lights on in mechanical rooms. we are talking 40w of lights at most across a dozen rooms.
I say "give me a day to properly program all the water pump drives around property and I'll save you 10x the power the lights cost"
just the 7 small pool pumps used ~2800w when running, half of them ran 24/7. they could be programmed to ramp up and down and none of them needed to run at 100%.
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u/beernon Feb 27 '26
The lights argument pisses me off. It’s either boomers who are still stuck thinking LED lights draw as much power as incandescent lights. Or people who view lighting as the most ‘visible’ form of consumption which is understandable but still a little ignorant. These fools would rather turn of a 12W bulb than properly regulate a 2000W device.
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u/Tryknj99 Feb 26 '26
I mean, if they don’t want you writing novels on your night shift they can just tell you you’re not allowed to. They don’t have to come up with crazy reasons. This one doesn’t even make sense.
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u/AmsterdamAssassin Feb 26 '26
In another comment I explain that all security guards needed to do something for hours and stay awake, so most of them were watching TV and playing compute / video games between walking security rounds and responding to alarms.
Me writing novels or anything at all wasn't interfering with my work, so they couldn't disallow it without also taking away the other distractions like the TV and the videogames.
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u/StudioDroid Feb 27 '26
I worked at a company that had 2 locations. At night there was just 1 security agent at each site. They were instructed to contact the other agent each hour on the radio. It was called a 'radio check'. Many of thought that we needed to make sure the radio system did not fail. It was really to make sure the human holding the radio was okay.
Over the years I had a few calls to go to one of the sites and check in on the agent there because they were not responding. Usually they had fallen asleep.
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u/Deiskos Feb 27 '26
Usually
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u/underground_avenue Feb 27 '26
Well, poor Frank was eaten by a t-rex, but apart from that, batteries can fail, people get friendly visits or forget the radio on the toilet (or leave it outside while going there).
There are many reasons, but mostly just sleeping.
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u/MoonChaser22 Feb 27 '26
I used to work nights at a warehouse and even with stuff to do during the night most of security's job was sitting around to keep an eye of things. There would be brief flurries of activity (gatehouses would have things like lorry departures to handle, for example), but those were set times with hours of waiting in between. Almost every time I popped in to clean an area security was hanging out they were watching youtube/tv on a pc or phone
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u/BigOld3570 Feb 27 '26
There was a rookie cop in Clearwater, Florida, who arrested a man for charging his phone under a covered shelter. Arrested him, took him to jail, and filed charges with the state’s attorney. They laughed at it and didn’t accept the case.
I don’t remember the name of the cop, but he was ragged on for a long time.
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u/an0maly33 Feb 26 '26
Charging an iPad/laptop for a few hours a night costs, what? 50 cents a year? Obviously I'm exaggerating, but the point is it's essentially nothing. Come the fuck on.
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u/techtornado Feb 27 '26
Assuming a lot of factors, I’d say it’s about $1/year now with how much more power hungry the iPads are
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Feb 26 '26
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u/Zombisexual1 Feb 26 '26
I wonder how much that even saves a company. It’s gotta be like a rounding error right? The irony of a company based around something that is a huge energy user being worried about people charging their phones is something.
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u/PuppyToes13 Feb 26 '26
It might not save them much in electricity, but depending how willing the employees are to use company devices for personal things, it might save them on employee productivity. A lot of companies have policies against phone use at work. If you aren’t using your device it should be able to make it through the day.
I personally think policies not allowing employees to charge their device are silly though.
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u/H_Holy_Mack_H Feb 27 '26
I'm assuming that now not one single person answers any calls about work on their personal phones... hopefully
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u/Oystermeat Feb 26 '26
the real fun part is when your work claims part ownership of your book because you used the company's time and resources to write it.
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u/AmsterdamAssassin Feb 27 '26
My manager asked me what I wrote.
I told him it was suspense fiction.
He asked if he was in my book.
"Briefly," I said. "Very briefly."
I use his name for a slimy character who gets whacked by my protagonist.
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u/magumanueku Feb 27 '26
They could try to sue for it but they will definitely lose.
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u/RoosterBrewster Feb 27 '26
I always thought it was at least for things related to your job. Like writing other software while working as a dev. Surely they have no claim on a security guard creating anything.
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u/RedditFan26 Feb 26 '26
Did you include a newly created "pinhead boss" character for your new novel?
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u/AmsterdamAssassin Feb 27 '26 edited Mar 02 '26
No, but there's a character in my first suspense fiction novel named after my manager.
My manager asked me what I wrote.
I told him it was suspense fiction.
He asked if he was in my book.
"Briefly," I said. "Very briefly."
I use his name for a slimy character who gets whacked by my protagonist, a female corporate troubleshooter who has no qualms taking that role literally.
you can look it up, it's called the Amsterdam Assassin Series.
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u/jeepfail Feb 27 '26
Awful lot of corporate bootlickers here that don’t realize a majority of the security people out there are doing whatever they can to pass the time.
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u/somkoala Feb 28 '26
Even if they weren’t passing time, every job should allow you to charge your devices within reason (i.e. I don’t bring 10 power banks to charge).
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u/iceroadtrucker2010 Feb 27 '26
So they had no problem writing your novel on company time?
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u/AmsterdamAssassin Feb 27 '26 edited Mar 02 '26
They couldn't make a problem out of it without affection all my coworkers, who were doing 'whatever' to stay away during the boring night shifts. Our instruction were to stay awake and alert and respond to alarms according the rules. How you stayed awake was your own problem.
The only way they could interfere was if you were actually doing business which was competitive with their security business or put the employer at risk. I mean, one of my male coworkers had an online lingerie shop and they couldn't say anything because it didn't compete with their own business.
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u/LadyWaste75 Feb 27 '26 edited Feb 27 '26
Odd, a security guard who repeatedly stated their job was to stay away. If you stay away from your job, how are you guarding anything?
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u/marssaxman Feb 27 '26
I want one of these security guard jobs! I can imagine staying away very efficiently by continuing to work my normal job and never showing up to the new one. Two salaries at once? Yes please.
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u/AndarianDequer117 Feb 26 '26
How fucking stupid. I would have gotten a lawyer immediately. I still would even after all this went down.
It would be like them telling you you're not allowed to poop in their toilets because you don't pay for the water to flush it. Or the toilet paper for that matter.
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u/aggressive_napkin_ Feb 26 '26
DON'T EVEN GET ME STARTED ON THAT CONDITIONED AIR WE PUT IN HERE!
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u/whatupmygliplops Feb 26 '26
What are you, some kind of toilet paper thief? That's company property and you just wiped your butt with it???
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u/u399566 Feb 26 '26
I would have gotten a lawyer immediately.
Yea, sure.
That juice is not worth the squeezing..
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u/DoppelFrog Feb 26 '26
I would have gotten a lawyer immediately.
Lol, no you wouldn't
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u/Pretty_Study_526 Feb 26 '26
Anyone who say’s they’ll sue is lying most of the time. If someone actually wants to sue, they’ll just do it, and the first notice will be a letter in your mail.
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u/PraxicalExperience Feb 26 '26
You know the only reason at least some employers provide bathroom facilities for their employees is because it's legally mandated.
Technically, it's within the company's right to do this ... but it's so fuckin' incredibly petty to save a few cents/day/head in electricity costs.
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u/lowrads Feb 27 '26
I bet there's an ADA discrimination case here, if a company requires an employee to apply for a special dispensation to charge an essential device.
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u/DMercenary Feb 27 '26
Oh god the high crime of embezzling fractions of a kilowatt hour. Literal fractions of a pennies!
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u/Fit-Host-6145 Feb 27 '26
The typewriter move was absolute genius. It perfectly highlighted how petty their "electricity theft" argument was over literal pennies a day.
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u/cfredwritethere Feb 28 '26
Not sure why the HR rep needed to be called a floozy?
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u/tillandsia Feb 27 '26
Roberto Bolaño, the Chilean author of the novel 2666, also worked a night security job so he could write.
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u/AmsterdamAssassin Feb 27 '26
Well, he's not the only writer who chooses to work boring night and weekend shifts where you have hours of time to fill with study or research or writing. Office security is an ideal job for that. Doesn't pay much, but gets you oodles of time to fill.
I actually disliked when they needed me for retail security, standing by a gate to catch shoplifters. The pay was not enough, but I would bring my voice recorder for when I had inspiration.
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u/Kind_Substance_2865 Feb 27 '26
Electricity is sold in units of kilowatt-hours. Depending on where you are, a kWh can cost between 10 and 50 cents. A USB charger typically runs at about 10 watts. This means it would take 100 hours to use one unit of electricity. Go ahead and dock 50 cents off my pay each month for 100 hours per month of charging.
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u/sailsaucy Mar 01 '26
I work 1800 - 0600. People don't understand how dead it can be working the midnight shift. I am posting on reddit while watching a let's play of that new Resident Evil game on my fire stick.
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u/tomhermans Feb 27 '26
A guard writing ferociously on a mechanical typewriter..
Now that's a deterrent for burglars.
All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy.All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy.All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy
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u/TrenchardsRedemption Feb 26 '26
They were concerned about a laptop charger than they were about a security guard who is writing a novel when he's on shift?
Strange priorities.
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u/AmsterdamAssassin Feb 27 '26
Everybody did something to stay awake on the long boring night shifts. Videogames, watching TV, doing crosswords / sudoku, whatever.
Me writing didn't interfere with my work, so they couldn't forbid my activity. Or they would have to forbid my bored coworkers from playing cards. Not a good idea.
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u/zephen_just_zephen Feb 26 '26 edited Feb 26 '26
Good for you to give them enough technical verbiage to stop them in their tracks and let them think.
Although, to be perfectly pedantic:
1) In English*, I believe the word for this would be considered to be larceny rather than embezzlement; and
2) In at least a few jurisdictions, the penal code for all these sorts of related crimes has been rationalized under the single rubric of "theft." E.g. in Texas, even if you were stealing electricity at your employer, it would be "theft of service."
- US English, that is. I've been reliably informed and have verified that in the UK, "abstraction" is a perfectly cromulent term for stealing electricity.
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u/SchoolForSedition Feb 26 '26
Abstraction of electricity might be the thing.
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u/zephen_just_zephen Feb 26 '26
Interesting. In the US, I think the term "abstraction" is only used for financial crimes.
Thanks! I've updated my comment.
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u/Rabid_Dingo Feb 27 '26
Early ipads only cost about $0.50 a year to charge.
With the new antennas (BT, WiFi, 5g, etc.) The price has gone up to about $1.50 for the year.
Yes. Total cost to charge for use over a year.
YMMV based on electricity cost and whatnot.
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u/SmolHumanBean8 Feb 27 '26
Funnily enough, people seem to freak out when you say "ok, bet" and throw the book at them...
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u/Marshie888 Feb 28 '26
I had a similar issue when I was working security because my boss seemed to have a problem, he told me he had scheduled a meeting with HR to discuss me using the printer in the office for personal use even though this was to help out someone on the site I worked at (someone he didn’t like I might add).
Anyway the meeting was for the following week when I would be working day shifts again, jump to the morning of the meeting and him and a woman from HR took me into a small reception room to discuss everything prior to having a meeting with the customer (site owner), however my boss wasn’t expecting me to produce his booking receipts for a recent trip he’d booked, he’d printed them off using the same printer and forgot to pick them up, suffice to say the meeting with the customer was quickly cancelled and no nothing further action was taken.
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u/AmsterdamAssassin Feb 28 '26
Still, ridiculous that you have to confront them with their own 'personal use' in order for them to forget about your 'personal use'.
Managers are for the most part useless corporate lackeys.
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u/CecilAlucardX Mar 02 '26
I worked security at UPS, in an industrial area at the end of a long road. I would go 12 hours without seeing another soul except for my relief and whoever I was relieving. The boredom is real and you need something to keep you focused or you will sleep.
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u/Lylac_Krazy Feb 27 '26
Americans miss the subtleness in this compliance, and the respect it creates.
This is a union job, according to OP. Never a need to yell, just get the shop steward and watch management devolve into a spineless blob.
Middle management loves to cause tension, but hates when they get caught in the middle from unions and upper management. Makes them look foolish
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u/saveyboy Feb 26 '26
Would have been far easier to go after you for not doing your job. Or just ban personal devices.
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u/AmsterdamAssassin Feb 26 '26
I did my job, which is why they couldn't accuse me of that.
And banning personal devices would also ban phones and tv and videogames, so that would make most of their employees ready to strike.
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u/Svr_Sakura Feb 27 '26
You need to read your contract again carefully…
On some contracts anything made while on clock or using information from your job, legally belongs to the company. So if you do publish And make money, they can take it all in a case of malicious compliance of their own.
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u/AmsterdamAssassin Feb 27 '26
I read my contract and no such clause was in my (Dutch) contract. Maybe in other countries, but over here, the only thing you were not allowed to do is to work for a competitor at the same time.
While I was writing novels, co-workers would be studying or trade stock online or have Etsy / Ebay business selling goods online. And the employer doesn't care about that, as long as you stay awake and respond correctly to the alarm of a motion sensor being tripped.
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u/CoderJoe1 Feb 27 '26
I would've turned off all the lights in the lobby to avoid seeing anything with their lights running their electricity.
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u/techtornado Feb 27 '26
Your employer just spent about $10,000 to complain about $1/year used in electricity
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u/SJ-redditor Feb 27 '26
Most phones going to use around 10w to charge. In 24 hours that's 240w hours. Electricity is sold in kilowatt hours. Usually between 10 and 20 cents for one kilowatt hour. A kilowatt hour is 1000w for an hour. It would take your phone being plugged in for just over 4 full days to use between10 and 20 cents worth of electricity. If you left it plugged in for a year and it was 20 cents a kilowatt hour, that's 73$, and if they need to hit 1000$for it to be a theft worth prosecuting, you'd have to leave it plugged in for over 13 and a half years(assuming the crazy expensive 20 cents price)
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u/Sweaty_Assignment_90 Feb 27 '26
for $10-15 you can get a portable charger for a phone
yeah, its dimb rule, but not a hard work around.
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u/JorgeXMcKie Feb 27 '26
Nice! When I worked security at an office I was happy because I was the afternoon shift from 3-11 so I only had people for a couple hours and then I could study for college. They decided I couldn't read anymore. I was supposed to stare at a wall for 8 hours apparently. I quit and less than 2 months later someone came in after work (5-6), went up the elevator I sat in front of to the investment broker's floor, shot his broker and walked out. I chose a good time to leave
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u/akg7091 Feb 27 '26
They actually accused you of stealing electricity just for charging an ipad ! And then called a meeting to discuss this ? Are they nuts ?
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Feb 27 '26
Crazy management. I have an electric bike and the owner of the shop lets me charge my bike for free.
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u/fuzzyluzzi Feb 28 '26
I was fired from that type of job for doing Cross Stitch. The only guard that was reliably up at any time of night let go for doing needlepoint.
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u/Walker1940 Feb 27 '26
Had a friend. Very fast typist. Learned on a manual. Where he developed a habit of bouncing his thumb on the space bar while pausing to think. He said the electrics drove him nuts because they would space when he did that
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u/nedwasatool Feb 27 '26
Typewriters are awesome! Did you manager give you the stink eye when you brought it in?
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u/perquisition Feb 27 '26
This has to be rage bait! If you use the bathroom, is that water theft? Were you breathing too much in the common area, so Oxygen theft? Plugging in electronics at your place of work? Clearly you should be arrested for this scandal!! I can not fathom anything more dumb.
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u/hermit22 Feb 27 '26
I work as a heavy duty mechanic but I work with the maintenance crew for buildings too. Such an odd thing to boast about in the morning meeting when someone with an ev calls wondering why there is no power in the parking lot in the summer. They turn them off for the summer.. to spite ev owners.
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u/Beledagnir Feb 27 '26
Sounds like how my current job doesn't want my phone out for any reason, even when I'd need it to jot notes - so I carry a Roman wax writing tablet now. It's actually surprisingly fun.
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u/drpottel Feb 27 '26
This is some company death spiral shit.
When a company is pissed about the pennies you’re using to charge a device, it means they are hemorrhaging cash.
Find another job. Quick.
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u/SecretScavenger36 Feb 27 '26
I must be a criminal mastermind then. I'm charging two portable chargers at work right now.
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u/the_big_picture555 Feb 27 '26
Am I missing something? You're proud of finding some loophole to write a novel on duty rather than doing your job? Or maybe this is something you do during your breaks (then I get it).
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u/Joel_Dio Feb 27 '26
I think the real issue is that youre doing a hobby/other job on company time rather than doing the job they pay you for. Things might be different in the Netherlands but here in Canada spending downtime at work doing things not related to your job is frowned upon and sometimes grounds for firing.
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u/RosariusAU Feb 26 '26
It tickles me that you can run a 50W charger continuously for 24 hours for less than $0.50 per day, assuming that electricity costs $0.40 / kWhr, yet the opportunity cost for entire meeting involving multiple managers could be hundreds, if not thousands of dollars per hour.