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29 March 2024

From USBs to mobiles, office pilfering has UAE workers in a tizzy

Published
By Bindu Suresh Rai

We’ve all done it: ‘borrowed’ a pen that was never returned; refilled our staplers with a colleague’s staple pins; or simply walked away with a pair of scissors and snipped away that incident from our memory banks.

The menace of office pilfering is not new to UAE residents, with a recent spot poll by Emirates 24|7 of 100 respondents came back with the results that one out of every five persons has reportedly done at least two of the above mentioned incidents.

Meanwhile, 32 others admitted to helping themselves to a USB stick found abandoned on a colleague’s table and ‘forgetting’ to return them; 18 out of those admitted to doing this on purpose in retaliation to their colleagues doing the same level of pilfering with their items.

Almost 50 per cent of respondents stated they have schooled themselves into a habit of locking away their items in the desk drawer before leaving the office at the end of work day; however, 14 confessed that they have ‘helped themselves at least once’ to stationary items by opening up drawers that haven’t be locked.

One such pilferer said on the condition of anonymity: “I was on an urgent conference call once late in the evening at the office and I couldn’t find a pen and notepad; I knew my colleague had extra stationary items stacked away in their drawer so I helped myself to it. I mean, it wasn’t like I was stealing; it was just borrowing in time of urgent need.”

However, when quizzed, the person in question confessed that he never informed the colleague of the late-evening borrowing or returned the errant pen and notepad at a later day.

Office pilfering is a phenomenon that isn’t limited to the UAE alone. The OfficeMax Workplace Undercover Survey conducted by Kelton Research in the US indicated that employed Americans are no strangers to this scenario as supplies in the workplace go missing quite often.

In fact, workspaces across the country seemed to be dwindling in supplies – and co-workers are taking them.

Of the list of missing items, 81 percent of professionals reported missing supplies that ranged from pens, pencils, or highlighters disappear from their work area most often.

Other vanishing goods include paper products (35%), paper clips or binder clips (28%), staplers (22%), and scissors (20%).

When borrowing becomes bolder

However, it isn’t always innocent borrowing that has turned office pilfering into a menace.

In the case of Anoush Mehdi, it was regular workday for the planner of a nine-man events company, who clocked into his office at 8am and made his way to an overflowing desk with his morning cuppa in hand.

But work would have to wait this day, because upon arrival Mehdi noticed an empty space on his desk; that space was where his trusty laptop sat.

“I couldn’t believe that someone could be bold enough to steal a laptop from the office in broad daylight, in Dubai,” he said. “I immediately marched off to the security department to request a run on CCTV footage, only to be told that the cameras didn’t work.”

The laptop, among other office items, was eventually recovered when a police investigation uncovered a disgruntled employee who was denied an increment.

A similar incident occurred with Natasha R, an accountant with a large MNC in Jebel Ali, where a personal courier disappeared from her desk whilst on her lunch break.

“I had ordered something online and was to have it delivered to my office considering the courier drop off timings were as such,” she recalled. “However, imagine my shock and disgust that upon returning from my lunch break, my very expensive piece of Swarovski earrings suddenly vanished off my desk.”

Again, in Natasha’s case, the security cameras simply did not work.

Khaled Makhtab, an employee with a leading PR agency in Dubai said: “The problem is many are aware that majority of the companies here don’t employ cameras or any form of surveillance here. It works out to be simply too expensive for organisations; which is why only the pretence of CCTV is adopted by most.

“It really is disgusting behaviour and the only out is to ensure you are smart enough to keep everything under lock and key, or better yet, keep your precious items at home where they are considerably more secure.”