Crime and etiquette

[petrea_mitchell]

AAM: My coworker is vandalizing my car (letter #2)

Another employee and I work for the same company but at different locations. I noticed strange things happening to my car when I go to the store. My car is getting keyed and nails are forcefully in my tires when I go in the building. When I return, I always find something wrong with my car. I decided to put cameras in my car and I caught this other employee doing more crimes to my car. Do I come forward with the footage and show it to the manager? Is this a fireable offensive for the employee that’s been doing it to my car?

Yes and yes. Fireable doesn’t mean “this person will definitely be fired,” but if the evidence is really irrefutable, they should be. Either way, it’s something your employer needs to be aware of and needs to stop.

Miss Manners: I’m fairly certain my mother-in-law is stealing from her company. Do I turn her in?

DEAR MISS MANNERS: My mother-in-law works for a company by ordering products and shipping things out. For several years, I’ve noticed she will spend the company’s money on herself. She pays for shipping her Christmas gifts with the company account, and her house is furnished with their “damaged goods.”

I’ve mentioned to her that I thought she could get in trouble if they caught her, but she is a fierce know-it-all type. The more it happens, the less I like her. What she does is simply wrong, and I don’t know how to look the other way.

Do I need to just turn my head, or is it OK to reach out to her company?

GENTLE READER: As your mother-in-law is on a crime spree, the legal and moral arguments for turning her in are readily apparent. You are therefore, presumably, asking Miss Manners for the etiquette.

The etiquette is that, if you do choose to report your mother-in-law, you should express a moral conflict about coming forward that you may not actually feel. Of course, the person you should really be speaking with is your spouse, who may have their own opinion on the best course of action -- presuming this behavior does not run in the family.

Comments

[adrian_turtle]

WRT the mother-in-law, I agree that it should be handed off to the spouse. If you're in conflict with your mother-in-law without your spouse, something is very, very, wrong. That said, LW needs to separate "her behavior is wrong, and it means I don't like her," from "her behavior is wrong, and she should be fired," and further separate that thought from "her behavior is wrong, and she should go to jail."

There's considerable difference between telling someone she is doing something outrageously wrong and that you never want to see her again; and calling the cops on her. LW is thinking of reaching out to the company. What do they expect to happen then? What do they WANT to happen then? Returning stolen property, improved security practices, a life of virtue?
Unemployment, short or long term? Arrest, with or without violence?

[melannen]

LW2: It's pretty normal for workplaces like that to allow employees to have the pick of unsaleable merchandise as a perk. Is this actually damaged goods, or is she lying to the company by claiming non-damaged goods are unsaleable? (Remember that the condition standard for saleable merch may be quite high; you might not even notice a few scuffs that are sufficient for it to be legitimately unsaleable.) Similarly, using company mail/shipping for occasional personal items is a pretty standard perk for some workplaces. If she's constantly bragging about how she's ripping them off, that's one thing, but it's unclear from the letter.

If you find it annoying or obnoxious, that's perfectly valid, but don't make a huge fuss about something that might not even be under-the-table. (Also, yes, you should talk to your spouse about it.)

[laurajv]

Yeah, regarding LW2 -- my mother worked for a while at a cookie factory, and one of the employee perks was that any employee could ship small items on the factory's UPS account, within reason; another friend worked for a company that made exercise machines and they'd allow employees to purchased returned or "unsaleable" machines for very, very little -- like $100 for a machine that retailed for $3000.

[adrian_turtle]

That is an excellent point that hadn't occurred to me. I was distracted by the dangers of bringing cops into a situation that did not already involve any violence or fear. But the MIL might not actually be doing anything wrong at all. Stores throw away so much stuff. If it's scratched. If it's returned, and they don't know if the customer didn't like the color or if something's wrong with it. If it's returned and doesn't fit back in the shrink-wrap. Giving it to an employee instead of throwing it away keeps it out of the landfill, at least.

[melannen]

Yeah, I had an acquantaince who worked a similar job to the one in the letter - working at home for an Amazon repacker, getting deliveries from Chinese resellers, going through them and repacking to sell on Amazon - and she was constantly talking about how much free stuff she got. (I think they did mostly cosmetics/personal care stuff, it was often that if one bottle in the package leaked they had to write off the whole box, even if they just needed wiped down.) I found her constant bragging mildly annoying and find the whole business model mildly scammy but I don't think either she or the person she was working for thought she was doing anything dishonest.

[castiron]

When we had our own warehouse, we could buy damaged books for $5/hardcover and $2.50/paperback. I bought a lot of books where the "damage" was a tiny bent corner or a sticker from a bookstore.

[cereta]

I'm moderately alarmed by the complete lack of any mention of the spouse - you know, the MiL's actual offspring - in the second letter. Surely, "how is my life partner going to react to me getting their mother at the very least fired?" should be a top consideration, here.

[ethelmay]

Well, spouse could be dead, I suppose. But clearly LW didn't say so, even if the letter was edited, as Miss Manners thinks spouse should be in play.

[cimorene]

I feel that Miss Manners really dropped the ball by not leading with "You should not report this at all and it's likely not even stealing". Her advice is fine otherwise. But looking at the whole situation, LW seems disproportionately invested in this. Why not start minding their own business and try to care a lot less about the MIL whom they clearly have some issues with?