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College Theft

King Salmon

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$100 is nothing. I can buy and sell you with what's in my wallet (salmon skin, of course) right now.
 

aybojs

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I'm out of college now, but I can provide some moral support since I had something like this happen to me at work the other night. I was closing the bar I work at and counting up tips to divide between myself and the other bartenders. Everyone, including my boss, who locked himself in the back office to finish paperwork, was in a rush to get out early that night, and, as a result, the doors had mistakenly been left unlocked, and I was the only employee still doing closing duties in the front of the bar.

Long story short, some random weirdo walked in carrying on as if there were some emergency outside that needed my urgent attention. Exhausted and not thinking straight, I got fooled by his diversion and thought he might be serious, the ultimate result being that I turned my back to the pile of money that I had been sorting out, and the guy was able to pocket a large amount of cash without my noticing. After the guy left, I went back to finish handling the money and found out that he walked out with over $600. I couldn't just act like the money never existed either, since doing so would have meant my co-workers wouldn't get paid for their work. So not only did I make nothing for my labor that night, I had to make up the stolen money out of pocket (my boss was sympathetic enough to offer to split it with me, but that still means I'm out $300). On top of the financial loss, there's still the frustration and humiliation of realizing I'd been fooled, and the general fear that my competence and honesty (I was alone and had no witnesses to back me up, and the bar industry is notoriously plagued with employee dishonesty and theft) will now be questioned at work or that something similarly bad will happen the next time I close the bar.

But I think the point is that our situations teach a common set of lessons:

1. Losing money sucks, but it's not the end of the world. $100, let alone $300, is still a lot to me, but the reality is that a lot of unplanned and uncontrollable problems will consistently come up and impose costs upon you (e.g. getting a ticket, damaging your car, losing your wallet, etc). You have to realize that these things happen and be grateful that it's on a small enough scale that you can recover without too much difficulty. In my case, I've realized that things could have been much worse had I caught the guy in the act and he turned out to be armed or ready to use violence.

2. As much as you don't want to hear it, security precautions are important. My boss has been kicking himself for forgetting to lock the door right after closing; if the door were locked, the theft wouldn't have happened. The lesson in your situation is not to take security for granted and to hide your valuables.

3. This is one of the more depressing points to take in, but it's important to recognize that people do ****** things and be wary. Obviously, this doesn't mean you should immediately assume your roommate guilty and accuse him (well, unless you try Bandwagon's setup and it works as expected), but this ties in to point 2 in that you should assume that at least some of the people in your surroundings are capable of this behavior and take precautions to prevent theft, considering that you're in a communal setting with limited private space.

4. Letting a bad experience like this control you will make things worse before they make them better. I'm probably going to go apologize to most of my co-workers at work tomorrow, since I was so eaten up by the whole ordeal that I basically crawled up into a shell at work yesterday and blew everyone off. You mentioned having a math test to deal with; letting the theft influence your studying and performance on the test would mean you would be allowing the theft to magnify the damage done.

Hope that helps somewhat.
 

Huntsman

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Originally Posted by King Salmon
$100 is nothing. I can buy and sell you with what's in my wallet (salmon skin, of course) right now.

Don't be a dick.
 

Quirk

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It's not the $100, it's the thought that the person you have to live with, or one of the friends you've trusted to be in your room alone would actually steal money from you. I'd be pissed if it were $5, just on principle. I hate **** like this, it just reminds me just how scum-sucking people can be. Property theft is probably outranked only by physical assault on the scumminess scale. I'd definitely set up the roomie as some kind of test. If he's got some kind of addiction that would make him stupid enough to steal from his roomie, he'd probably be stupid and desperate enough do it again.
 

Quirk

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Originally Posted by aybojs
Long story short, some random weirdo walked in carrying on as if there were some emergency outside that needed my urgent attention. Exhausted and not thinking straight, I got fooled by his diversion and thought he might be serious, the ultimate result being that I turned my back to the pile of money that I had been sorting out, and the guy was able to pocket a large amount of cash without my noticing. After the guy left, I went back to finish handling the money and found out that he walked out with over $600. I couldn't just act like the money never existed either, since doing so would have meant my co-workers wouldn't get paid for their work. So not only did I make nothing for my labor that night, I had to make up the stolen money out of pocket (my boss was sympathetic enough to offer to split it with me, but that still means I'm out $300).

Ouch. That really sucks. But at least it was a stranger. When you know it's someone you know and trusted, that's really f---ed up.
 

EL72

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Excellent post and advice aybojs.
thumbs-up.gif
 

j

(stands for Jerk)
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It's time to sharpen your knife collection while your roommate is around. BTW, even those little cheap fire safes can be screwed down to something from the inside, making them very hard to steal.
 

Connemara

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Originally Posted by Quirk
It's not the $100, it's the thought that the person you have to live with, or one of the friends you've trusted to be in your room alone would actually steal money from you. I'd be pissed if it were $5, just on principle. I hate **** like this, it just reminds me just how scum-sucking people can be. Property theft is probably outranked only by physical assault on the scumminess scale. I'd definitely set up the roomie as some kind of test. If he's got some kind of addiction that would make him stupid enough to steal from his roomie, he'd probably be stupid and desperate enough do it again.

Yeah, I'm gonna try that.
 

mack11211

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Originally Posted by Huntsman
Don't be a dick.

Yeah, Huntsman!

SMOKE that salmon!
 

montecristo#4

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The fact that someone was rifling my **** would bother me more than losing the $100.

You really need a sting operation. This is what web cams were designed for.
 

sygyzy

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I am not sure I understand what you are trying to get out of this post. Are you simply ranting? If so, sorry your money got stolen.

If you are trying to spur discussion, I don't see how this could go on for more than one post. Everyone is going to tell you it sucks you got robbed and next time "be more careful." The End. Or in this case Repeat x 14
 

Quirk

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Originally Posted by sygyzy

If you are trying to spur discussion, I don't see how this could go on for more than one post.


plain.gif
 

drizzt3117

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Originally Posted by Arethusa
Learn some basic tradecraft. Losing $100 sucks, but in all honesty, you're blowing this out of proportion. If losing $100 meant you don't eat for the next month, this might be a bigger deal. If your roommate's a decent guy, it shouldn't be hard to ask him to keep a closer watch on your room. If not, you should be looking for a new roommate.

Tradecraft is important. Make sure you watch your six. At all times.
 

shoreman1782

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What did your roomate say about it, exactly?

My freshman year, I went halves on a VCR with my roomate. One day, I came home, and the VCR was missing. I freaked out. Asked the guys next door, talked to my RA, etc. My roomate came home, and I was like "our VCR got stolen!" and he said "I pawned it [for some weed money]. I'll pay you back, I swear." People do stupid things.
 

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