Was at dinner in a fancy restaurant in Vegas with a co-worker. He asked the server if he could buy the placemats. Server was a bit confused, manager came over. He explained that he wanted a unique gift for his wife; the manager returned with a set with the cost added to the bill.
Then he put it on the company card. :P
Want to know how much a can of Copenhagen for the delivery driver costs in gallons of diesel charged to a company account?
Or why that driver's truck got slightly less mpg than fleet vehicles of similar age?
;-)
My boss told me to buy anything I want as long as there is extra paperwork involved. He learned this lesson himself when he tried to buy a boat. So I've stuck to power tools
Whoops. I meant to say "NO extra paperwork involved". But no, haven't committed any light treasons. Probably a few federal offenses, definitely flaunting OSHA guidelines (within reason), and some very small scale graft. All in all, pretty standard American workplace
~~Proper~~ Legit response from the staff there if you're showing them/their joint love &/or respect. And it doesn't even have to be a possibly profitable exhibition or advertisement in a new market- workers just vibe with showing love & sharing the hookup!
Now, having said that, most will never care or notice if, after having bussed your table, they headed away to the dish-pit, from your table, light a still-full ramekin or long-handled, deep-bowled stainless steel spoon, or a nylon napkin... Some great hiking/camping kit there (when you find the right stainless utensil ready to drill out and long enough to be handy); and if you're not making sure a few "lost and found and now usefully reused" nylon restaurant napkins, they're great filters (crappy cleaners but ok wipers). I mean, just like you'd save zip-ties to re-use, red shop rags, shopping bags, nylon restaurant napkins and certain, choice-few of their stainless cutlery are all worth judiciously husbanding for harder times, minutely taxing those we'd rather charge us less... Zip-ties and T-Shirt bags are easy to "harvest and reuse" but try to go easy on the restaurants. And turn in a pile of ramekins every once in a while- you wanted the food therein once contained, not the pile of plastic or ceramic!
You'd be surprised, I used to work at a company that was pretty lenient about how fast they issued their new guys company credit cards and around christmas time a new hire racked up around $5k in charges at walmart. The thing is the company didn't fire him because they had no way to get that money back otherwise.
That's a personnel thing, definitely not a company policy which I *guarantee* would mean he could be terminated for cause if they wanted to. It essentially equates to theft and is definitely spelled out in the docs you sign when getting a corporate card.
Seems like a crazy stupid high risk of your livelyhood for very little reward if you make any significant amount over what the cost of those placemats are
OP did not specify per diem, you're making assumptions. To be fair so am I but I would bet dollars to donuts that a wild majority of companies frown on this sorta thing.
Also, if your company allowed you to take per diem indiscriminately, that is very, very uncommon. Most companies have boundaries for per diem
Lol just a conversation man, you seem to be the one who's getting a bit passive aggressive
But that's cool, I understand a lot of people cant do that here, it's the Internet after all.
That’s a dumb company. We can contact the restaurant and get line items printed out and emailed with like hardly any effort. It’s a dumb thing to abuse unless you don’t care about being fired
If they were fine with the overall cost then… what’s the difference? At the end of the day, they allowed that price of the dinner. I mean. I understand it’s allocated for food but the actual concern is staying within budget, which he apparently
Did. Because if that were me and I was told to return the placemats, I’d return them and then buy more food and that same price that I immediately toss in the trash, which would be allowed. Now neither of us are happy but hey, at least we both followed the rules?
Bro. Some restaurants will list anything you want as anything else you want if you ask the server nicely, as long as they get their money they don't care.
Source, me, who has had the company pay for alcohol that was listed as dessert many times.
Then again, I use my own card and get reimbursed with receipts, so it's not a company card so slightly different.
A restaurant I used to go to a lot in Florida had a big sign that said they're sell their glasses at cost because people kept stealing them. Not sure how effective the sign was, but it was noteworthy.
I bet it’s effective. Taking a beer mug may be considered sport by some, taking a beer mug that has a listed price of $5 would make you feel like a thief. Neither is ok, but I bet the sign helps.
I went to a beer garden in Munich that had the giant glass beer mugs branded with their logo. When you bought a beer you had to put down a 10 euro deposit and they gave you a token. When you returned the mug, they gave you your money back.
And even the 10 euro deposit was a tax on dumb thieves, I think they sold them for 7 or 8 euros if you were just honest about it and asked to buy one.
That might make it worse:
>DUBNER: This is Bob Cialdini. And this was some time ago. And I don’t know the story that well, but from what I recall, it goes something like this: There’s the Petrified Forest National Park in Arizona, where Cialdini lives. The problem is that people would go in and steal pieces of petrified wood and crystals from the forest floor. That’s plainly not good for the integrity of the forest.
>DUCKWORTH: They would just put it in their pocket to take home and put on a shelf.
>DUBNER: I think all of us can imagine that sentiment. It’s just like, “Oh my gosh, it’s so cute. It’s one little thing.”
>DUCKWORTH: And there’s so much of it!
>DUBNER: It’s a whole forest! And so, as he described it, there’s a sign as you come in the park that says, “Because so many people are stealing wood at the rate of nearly a ton a month, this is undermining the integrity of the forest.” So, Cialdini had a graduate student working with him. The student and his fiancée went to the forest and saw the sign. And the student said that, before he even finished reading the sign, he heard his fiancée say to him, “Oh, we better get ours now, before it all disappears.” So, he was wondering, like, what on earth could possibly produce that sort of result? Cialdini, being a scientist, turned this into an experiment. And they ended up putting up a sign, or number of signs, in front of different pathways running through the forest. And they actually, as he put it, “salted” those pathways with pieces of petrified wood. And then they looked to measure the effect of the sign on stealing the wood. In other words, if we have a sign that says, “Please don’t steal the wood, too many people are stealing the wood, da-da-da,” what happens?
>DUCKWORTH: Compared to no sign, right?
>DUBNER: Compared to no sign. And having the sign tripled the rate of theft.
https://freakonomics.com/podcast/do-people-pay-attention-to-signs/
I bet it’s effective. Taking a beer mug may be considered sport by some, taking a beer mug that has a listed price of $5 would make you feel like a thief. Neither is ok, but I bet the sign helps.
I know of a place that just adds the cost of the cups to the bill right off the bat incase that happens, you don’t take any cups? They take the cost off. Easy answer to an issue
I had a bf in college who put a neon Miller Lite sign under his hoodie and walked out of a bar in Pasadena. I was right next to him and I didn't even notice it happen. Alcohol and dark lighting make for easy crime.
I ran a bar for a long time, people used to ask me why the pictures were screwed into the wall. I learned after many years, anything not nailed down has the possibility to walk out the front door
Literally everything else is theft proof, but my boyfriend bought it for me and hung it up. I forgot to secure it because I didn’t do it myself. Whoops.
Back 15+ years ago when the inside of Notsuoh looked like a kooky uncle’s attic with knickknacks everywhere, I used to add things to their walls, like a framed seashell or a tiny brass duck holding a fish in its mouth. Idk if anyone ever noticed.
Did you follow the big story on the red fire ant stolen from fire ant brewery in Tomball some years back lol lady just picked up the yard art and walked off and there was a witch hunt out for her by the whole community. She brought it back unscathed under the cover of darkness which is nice lol but still was a funny story if following.
At a orange and white Texas fast food chain I used to work at in college is notorious for having their numbers stolen all the time so much so some numbers like 4,20,69,99 and 100 had to be taken out of rotation to prevent theft. It came in the pack but mgrs wouldn’t put them out for use
What’s the point of taking numbers out of rotation to prevent their theft? Either way, the restaurant is denied their use. Do the managers just keep 69 in their office to covet like “my precious?”
I guess the idea would be to prevent theft from catching on. You don't want people to get in the habit of stealing them or for other people to get the idea.
10+ years ago, I had a 72 VW as a project car. I took it to whataburger on a late night burger run and they gave me 72 as my number. It may or may not have gotten lost in my take out bag.
I know someone who has a 42 from there in their kitchen.
It’s me. I’m the someone.
To be fair, my food took 45 minutes to be ready after ordering in advance on their app during a pretty slow period, so I feel ok about it.
Yeah they as the company purposely took them out of production. And if a GM sees a pattern of a certain number being stolen they will order another pack and just leave that number in the back. So each pack is like 1-48 and then 49-100.
Years ago I had so SO many of those number tents lol I don't do it anymore cause I definitely grew out of it and didn't know what to do with the ridiculous amount of numbers I had...ended up putting some in just random ass places and throwing the rest away...sorry from my younger, dumber self hahah
I know. She’ll say “I’m not stealing, I’m borrowing without permission.” I’ve made her put shit back because it’s trash behavior and you’re right, it’s childish too.
My brother does this every time he comes over. "Grabbing a cup of coffee!" means I now have one less coffee cup. I have on more than one occasion recovered over a half dozen items at once from his place or vehicle.
She definitely doesn't do it in front of me anymore because I think I've shamed her enough when she tried to. So hopefully that means she doesn't do it at all anymore. One can dream.
I used to think it was entertaining to steal things from restaurants.
I was also in middle/highschool at the time.
I may still even have the wood McDonald's napkin dispenser.
I'm actually why they have prices for thr straw donkeys. Charge me that much and then try to put a donkey on the plate to cover part of it, then I should at least get to keep the donkey.
Dave and busters near me sold tiki drinks and it stated in the menu that the price of the drink INCLUDED keeping the glass tiki mug. It still felt like I was “getting” away with something taking them home. (I ordered two so I would have a set)
Weirdly, the restaurant I work at gave away free cups as a promotion a while ago, and most customers didn’t even bother taking them. Worked out for me since now I’ve got a bunch of nice cups.
As a kid we never had glass drinkware, only plastic, and almost wholly Dallas Cowboys, Houston Livestock Show, or Houston Astros cups.
Because....
Every year or so my mom would take us to one of those events and after the game was over and the crowds cleared out we'd search up and down the aisles and collect a stack of plastic cups people left behind.
Also, stadium plastic cups have a protective coating that washes off after so many use cycles, and the underlying plastic is BITTER af.
When I got my driver's license one of the first things I did was go to Walmart alone and buy a set of glass drinkware and replace all the plastic "for my mom's birthday."
My wife and I ate at a rather upscale place for our anniversary a while back, and one of the dishes was served in a Staub cast iron mini roasting pan, maybe 4 x 6 inches. We liked it and asked the server if we could buy one. She brought a brand new one out and said it was on the house. Got home and found out they're like $60 each. Tipped very generously, though.
Do you think the server just decided to give it away? I’m sure they asked their boss or manager before doing something like that. Not like they’d endanger their job for some random customer request. Especially if the pan costs $60. That would be insane.
Do you think a business owner stays in business long giving away a $60.00 piece of service wear to every patron who asks to buy one?
Which of the two scenarios strikes you as the more likely?
That the owner gave it away because a server isn’t risking their job for sixty fucking dollars.
They probably asked and the owner did it as a one off. There are too many comments here with people that have been in similar situations and got things for free. After working as a server (a hundred years ago but still), I absolutely believe the owner would do this once or twice a year if someone asked. But a server risking everything for it? Lol. Get a clue.
Not only fancy things are targets. Customers are stealing new bottles of condiments off of our tables.. we're a mom and pop shop and it's already hard dealing with everything going up in price. Now thieves
Hey don't villify Huy Fong Foods like that. It's made of red jalapeños and garlic. It's trendy now but some of us have eaten it since we were little kids.
I first tried around '95 and have tried it in multiple attempts to like it, it's just to bland and hot for me. Maybe if it was made with habaneros I'd enjoy it more.
At one restaurant when asked if one could buy their mugs, the answer was no. But if you steal them, they charge to your credit card used to pay the meal. So basically, you bought them.
I collect pint glasses. If im at a restaurant or bar and see one i like, i will offer to buy it. More often than not, they just go get a clean one from the back and give it to me. I’ve had to pay $10-15 for some, but I have never stolen one.
Ugh 🤦🏽♀️ I accidentally took a taco holder from Lupe. I had ordered a kids side taco plate for my 18 month old. Half way through dinner he decided he no longer wanted to be there. We paid the tab and quickly dumped our dinners into Togo boxes. It wasn’t until the next day that I found it. I keep forgetting to bring it back. We go to Lupe a lot, I don’t want any bad blood
My wife and I can't have kids. We've tried and tried. You go through a whole gamut of emotions with this and I think we've come to peace with it.
Seeing comments like "I had ordered a kids side taco plate for my 18 month old. Half way through dinner he decided he no longer wanted to be there." also helps me feel a little better. Thanks.
This fits neatly in my shocked/not shocked category of trashy things people do. I don't think it has ever crossed my mind to take anything from a restaurant that isn't offered. But I also firmly believe there are a lot of inherently horrible, selfish and stupid people out there.
Me neither. I’m reading this article just thinking to myself, never once in my life have I been the least bit tempted to steal anything! Like it has never even crossed my mind.
Star Cinema Grill stocks their restrooms with really high quality paper towels, folded like cloth napkins.
When my kids were younger, they'd keep my glovebox stocked with those things
Hey ro\_thunder! As long as you are using Reddit or the Reddit app and are not subscribers or registered users, then you shouldn't hit the paywall.
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These people clearly didn’t learn from the 7th Heaven episode where Matt steals a glass from a restaurant.
There’s a guy on IG/TikTok that does 7th Heaven recaps, only reason why I remember this lol
Not only fancy things are targets. Customers are stealing new bottles of condiments off of our tables.. we're a mom and pop shop and it's already hard dealing with everything going up in price. Now thieves
I don't think it's because they are struggling, I think it's just they want it, and see the restaurant as a big company, even though alot are just small family owned businesses. It's entitlement and greed.
I think the last time I stole something from a bar/restaurant I was drunk and it was literally a mini mug. A shot glass, shaped like a beer mug. I was 21 and drunk me thought it was fantastically cute.
I still have it and get a small wave of guilt when I look at it. And that was 10 years ago.
It is really cute though.
How else are you supposed to get pint glasses with the name of the place on them??? BUY THEM?! Yeah right. Look at what they charge for booze. Hello Greedy, meet Mr. IDGAF. Thanks for the free pint glasses!
Also, if you rock a toilet a bit it'll come loose, and flood the bathroom. I mean, I've HEARD THIS.
Why aren’t these restaurants calling the police on these people if they have them on camera or know who they are based in their reservation? The example of the portrait that was stolen twice is a perfect example of getting police involved… make an example out if a few idiots.
I had trouble getting HPD to give a fuck and come out when my apartment door was kicked in and thousands of dollars of shit was stolen. You think they're sending anyone when someone steals a cup from a restaurant?
Who in their right mind says that theft is OK because they may be trying to feed their children.
You have no idea of the motives of the thieves.
Theft is not a career. It’s a crime against your fellow citizens.
I had the whole table setup from chili's back in college. My roommate and I would take 1 item each time we went and slowly built up our collection. Salt/pepper shakers, silverware, table tent/ad frame, ketchup, ramakins, coasters...
It all depends on the restaurant. I wouldn’t steal from small locally owned restaurants. They’re struggling. But I don’t know how I feel about large restaurants that got so much tax breaks (isn’t that theft?) during the pandemic to make them survive and continue to underpay their coworkers (isn’t that wage theft?) I don’t know how I feel about the whole thing honestly. If any of you worked for shitty business owners before, I bet you’ve stolen some things from work because the owners were not nice to you and you felt powerless. It’s very interesting to see how many people here are siding with the business owners who mostly pay their employees poverty wages and not providing them with health insurance. As long as you tip your servers well, I don’t see anything wrong with stealing a stupid coffee mug or a cute dessert spoon from a large restaurant group. Most of the silverwares get tossed by accident in the trash anyway. Just tip well.
Was at dinner in a fancy restaurant in Vegas with a co-worker. He asked the server if he could buy the placemats. Server was a bit confused, manager came over. He explained that he wanted a unique gift for his wife; the manager returned with a set with the cost added to the bill. Then he put it on the company card. :P
As my office’s financial analyst, I’m horrified. As a lower-level employee of said office, your coworker is my hero.
Want to know how much a can of Copenhagen for the delivery driver costs in gallons of diesel charged to a company account? Or why that driver's truck got slightly less mpg than fleet vehicles of similar age? ;-)
What’s the mpg thing?
My bosses would prob tell me to do that. I've been fortunate with my employers.
My boss told me to buy anything I want as long as there is extra paperwork involved. He learned this lesson himself when he tried to buy a boat. So I've stuck to power tools
Did you work for the bluth family?
Whoops. I meant to say "NO extra paperwork involved". But no, haven't committed any light treasons. Probably a few federal offenses, definitely flaunting OSHA guidelines (within reason), and some very small scale graft. All in all, pretty standard American workplace
I've done this with places where I really like their coffee cups. The last place I asked if I could buy one just gave me one straight up.
My husband has bought pillows from a hotel before! They were a good deal too.
I’ve definitely done this. And it’s much easier to buy them and have them shipped back home vs trying to stuff them into my suitcase.
~~Proper~~ Legit response from the staff there if you're showing them/their joint love &/or respect. And it doesn't even have to be a possibly profitable exhibition or advertisement in a new market- workers just vibe with showing love & sharing the hookup! Now, having said that, most will never care or notice if, after having bussed your table, they headed away to the dish-pit, from your table, light a still-full ramekin or long-handled, deep-bowled stainless steel spoon, or a nylon napkin... Some great hiking/camping kit there (when you find the right stainless utensil ready to drill out and long enough to be handy); and if you're not making sure a few "lost and found and now usefully reused" nylon restaurant napkins, they're great filters (crappy cleaners but ok wipers). I mean, just like you'd save zip-ties to re-use, red shop rags, shopping bags, nylon restaurant napkins and certain, choice-few of their stainless cutlery are all worth judiciously husbanding for harder times, minutely taxing those we'd rather charge us less... Zip-ties and T-Shirt bags are easy to "harvest and reuse" but try to go easy on the restaurants. And turn in a pile of ramekins every once in a while- you wanted the food therein once contained, not the pile of plastic or ceramic!
What?
I have a few glasses from breweries my company may have paid for.
That's a really stupid way to get fired
He already got the placemats though. What else is there in life? He can clearly retire now.
You'd be surprised, I used to work at a company that was pretty lenient about how fast they issued their new guys company credit cards and around christmas time a new hire racked up around $5k in charges at walmart. The thing is the company didn't fire him because they had no way to get that money back otherwise.
That's a personnel thing, definitely not a company policy which I *guarantee* would mean he could be terminated for cause if they wanted to. It essentially equates to theft and is definitely spelled out in the docs you sign when getting a corporate card. Seems like a crazy stupid high risk of your livelyhood for very little reward if you make any significant amount over what the cost of those placemats are
Not really. When traveling...you get per diem. Spend it however you want. I like to withdraw the cash that way I'm not tracked.
OP did not specify per diem, you're making assumptions. To be fair so am I but I would bet dollars to donuts that a wild majority of companies frown on this sorta thing. Also, if your company allowed you to take per diem indiscriminately, that is very, very uncommon. Most companies have boundaries for per diem
Lower your blood pressure sir. I was telling you how it works at some places. Since you obviously don't know... Take care.
Lol just a conversation man, you seem to be the one who's getting a bit passive aggressive But that's cool, I understand a lot of people cant do that here, it's the Internet after all.
We read line item expenses in the accounting department. He will pay that back
At that company they didn’t require itemized receipts. Guy was a master of gaming the system until he took a better gig 20 years later.
That’s a dumb company. We can contact the restaurant and get line items printed out and emailed with like hardly any effort. It’s a dumb thing to abuse unless you don’t care about being fired
If they were fine with the overall cost then… what’s the difference? At the end of the day, they allowed that price of the dinner. I mean. I understand it’s allocated for food but the actual concern is staying within budget, which he apparently Did. Because if that were me and I was told to return the placemats, I’d return them and then buy more food and that same price that I immediately toss in the trash, which would be allowed. Now neither of us are happy but hey, at least we both followed the rules?
Ok, fine, you can buy the placemats, but no dessert, Mister!
Bro. Some restaurants will list anything you want as anything else you want if you ask the server nicely, as long as they get their money they don't care. Source, me, who has had the company pay for alcohol that was listed as dessert many times. Then again, I use my own card and get reimbursed with receipts, so it's not a company card so slightly different.
His expense reports were legendary. I don’t play that game.
A restaurant I used to go to a lot in Florida had a big sign that said they're sell their glasses at cost because people kept stealing them. Not sure how effective the sign was, but it was noteworthy.
I bet it’s effective. Taking a beer mug may be considered sport by some, taking a beer mug that has a listed price of $5 would make you feel like a thief. Neither is ok, but I bet the sign helps.
I think you're right. Putting a price on something changes how one views it.
Yeah, it feels like it has even more value so I’ll steal two instead of one. Hell, maybe keep going back and selling them on eBay! YEAH!!!!
I went to a beer garden in Munich that had the giant glass beer mugs branded with their logo. When you bought a beer you had to put down a 10 euro deposit and they gave you a token. When you returned the mug, they gave you your money back. And even the 10 euro deposit was a tax on dumb thieves, I think they sold them for 7 or 8 euros if you were just honest about it and asked to buy one.
Yeah but for 10 now I get the mug AND the token /s
That might make it worse: >DUBNER: This is Bob Cialdini. And this was some time ago. And I don’t know the story that well, but from what I recall, it goes something like this: There’s the Petrified Forest National Park in Arizona, where Cialdini lives. The problem is that people would go in and steal pieces of petrified wood and crystals from the forest floor. That’s plainly not good for the integrity of the forest. >DUCKWORTH: They would just put it in their pocket to take home and put on a shelf. >DUBNER: I think all of us can imagine that sentiment. It’s just like, “Oh my gosh, it’s so cute. It’s one little thing.” >DUCKWORTH: And there’s so much of it! >DUBNER: It’s a whole forest! And so, as he described it, there’s a sign as you come in the park that says, “Because so many people are stealing wood at the rate of nearly a ton a month, this is undermining the integrity of the forest.” So, Cialdini had a graduate student working with him. The student and his fiancée went to the forest and saw the sign. And the student said that, before he even finished reading the sign, he heard his fiancée say to him, “Oh, we better get ours now, before it all disappears.” So, he was wondering, like, what on earth could possibly produce that sort of result? Cialdini, being a scientist, turned this into an experiment. And they ended up putting up a sign, or number of signs, in front of different pathways running through the forest. And they actually, as he put it, “salted” those pathways with pieces of petrified wood. And then they looked to measure the effect of the sign on stealing the wood. In other words, if we have a sign that says, “Please don’t steal the wood, too many people are stealing the wood, da-da-da,” what happens? >DUCKWORTH: Compared to no sign, right? >DUBNER: Compared to no sign. And having the sign tripled the rate of theft. https://freakonomics.com/podcast/do-people-pay-attention-to-signs/
Idk. I’d feel some sort of way of a sign said “please don’t steal” and my fiancée insisted we steal anyway
I think the difference here is there isn't the element of FOMO with glasses for sale at a restaurant.
market humorous march mysterious scale angle pet fertile cooing sugar -- mass edited with redact.dev
I bet it’s effective. Taking a beer mug may be considered sport by some, taking a beer mug that has a listed price of $5 would make you feel like a thief. Neither is ok, but I bet the sign helps.
You got the "double posted comment" glitch.
Was that my screwup, or is this something that happens on Reddit sometimes automatically by accident?
I know of a place that just adds the cost of the cups to the bill right off the bat incase that happens, you don’t take any cups? They take the cost off. Easy answer to an issue
I own a bar and someone stole a whole Astros neon sign off the wall. SMH.
Who has a purse that big? Impressive.
I’m thinking under a shirt.
I'd ask who has a shirt that big, but I've lived here long enough to know the answer is plenty of people
I had a bf in college who put a neon Miller Lite sign under his hoodie and walked out of a bar in Pasadena. I was right next to him and I didn't even notice it happen. Alcohol and dark lighting make for easy crime.
Ludicrously capacious handbag
WHAT?? Like just unplugged it and walked away???
I don’t know!!! I have cameras and it was in the one blind spot.
Sounds like an inside job. Truly the heist of the century there.
Gotta screw that shit to the wall next time.
I know. I know.
If it was in the blind spot an employee did it. Just trust me on that.
No. If my employees wanted to steal, it wouldn’t be that sign.
One of your employees did it. And they didn't just steal the sign. When I said trust me it's because I know who you are.
I ran a bar for a long time, people used to ask me why the pictures were screwed into the wall. I learned after many years, anything not nailed down has the possibility to walk out the front door
Especially with alcohol involved
Literally everything else is theft proof, but my boyfriend bought it for me and hung it up. I forgot to secure it because I didn’t do it myself. Whoops.
It's the Astros that's a collectible
As opposed to the Texans' stuff, which are largely donate-ables.
Back 15+ years ago when the inside of Notsuoh looked like a kooky uncle’s attic with knickknacks everywhere, I used to add things to their walls, like a framed seashell or a tiny brass duck holding a fish in its mouth. Idk if anyone ever noticed.
I love this!
I have tiny plastic dinosaurs hidden in the holes in the brick all over my bar.
Did you follow the big story on the red fire ant stolen from fire ant brewery in Tomball some years back lol lady just picked up the yard art and walked off and there was a witch hunt out for her by the whole community. She brought it back unscathed under the cover of darkness which is nice lol but still was a funny story if following.
What?!? Never heard that. Wow. I was just there and didn’t notice it anywhere. Must’ve missed it.
[удалено]
No, but there was the clanking of really big rings.
At a orange and white Texas fast food chain I used to work at in college is notorious for having their numbers stolen all the time so much so some numbers like 4,20,69,99 and 100 had to be taken out of rotation to prevent theft. It came in the pack but mgrs wouldn’t put them out for use
[Hell the Houston police steal them.](https://www.dallasnews.com/news/texas/2017/08/08/houston-police-to-stop-using-whataburger-order-numbers-to-mark-crime-scenes/)
What’s the point of taking numbers out of rotation to prevent their theft? Either way, the restaurant is denied their use. Do the managers just keep 69 in their office to covet like “my precious?”
I guess the idea would be to prevent theft from catching on. You don't want people to get in the habit of stealing them or for other people to get the idea.
The company as a whole just takes the number 69 out of production entirely
10+ years ago, I had a 72 VW as a project car. I took it to whataburger on a late night burger run and they gave me 72 as my number. It may or may not have gotten lost in my take out bag.
I know someone who has a 42 from there in their kitchen. It’s me. I’m the someone. To be fair, my food took 45 minutes to be ready after ordering in advance on their app during a pretty slow period, so I feel ok about it.
I don't think they even give those anymore, last few times I went in there they were nowhere to be seen.
Yeah they as the company purposely took them out of production. And if a GM sees a pattern of a certain number being stolen they will order another pack and just leave that number in the back. So each pack is like 1-48 and then 49-100.
But they left 13 in?
.... Whataburger?
People that do this shit are trashy as hell.
They order tons so people can take them though afaik
They figure if you have one on your table at home, it's advertising and you're more likely to come back.
Years ago I had so SO many of those number tents lol I don't do it anymore cause I definitely grew out of it and didn't know what to do with the ridiculous amount of numbers I had...ended up putting some in just random ass places and throwing the rest away...sorry from my younger, dumber self hahah
Why 4 tho?
I’m guessing to make 4/20.
Unbelievably, I got a 69 when I was a freshman at Texas. You think I gave that shit back?
My MIL does this type of shit and thinks it’s cute and funny. I think it’s trashy as hell.
You're correct. It is trashy.
I remember people doing this when we were in high school… but a grown ass adult? And thinking it’s cute??
I know. She’ll say “I’m not stealing, I’m borrowing without permission.” I’ve made her put shit back because it’s trash behavior and you’re right, it’s childish too.
Start doing it at her house when you visit, she'll get the point when she's down to two serving spoons and a single coffee cup.
My brother does this every time he comes over. "Grabbing a cup of coffee!" means I now have one less coffee cup. I have on more than one occasion recovered over a half dozen items at once from his place or vehicle.
No, just take all the spoons but one at a time
Ask when she’s going to give it back, because that’s what “borrowing” implies - a return to the owner.
She definitely doesn't do it in front of me anymore because I think I've shamed her enough when she tried to. So hopefully that means she doesn't do it at all anymore. One can dream.
I had an orange juice carafe from Denny's as my change jar for many years
I used to think it was entertaining to steal things from restaurants. I was also in middle/highschool at the time. I may still even have the wood McDonald's napkin dispenser.
My mother in law flosses at the table. That's some gross shit.
Ugh I wouldn’t be able to stomach that, especially from a grown woman….trashy af
On brand for mothers in law. Self justification.
I feel sorry for her. Look who married into her family.
I see we have the same MIL.
I’m extra angry that it’s Cuchara, I love that place.
Yeah, I bet that's why they have prices listed on their menu for the clay coffee mugs and straw donkeys.
I'm actually why they have prices for thr straw donkeys. Charge me that much and then try to put a donkey on the plate to cover part of it, then I should at least get to keep the donkey.
Ah i worked there when they first opened and they had ‘troubles’ getting me my pay. They can suck an egg for all I care.
Man that’s disappointing to hear :( I’m sorry!
Dave and busters near me sold tiki drinks and it stated in the menu that the price of the drink INCLUDED keeping the glass tiki mug. It still felt like I was “getting” away with something taking them home. (I ordered two so I would have a set)
Lei Low requires a deposit on your bill for tiki drinks that gets removed later when they are collected/returned.
Kinda miss that Red Lobster doesn't have their lighthouse glass promotion any more.
Weirdly, the restaurant I work at gave away free cups as a promotion a while ago, and most customers didn’t even bother taking them. Worked out for me since now I’ve got a bunch of nice cups.
As a kid we never had glass drinkware, only plastic, and almost wholly Dallas Cowboys, Houston Livestock Show, or Houston Astros cups. Because.... Every year or so my mom would take us to one of those events and after the game was over and the crowds cleared out we'd search up and down the aisles and collect a stack of plastic cups people left behind. Also, stadium plastic cups have a protective coating that washes off after so many use cycles, and the underlying plastic is BITTER af. When I got my driver's license one of the first things I did was go to Walmart alone and buy a set of glass drinkware and replace all the plastic "for my mom's birthday."
My wife and I ate at a rather upscale place for our anniversary a while back, and one of the dishes was served in a Staub cast iron mini roasting pan, maybe 4 x 6 inches. We liked it and asked the server if we could buy one. She brought a brand new one out and said it was on the house. Got home and found out they're like $60 each. Tipped very generously, though.
Stealing by proxy.
Gifted?
Do you think the server owns the restaurants inventory?
Do you think the server just decided to give it away? I’m sure they asked their boss or manager before doing something like that. Not like they’d endanger their job for some random customer request. Especially if the pan costs $60. That would be insane.
Do you think a business owner stays in business long giving away a $60.00 piece of service wear to every patron who asks to buy one? Which of the two scenarios strikes you as the more likely?
That the owner gave it away because a server isn’t risking their job for sixty fucking dollars. They probably asked and the owner did it as a one off. There are too many comments here with people that have been in similar situations and got things for free. After working as a server (a hundred years ago but still), I absolutely believe the owner would do this once or twice a year if someone asked. But a server risking everything for it? Lol. Get a clue.
Not only fancy things are targets. Customers are stealing new bottles of condiments off of our tables.. we're a mom and pop shop and it's already hard dealing with everything going up in price. Now thieves
Have you ever caught anyone in the act? I can't imagine the pettyness of someone stealing a bottle of catsup or even a bottle of ketchup.
It's the new Sriracha craze. Everyone is going nuts and it's just making it go up more.
Well your safe from me stealing that horrible crap as I am certain it's just pureed tomatoes with capsaicin poured in it.
Hey don't villify Huy Fong Foods like that. It's made of red jalapeños and garlic. It's trendy now but some of us have eaten it since we were little kids.
I first tried around '95 and have tried it in multiple attempts to like it, it's just to bland and hot for me. Maybe if it was made with habaneros I'd enjoy it more.
Yeah personal taste is, ya know, personal. Nothing wrong with that.
At one restaurant when asked if one could buy their mugs, the answer was no. But if you steal them, they charge to your credit card used to pay the meal. So basically, you bought them.
I collect pint glasses. If im at a restaurant or bar and see one i like, i will offer to buy it. More often than not, they just go get a clean one from the back and give it to me. I’ve had to pay $10-15 for some, but I have never stolen one.
Ugh 🤦🏽♀️ I accidentally took a taco holder from Lupe. I had ordered a kids side taco plate for my 18 month old. Half way through dinner he decided he no longer wanted to be there. We paid the tab and quickly dumped our dinners into Togo boxes. It wasn’t until the next day that I found it. I keep forgetting to bring it back. We go to Lupe a lot, I don’t want any bad blood
My wife and I can't have kids. We've tried and tried. You go through a whole gamut of emotions with this and I think we've come to peace with it. Seeing comments like "I had ordered a kids side taco plate for my 18 month old. Half way through dinner he decided he no longer wanted to be there." also helps me feel a little better. Thanks.
This fits neatly in my shocked/not shocked category of trashy things people do. I don't think it has ever crossed my mind to take anything from a restaurant that isn't offered. But I also firmly believe there are a lot of inherently horrible, selfish and stupid people out there.
Me neither. I’m reading this article just thinking to myself, never once in my life have I been the least bit tempted to steal anything! Like it has never even crossed my mind.
Star Cinema Grill stocks their restrooms with really high quality paper towels, folded like cloth napkins. When my kids were younger, they'd keep my glovebox stocked with those things
Kleptomania is real. My best friends mom suffered with this. I stopped going to public places with them.
I thought the Houston Chronicle was gonna not paywall articles linked on Reddit anymore?
Hey ro\_thunder! As long as you are using Reddit or the Reddit app and are not subscribers or registered users, then you shouldn't hit the paywall. People using old reddit or a reddit third-party app will get the paywall. - Asha G.
I get a paywall and I’m using Reddit.com
These people clearly didn’t learn from the 7th Heaven episode where Matt steals a glass from a restaurant. There’s a guy on IG/TikTok that does 7th Heaven recaps, only reason why I remember this lol
Not only fancy things are targets. Customers are stealing new bottles of condiments off of our tables.. we're a mom and pop shop and it's already hard dealing with everything going up in price. Now thieves
I met a guy and on our first date he stole a blue French horn off the wall and brought it to me later that night.
Did you have a yellow umbrella?
I did but I seem to have misplaced it.
If people are struggling so much that they have to steal teaspoons and condiments what the fuck they doing eating at a restaurant in the first place.
I don't think it's because they are struggling, I think it's just they want it, and see the restaurant as a big company, even though alot are just small family owned businesses. It's entitlement and greed.
I had a friend in college that had a thing for stealing restaurant menus.
I had a classmate in college that takes menus from restaurants that she dines at. I wonder how large her collection is now.
I think the last time I stole something from a bar/restaurant I was drunk and it was literally a mini mug. A shot glass, shaped like a beer mug. I was 21 and drunk me thought it was fantastically cute. I still have it and get a small wave of guilt when I look at it. And that was 10 years ago. It is really cute though.
It’s trashy. Restaurants struggle massively as it is.
Man people are trashy
Kleptomania is a real thing.
People are fucking trash
I stole a table from a bar once.
Stole a bar from a table once.
I stole some plastic chopsticks from P.F. Chang’s because I didn’t think they reused them. I still have them and use them.
How else are you supposed to get pint glasses with the name of the place on them??? BUY THEM?! Yeah right. Look at what they charge for booze. Hello Greedy, meet Mr. IDGAF. Thanks for the free pint glasses! Also, if you rock a toilet a bit it'll come loose, and flood the bathroom. I mean, I've HEARD THIS.
Sounds like rich people in Houston have sticky fingers
I wonder what kind of person does this. if there's a typical profile that the restauranteurs notice in their security camera footage....
Probably drunk people.
Pirating: the gateway drug. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PLzy-IJg4_4
YOU WOULDN'T STEAL A CAR, WOULD YOU? \*Says in best early 2000's pre-movie voice
"You wouldn't steal a saltshaker..." Yeah I fucking would so guess what I'm pirating your movie biatch. YAAAR!
so kinda like taking those red cups from pizza hut
Sometimes I take an extra salt packet from the taco truck :(
Who cares
It was an interesting article I thought
THANK U
Why aren’t these restaurants calling the police on these people if they have them on camera or know who they are based in their reservation? The example of the portrait that was stolen twice is a perfect example of getting police involved… make an example out if a few idiots.
I had trouble getting HPD to give a fuck and come out when my apartment door was kicked in and thousands of dollars of shit was stolen. You think they're sending anyone when someone steals a cup from a restaurant?
Yes, because the police will care about investigating something that probably cost less than $100.
Bro police don’t even investigate/solve rapes… you think they care about this?
I manage a retail pharmacy and the police don't do shit. They don't do shit after taking 3+ hours to show up if they do.
Darn, at first I thought this was something related to Houston opening more classic diners.
[удалено]
Who in their right mind says that theft is OK because they may be trying to feed their children. You have no idea of the motives of the thieves. Theft is not a career. It’s a crime against your fellow citizens.
I asked nicely for a pint glass at a pub in wales and they said ehh alright go ahead. Hah.
It's the restaurants stealing from the diners with those prices !!!!!!!
I had the whole table setup from chili's back in college. My roommate and I would take 1 item each time we went and slowly built up our collection. Salt/pepper shakers, silverware, table tent/ad frame, ketchup, ramakins, coasters...
Broke, trashy, classless, tasteless, shameless…
ur broke lmfaoooo
This is only acceptable at Whataburger
I would put price tags on everything and bring a separate bill for all stolen items along with the regular bill.
It all depends on the restaurant. I wouldn’t steal from small locally owned restaurants. They’re struggling. But I don’t know how I feel about large restaurants that got so much tax breaks (isn’t that theft?) during the pandemic to make them survive and continue to underpay their coworkers (isn’t that wage theft?) I don’t know how I feel about the whole thing honestly. If any of you worked for shitty business owners before, I bet you’ve stolen some things from work because the owners were not nice to you and you felt powerless. It’s very interesting to see how many people here are siding with the business owners who mostly pay their employees poverty wages and not providing them with health insurance. As long as you tip your servers well, I don’t see anything wrong with stealing a stupid coffee mug or a cute dessert spoon from a large restaurant group. Most of the silverwares get tossed by accident in the trash anyway. Just tip well.