Saturday, November 05, 2011

LOST BUT NOT FOUND

My mom is a semi-firm believer in the art of fengshui, and she also happens to care way too much about her already grown up kids. When we ask her about it, she says she'll always be our mom no matter how old we get, so that was that. Due to her caring way too much attitude,  a few years ago, she got me a monkey on a horse bronze statue, a small one similar to size of a tightly balled up fist of a 5'3" female - something which fengshui believers believe will help improve our career prospects.
The Monkey on a Horse

Now, while I'm not much of a believer in anything at all - except maybe for science, I took the statue and duly placed it on my work desk. However, as time went by and I changed office, I ended up putting it and locking it inside my desk drawer.

Prior to this, I've had a few things missing from my work desk, from packets of emergency food supply such as the 3-in 1 sachets of cereal or coffee. I brushed it off as co-workers being a hungry lot who thought that since I left it on top of my desk it was theirs for the taking and didn't bother to ask because I wasn't there (I noticed things would go missing over the weekend - I once put an expired sachet of cereal on my desk, just to see what happens. That too went missing and so did a bottle of hand sanitiser)

The other day,  I was looking for my penknife, which I was certain I had put into the drawer and locked it, but I couldn't seem to find it at all, which was when I decided that I'd empty out the whole drawer and search for it. And that was when I noticed that it wasn't only my penknife which had decided to go walkabout, but so did the monkey on a horse statue, a silver-ish ring like item, and a gift from Japan a colleague had given me (the bag was still there, but the gift in it was missing)

I used to think that me losing items was always because I was careless and had misplaced them - like the time I lost this certain gadget which I had to use to detect the flow of something work related, or even if it was only my penknife that had gone missing, but after finding out that quite a number of things had actually gone missing, I'm inclined to believe that we might have a thief in our midst (the office doesn't have a lock, unfortunately) who can somehow open a locked drawer (the lock is not in perfect condition, either), or a toyol of some sort.

I'm in a dilemma of sorts now. I've discussed this with the section supervisor, who says he can't recall any of his personal items being flicked, but he once had a rather expensive piece of equipment vanish right under his nose. The box was still there, and in perfect condition, but the equipment itself was missing. I don't know if I should report this to my boss, or just suck it up and empty my drawers of anything personal (maybe I could put in a poisonous scorpion in there as well)

Edit: I didn't care about the food going missing at all... But I do draw the line at personal stuff (and expensive ones at that) as well as work equipment going missing. 

8 comments:

  1. That's a shame - it's too bad when you can't leave things in your own desk without them being nicked.

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  2. Most companies seem to tolerate a certain amount of petty pilfering by staff but taking stuff off your colleagues is utterly unacceptable - especially such obviously personal items as gifts and mementos.

    I'd suggest you raise it with your boss and suggest he emails the office telling people to be vigilant. The thief will hopefully get the message that people are on to him/her.

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  3. I'd tell the boss. Maybe you can put some invisible dye on your belongings and check the drawer every day, then check colleague's fingers. Or ask the boss to install a security camera.

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  4. You should to your boss or the best to your director.

    If thing goes crazier, why not make a police report? Since your boss is taking this matter easily.

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  5. Looks like all of you agree on 'telling the boss'. I think I'm gonna go with that too.

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  6. I think it's the work of the
    ' toyol ' & a visible one too ;P

    ReplyDelete
  7. LOL. It's better than having someone you know who's a thief, right?

    ReplyDelete

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