CleverSlug_196

37d agoWork

Accused of stealing/embezzling electricity from employer

For almost two decades I worked security in office buildings, night shift, so I could work on my novel drafts. At work, in the idle hours between rounds and other security duties, I wrote on an iPad with bluetooth keyboard and I had connected their chargers to the electric outlets in my security reception desk. \[I get a lot of comments on how I shouldn't write at work and that was why I was singled out. These commenters are wrong. They do not understand that my work was 'guarding' an empty office after hours between 23.00-07.00 hours. This involved a maximum of two hours of actual work (walking rounds, checking if all the keycards had been returned, answering phone calls), leaving six hours to pass the time and stay awake. Most of my coworkers filled that time with non-productive activities like watching TV, playing games, filling out crossword puzzles. Others were college students who studied for their exams or wrote on their thesis. And I knew this beforehand, which is why I chose a low paying job way below my level specifically because I would have hours to read books and write on my novels. They could only fire me if I fell asleep or didn't follow up on alarms, but not for spending the 'idle hours' writing.\] I had a manager who had a personal problem with me and tried to get me fired. Since I performed my duties above average, he had to find a way to get me on something else. So, one day, I was called to HQ for a meeting with my manager and ~~a floozy from HR~~ a young female intern from the Human Resources department who spent the whole meeting flirting with my idiot manager (who was married to the company owner's daughter). I was accused of theft. Stealing electricity for my laptop. I told them that if they wanted to accuse me, they had to do it properly. I hadn't committed theft. I had committed embezzlement, since the electricity was part of my reception area and under my supervision. Therefore, embezzlement is a vastly more insidious crime and they should...