Is this really stealing?

[Broomjockey]

I find the idea of destroying unsold merchandise repugnant. I'd be happier if companies that did that (such as with books) instead of crediting 100% for the to-be-destroyed merchandise, they credit 70% or something and let the store sell what it has at whatever the market will bear. That'd make a whole lot of people happy.

And then anything that doesn't sell at the discounted rate can be donated to charities, as things like shirts or books would be useful.

On the original question, a situation like that, I'd not call it stealing, but depending on your employer, they might decide to fire you anyways.

We had the issue of people delibrately making too much food at the end of the night so they'd have something to snack on during closing duties, but management killed that idea when wastage rates got too high, and a couple people did get fired over it.

[NightAngel]

I find the idea of destroying unsold merchandise repugnant.

If you only knew how many perfectly good DVD's I've snapped in half...

[Broomjockey]

NOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! KAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNN! !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Darn it NightAngel! I can't believe it! We need to save these poor DVDs! Quick, we can use my place as a temporary shelter until we can find them a new home!

[jb17kx]

This sort of reminds me of how Comeng, a large Australian commercial engineering company was broken up back in the '80s. The disposing compnay sold everything that was of any value and wasn't too hard to get rid of. What was left went to landfill.
In one of the biggest remaining-assest stripping feats Australia has ever seen, employees (many of whom had been laid off without any benefits) and railway enthusiasts removed over 600 filing cabinets from the company archives, including over 100,000 assorted documents and product blueprints, 15,000 slides and negatives and over 18km of 8 and 16mm film. They also walked out with tools, presses, dies, and all manner of things from stationary to the littled peices of metal stamped with the logo that were fixed inside finshed products.

In fact, isn't this same method that BBC employees are very happy they used now that the 16mm copies of Doctor Who episodes they nicked from bins of incinerator carts are the only copies left?

See? Nicking rubbish bins is a force for good in the world!

[siead_lietrathua]

i like he system we have at work. be it a damaged package or food expired by one day (like crackers), it gets rung out of the system and shoved in a bin in the staff room for a post-shift free for all with the staff. they stard doing it simply because it was less wasteful.

[Lace Neil Singer]

At the pizza place, any pizzas that were incorrectly made, or a customer didn't want, or that we refused to give to customers cuz they refused to pay etc etc were eaten by the employees; altho I was a bit sick of pizza after working there a while, the tomato sauce used at the pizza place was to die for. ^^ The best ever pizza eaten in this fashion was taken from a moron who refused to pay on the grounds that our prices were too expensive; it was a family cheese and tomato with double bacon. We also used to go round the chippy and collect unsold chips, sausages and fish; they'd in return get 1 free pizza a day. Worked out very well.

[Argabarga]

This is a tricky issue,

Legaly, garbage is seen as public property, since by throwing it away you are forefitting your rights to it, but, if it's still sitting on someone's PRIVATE property, you can't go looking through it as that would be tresspassing.

Police can only take garbage that's left curbside, if it's on the property, they still need a warrant, so, while the trash itself is technicaly not thiers, the fact it's still in thier dumpster, in thier building, on thier property means you really cannot just take it.

And if they have a specific company policy against taking the trash, no matter what the codified law says, you'll still be in trouble with them for breaking it. The same way you would be if you come back late to lunch, yeah, there's no law against it, but your employer can still hold you accountable.

A further hitch is that the company may have contracts with thier vendors for return/reclaim of unsold or damaged product, and by someone taking that away, even if they're good heartedly trying to prevent waste, they are actualy interfering with the contract conditions. Sometimes, it comes down at my store that "X" number of units of something have been ordered destroyed by the vendor/store contract, and it has to be done.

These days, with liability and nuisance lawsuits running rampant, most companies actively look for ways to totaly destroy "defective" product to prevent it's use by anyone, for fear they'd be held liable if someone were to do something stupid and get injured with it, since they "carelessly" let a defective item (Proved by the fact it was getting thrown out) fall into the hands of a moron.

The law also, obviously, demands destruction of some products if they can't be sold, like food and some kinds of specialized equipment.

Regrettible, but the way of the world right now

[zzapp the witch]

Have you tried asking for it? When my lil bro worked for a furniture store, he had to do repossessions. When they repossessed a big screen TV, the store had it slated for the trash. Lil bro asked if he could have it, they didn't care and he took it home and cleaned all the crayon off of it. Its perfectly fine.

[justZu]

When they repossessed a big screen TV, the store had it slated for the trash. Lil bro asked if he could have it, they didn't care and he took it home and cleaned all the crayon off of it. Its perfectly fine.

Best. Job. EVER.
Color me officially jealous.

[CrazedClerk]

This happened all the time with my games store, but all they had to do was submit a list of skus that had been "Destroyed" to satisfy the policy. Therefore, if whatever you wanted was already on the list, you were free to take it.

I got a ton of free strategy guides this way.

[Andara Bledin]

Keeping "destroyed" product is actual theft, unless (and that's a huge unless) the company that produced the product allows for anything else to be done with it. I have never heard of this ever being the case.

Any store that doesn't actually destroy the merchandise can be in for a massive lawsuit from their distirbutors for this.

^-.-^