Have you ever kept work equipment?

[StillHasTheMouse]

I’m talking laptops, monitors, phone chargers, that kind of thing. Maybe you weren’t asked to return it or maybe it was just… quietly forgotten. Or maybe you did hand everything back but kept something small like a branded mug or office stationery.

Be honest, have you ever kept work equipment after leaving a job? And AIBU to think most people have, even if they won’t admit it?

Never, because the NHS are so tight 😅

I do have quite a few NHS issues cheap pens at home though.

Our work you can’t return anyway, apart from the laptop (which is restricted as government dept). But desks, chairs, monitors etc for home working, there isn’t a process for returning.

There’s a huge difference between a laptop and some stationery.

I might have had a biro or something which was from the office but never deliberately and nothing more expensive.

I would be surprised at an organisation not noticing a missing laptop.

When I left a job earlier this year they didn't ask for the monitors back. They were only 2 years old but I think they decided it wasn't worth the cost of couriering them back to the office. They didn't want anything back other than the laptop.

I have a chair I was given for home working during Covid and I suspect if I ever left the job it wouldn’t be cost effective to return it. I have a few bits of merch from a workplace that I keep for sentimental reasons because I really liked the job. Just branded pens, tote bag and the like.

we used to go home with pockets full of scissors at the end of an A&E shift back in the day when suture kits were single use disposable items

They are amazing quality and I’ve still got several pairs 20 years later

Nope but 10 years ago DP was tasked with fleet and phones.
One conversation he told me about.
Hi Mr abc you worked for xyz 4 years ago, can you please return the company phone.... oh oh okay you dont have it any more... hmm yes.... OK. Don't worry about the phone Mr abc, I must inform you this phone number will be being cut off in 28 days..... I'd apologise however xyz has been paying your bill for the last hmmm 7 years and you left 4 years ago yes?
So may people left his old work place and took the phone with them, bills were paid for years.

My current work place wiped the old laptops then gave them out for free to staff, same with the tables when we got new 2 years ago.

Loads of stationery and my headset as they weren't reused/shared. But there's no way you couldn't not return your laptop and even if you didn't everything would be shut down and it would be unusable.

Other than my desk my entire home setup (chair, 2 monitors, keyboard, docking station, webcam, all cables, headset if I need it) are all from my precious 2 roles. Laptop is my current job obviously.

Define not, I’ve got enough of my own clutter going on.

Yeah I have some NHS laminating pouches

Ive still got an iPad from a school I worked in 8 years ago! Oops!

I accidentally kept a laptop from an old job - when I left I was in extremely poor health (on a MH section) and it just never got given back... Only discovered I had it still 3 years after I left

I have a £750 dictionary from a previous job. I did ask them whether they wanted the books back when I left and they said no. I just didn’t specify exactly what books they were.

A big calculator with a roll to print. They were closing down and boss said you might as well take it. It's really good!

No, never. I did take home the office spider plant when lockdown happened though. Then the office closed completely. I returned all the various VPN cables etc and the printer but the spider plant stayed with me. No-one asked after him. And I had gone into the dark abandoned office a week after lockdown to use the photocopier and he was there all alone. Rescue mission really.

2 monitors, docking station, multiple power supplies…yup😉

I also have a plant rescued in the pandemic! It's thriving and is quite a statement piece now that it's looked after properly. The only other thing I have, which I'll return when I leave, is an office chair liberated during the same lockdown run as the plant. Tech has to go back and it's just as well, I wouldn't want it. Some of my colleagues use their work laptop as their only laptop, but I wouldn't want my personal banking data etc on my work laptop.

my employer only wants laptops and phones back. Desks, monitors, chairs etc they don’t want back

Oh similar here. A dead twig in a pot at the entrance of a school I worked in over twenty five years ago. It was unloved and uncared for. I ‘rescued’ it. I planted it in my garden. It turned out to be a beautiful Magnolia tree. I was really sad to leave it when I moved house but hopefully the new owners appreciate its blooms every spring.

I have a pair of scissors from my first teaching job. I don’t think I thought about it- we did so much work at home and that’s where they were when I finished.

However my current job has issued nothing but a laptop. I bought a stand on expenses. The monitor is repurposed from DS1. My phone is an old one of mine… so no risk of me appropriating anything! let alone a chair!

I was essentially forced out of my teaching position, and they were very clear they wanted back anything that was theirs (so basically just laptop and a door key) - very reasonable and entirely as I expected, but they were twats about it (not just getting the laptop back, the whole debacle), so I politely said I would be taking back everything that was mine from school…4 car loads, including several pieces of furniture, later and I’d taken all of my stuff. I’d bought a lot of things over the years and ended up donating a lot of it to the school my nephew was at, there was just no way I was leaving it there!

My DM had a desktop computer from work which was loaned to her back in 1995, and runs on Windows 95. She had it for about twelve years before she retired; she offered to give it back when she left, but they told her to keep it - I think returning it would have just given them the headache of disposing of it, as it was pretty much obsolete by 2007. Sadly DM has now passed away, and DF doesn’t like throwing anything out in case it’s ever useful, so it’s in a box in a corner of the study, and apparently still works.

I come across the odd pencil now and then from the Bank I worked in, oooo about 30 years ago now (wow didn’t realise it was so long ago!). And I must confess one of their staplers stuck to my hand on my way out.

No, because I'm not a thief.