I wouldn’t really call it stealing. When you’re taking something that rightfully belongs to your boss, it’s more like repossession, which is a whole industry! It’s annoying people fail to see that sort of nuance. Especially law enforcement.
When it was just barely Tuesday morning on a dampened mid August day, I was working on a project assignment. As with all work projects, all that mattered was the outcome. My employer really has no opinion on my process as long as it isn’t traced back to them.
I promise this is a real job, American government even taxes it, it earns me Social Security. I have great health insurance and a 10% (!) match on my 401K. Totally legit.
Anyhow, back to the project. There was a historical item that my employer wished to have back. All I needed to do was pick it up and bring it to the office. It wasn’t in a safe, it was in a glass coffee table. A glass coffee table located in the middle of a 400 year old city mansion of an ancient Austrian aristocrat. Guy was in his 80s, probably wouldn’t even notice that an old rock was missing from a bunch of other rocks.
Old houses should be easy to break into, they really should. Security is rarely good, their construction makes modern surveillance difficult. But nothing is square and everything makes noise, loud, obvious noises. I avoid actually using anything with moving parts when possible, so I went in via the old coal chute, which since it’s filthy, meant most of my clothes were left outside for my departure. Sadly, it collapsed half through my progression, ditching me in a kitchen. Dogs began barking, not good.
But I do prep, so I knew the floor plan. With great speed and a veil, I hightailed it to my window of departure choice. And as old stuff does, it’d absorbed the humidity from the nasty mid August night, causing the window to shriek like an outraged coed denied last call. The sound startled me so much that I dropped my veil. But no time to dwell on that, committed to escape, I tried to climb out the window, but got stuck, which is how the polizei found me.
Long story short, I’m on a performance improvement plan at work and in a venerable Austrian city there is a mug shot of a disheveled soot covered Korean woman in her underwear flashing a double bird at the camera. Sorry to the real Choi Seohyun of Korea. If you ever go to Austria, I hate to tell you, but you missed your court appointment.