The New York Times

November 21, 1999

THE RIGHT THING;
Big Theft, Small Theft: Is There a Difference?

Every Thanksgiving, as we prepare the dining room table, we get out our Spode china, the Reed & Barton silverware, the antique crystal and a small cloth bag that at last count held 36 mismatched silver butter knives I've swiped from fine hotels and restaurants.

I'm not particularly proud to admit that for the last 15 years or so, I've been "collecting" butter knives as parting mementoes of fine meals or pleasant stays. I know my actions are wrong, and probably will raise tariffs for the rest of you law-abiding citizens. But I also know that my actions are no indication that I'm likely to walk away from a hotel with one of its television sets.

Such a leap of theft hit me recently as I was winding my way through one Web site after another, each devoted to employee theft. The numbers bandied about on these sites are staggering: businesses supposedly lose $52 billion to $120 billion a year. But forget about trying to find solid support for these numbers or even tracing them to an original source. And everything from vanishing pens to "stolen time" to multimillion-dollar embezzlement is lumped together.

"Many of us are not completely legal," said Laura P. Hartman, a professor of business ethics at the University of Wisconsin. "There's no doubt that driving 57 miles an hour in a 55-mile-an-hour zone is illegal. But violating that law doesn't make you the same as a child rapist. And when we categorize theft in the workplace as one big category, we are doing just that."

Written policies at most companies draw no distinctions, barring employees from taking or using any company property for personal purposes, no matter how small, said Jay Hotchkiss, a Portland, Me., consultant who helps companies write employee handbooks. But few try to enforce such policies down to the paper clip, he said.

Some business owners are resigned to petty theft by customers or employees. "I own a restaurant and we've got these creamers for coffee that are cute little chickens," said Scott Adams, whose main living comes from drawing the "Dilbert" comic strip. "The cream pours out of their little open beak. As soon as we got them they were a big hit and started disappearing like crazy. We were happy about it because anybody who steals a creamer obviously liked the restaurant."

But Mr. Adams, whose first Dilbert book was "Build a Better Life by Stealing Office Supplies," said analyses of employee theft were always biased. "They fail to take into account how much the employer has stolen from the employee," he said. "I don't know anybody who doesn't do as much work when they're not on the job. I've got a feeling the net of that is in favor of the employer."

But basing ethical behavior on a tit-for-tat model can spiral out of control. Even the consultants hired to stem the tide of theft say success depends on being reasonable, not puritanical. Rather than looking for petty "borrowing" or Web surfing on company time, said Michael G. Kessler, a forensic accountant based in Manhattan, "I'm looking for the person who's going to sit there and run his business out of my computer."

Simply put, it is ludicrous to treat all infractions as if they had the same ethical outcome. Clearly, they do not. Not only is mutual respect lost if companies practice the petty rigidity of assigning every wrong the same punishment, but it can also have the perverse effect of provoking otherwise loyal, productive employees to up the ante of what they will take from the office.

Reasonable solutions can vary from company to company. American City Journals, a chain of city business newspapers based in Charlotte, N.C., states in its employee manual, "Use of office equipment such as copy machines is allowed for incidental personal use and to further your commitment to nonprofit and community activities."

But while rules may make it easier for employees and employers to know what's allowed and what's not, no policy can anticipate every situation. It is better to create an ethical climate where employees see themselves as stewards trusted with some reasonable discretion over their use of the company's resources.

As for me, I've decided to end my days of knife-lifting. As I said, stealing is wrong. And who could possibly need more than three dozen butter knives?