What’s the proper amount of time to wait to plunder the booty of a recently vacated cubicle/office? I was frowned upon for taking some Sharpies and a calculator two days after a layoff. Someone was already in the office throwing stuff away because of commanding orders from upper management. I didn’t want to miss my opportunity to get some goodies.
two days is good. I can see doing it the day after, cuz you are just being proactive and not let crap sit around. But someone might get upset if you do the day after. So two days is plenty of time. And you could leave a little note. “We will miss you Bob.” And then grab his sharpies. You could even write the note with his sharpies.
Were they blue sharpies?
Unfortunately they were not blue sharpies. Blue sharpies have a mystical vibrancy to them. However, they were a mix of the standard point size sharpie and the thinner, almost pen-like point size.
That’s too bad. I’m almost exclusively a blue sharpie guy. I use mine all the time at work – I’ve even set up a quick-access holder (a cap taped vertically to the front of my desk) so I don’t have to deal with removing caps all the time. I think I showed it to Matt.
There’s a commercial on TV right now where office workers pirate a retiring employee’s office one millisecond after he leaves [he comes back later to retrieve his nest egg. Thanks A.G. Edwards].
I think that once the paperwork has been signed and the employee is no longer employed by the company, anyone should have instant access to any company-owned supplies in that employee’s previous workspace.
The people who frowned on you were really only upset with themselves for not having acted sooner.