Workplace sabotage

I read a book back when I was working for the phone company about sabotage in the workplace.
(By the way, I was an operator, how seriously old school is that? You picked up a phone and dialed zero...and there I was. How quaint. Maybe if I can remember some good ones I'll tell a few operator stories.)
So the gist of this book was that if employers piss off their employees they run the risk of the employee causing them financial loss through various methods. It had stories about butchers that would grind prime cuts of meat into hamburger and campaign workers who would shred $10,000.00 checks.
I'm not going to go into all the ways over the years I have cost employers money when they have screwed me.
I will tell you this.
Where I work now they have a key system that works like this: You have a little metal doo-dad that looks like the end of an amp chord. ( the cord that connects a guitar or microphone to an amp, know what I mean?)
On the other end of it is a light. You type the stock number into the computer and the appropriate drawer unlocks and when you open the drawer the end of the doo-dad attached to the key you want lights up.
When I first started I asked somebody what I do with the doo-dad when I sell a car. He said " I throw them out, fuck Ray"
Ray is the owner of the store.
Interesting response.
I was pretty sure that was not S.O.P, so I asked another salesperson. Turns out there was a little bucket in the office. Ok.
So I put the doo-dad's in the bucket...but I was kind of curious so I started asking around. It turns out they cost $8.00 each. How should I say this...several people did not properly handle the doo-dads.
One guy in particular told me an interesting story. He said that when he first started at the store Ray screwed him over on a deal and cost him a couple hundred dollars. So he started collecting the doo-dads. He figured once he had cost the store an equivalent amount of money he would stop.
But then a funny thing happened, he got screwed over again before he reached the limit. At that point he stopped keeping track. He just kept collecting the doo-dads.
So to cut this short?
He now keeps every one of the doo-dads and uses that to track how many cars he has sold for the year. Then at the end of the year he throws them out. I estimated he has cost the store at least $5,000 so far.
In reality, they probably haven't fucked him out of half that much money. But the fact that they continue to fuck him over on any amount of money means he isn't going to stop.
It all comes down to the whole "penny wise, pound foolish" cliche.
The owner of our store is so cheap that we don't have hot water.
That's right, a customer walks into a restroom at our dealership and even though there is a 'hot' tap, no hot water actually comes out.
Umm..we live in the Rockies? Tap water is fucking cold here.
How pathetic is that? They sold more cars than any other dealer in town last year, made millions of dollars and yet hot water is an unnecessary luxury? Not since communist Russia has hot water been a luxury.
All of this was none of my damn business...until they fucked me over on a deal.

I have a dozen doo-dads so far.

The thing is...I'm finding I get more satisfaction out of having the things than out of knowing what they represent. (I thought the reverse would be true.)
I have a confession to make.
I love to collect a bunch of one thing if it has some intrinsic beauty. Even if it's useless.
For example? I used to be quite the beer aficionado when I was younger. I loved trying a beer I had never had before. I kept the bottle caps in a big vase on our coffee table. It was colorful and tactile and kind of a work of art.
At this same time I was obsessed with shooting pool.
The supermarket that I went to had the usual gum ball machine conglomerate up at the front of the store and one of the machines had superballs. Most of them were your usual swirly designs...but mixed in they had little super-ball-billiard-balls.
Cool.
I spent all my quarters trying to get a full rack.
I had quite the collection of super balls. I kept them in another vase on the table.
Again, tactile, colorful art.
People were actually really fascinated by these two vases. They would paw through them , they would dump them out and play with them.
Both collections were totally useless...except for, sometimes I would take out the superballs and, a handful at a time, I would slam them on the hardwood floor and watch the cats go absolutely
batfuck-crazy trying to catch the balls...that's as close to practical as they got.
Anyway, I loved having hundreds of bottle caps and superballs in jars.
and, I get the same feeling from the doo-dads.
They have no purpose...but there they sit all shiny and tactile on my desk.
I'll find something cool to do with them.