Interesting that we are all pretty rigid on direct theft, but if your employer instructs you to take shortcuts with a job to get it done faster, ones that arent ethical or NEC compliant, and you do it, saving your own ass suddenly overrides what is essentially complicity in stealing from the customer, and morality goes out the window.
Dont bite the hand that feeds goes beyond your immediate paycheck, i.e., the person/co you work for.
I posted the other day about creative overestimating, however that was in dealing with dishonest employers, and they are out there as much as thieving employees.
Some say it's easier to ask forgiveness than permission. Hogwash.
I dont think we're talking about taking home a few wirenuts, NM staples and crimp sleeves in your tool pouch tho (and being ready to go first job start of the next day). and for time, it get murky: say the boss scheduled a job for 4 hours. It takes you 5. Did you pad your time an hour, run into unforeseen problems, or was the 4 hour timetable unreasonable?
$475 a year is more than incidental/accidental expenses in lost material to me. That's a rotohammer, powder actuated tool, or 250' of NM a month for duration of employment.
Employees wasting time is usually far more costly than materials theft. Doing a ****** job and having to go back is more costly still, but it seems everyone has the time to do it twice.
