Career Journal writes an article about stealing office supplies. It seems that younger people take supplies (or at least admit they do).
Younger workers are more likely to make off with office supplies for personal use than older workers, and they're less prone to feel guilty about it, according to a new survey.
Nearly one in five, or 18%, of workers report having taken office supplies for personal use in the past year, according to a survey of 1,630 employed adults in the U.S. from staffing agency Spherion Corp. and Harris Interactive.
Here's the thing. The oldview is that everyone steals. The difference is small-time thieves take office supplies, and major crooks steal pension funds. What this means is that it's not the thievery that matters to the average person, it's the amount.
But the survey doesn't tell us the reasons behind stealing, but rather that young people are more likely to have "sticky fingers."
Could it be that younger people, raised in the shadow of a media barrage against corporate malfeasance, simply don't consider the corporate world to be trustworthy? 90% of workers in the US work for a corporation. There is a socializing effect to corporate life, well-documented in studies on how corporate employees exert peer pressure to conform.
Could it be that the image of a corporation as no longer caring about its employees has seeped into the American definition of work? Maybe young adults, who grew up watching stories of corporate layoffs rationalize petty theft as payback for an unfair and uncaring corporate world.
Maybe. Or it could be psychobabble.
This post is sponsored by Durbin Media Group, but written for stlrecruiting.com
