Thieving Bitches

As you might guess from the title, this blog entry is going to be about thieving bitches. Two people from my house stole an assload of alcohol from our house during special dinner. I'm talking about three handles of hard liquor, 5 bottles of wine, and 10 bottles of champagne. Then they had a party with some friends where they drank all of our alcohol. All of the numbers are estimates. I don't know for sure how much they stole. This was the amount initially quoted to me by the person who ratted them out. The managers discussed this issue at length tonight to decide what we should do about it. Let me just say, I was a touch irate. We ended up deciding to fine them each $85. Jesse informed them of this decision, but they protested the fine. Below is the email Jesse sent to the other managers:

Hey, all,

So Roxy and I had a conversation with Jen and Patricia. While they have admitted to stealing some alcohol the night of special dinner, they say they did not steal as much as we say--the Jim Beam Black and maybe 5-10 bottles of wine/champagne. Also, that they did not do it with malicious intent, nor were they gloating at their party about it. I suggested that at least half of the fines that we quoted to them were "uncooperative fines" in that they were independent of the alcohol that was taken and more dependent on the fact that they took it and that we as a management team then had to deal, discuss, and stress because of it. They will hopefully be coming to me or Roxy tomorrow with a number that they would like it reduced to--I gave them no suggestions. I just wanted to create a forum now to discuss how we feel about reducing those fines in light of this new information, so that we hopefully can come to a conclusion before the meeting and allow them to contest tomorrow if necessary.

Here's my two cents, since I probably won't have much time tomorrow to discuss:

When I first talked to Jen, she said all they took were a couple bottles of wine. Patricia threw in the Jim Beam. The number kept growing that they'd confess to as I talked to them. I do understand that we are still way overquoting what they probably took, but again, we spent 30 minutes or so discussing this with each other, and Roxy and I spent more talking to them afterward, and now we're spending even more time discussing, which should all be factored in to this uncooperative fine. The fact that they did this is reprehensible and should also be a part of what they pay for. The point is that we need to make this seem like it is not being dealt with lightly.
That being said, "uncooperative fines" are always arbitrary and we may be quoting a steep one here, especially since we're removing the option to make it up with workshift. I could see $60-75 each as a viable option. Or possibly that they each must pay $30-$40 to cover the alcohol (that goes back into the social budget) and then each get 3 hours of uncooperative workshift hour fines to cover the uncooperative act.

Any thoughts?


Jesse



And here is my response to Jesse's email:

So you said this forum would be to talk about their fines in light of this new information, but I want to go over really quickly what the new information is:
1: Jen and Patricia have confessed to stealing alcohol
2: They claim they didn't steal with malicious intent
3: They claim they didn't gloat about stealing our alcohol

As for point 1, regardless of the quantity, stealing our house's alcohol during a social event is an incredibly selfish and disrespectful act. Because they have confessed, we know that our accusations are correct, if not in degree, then at least in substance.

As for point 2, I don't know what it means to steal without malicious intent. I don't know why they thought they needed to sneak away the alcohol if they weren't doing a shady thing. I sincerely doubt that they didn't realize what they were doing. They knew this was a horrible thing to do and they did it anyway, over and over again throughout the night. Even though they knew it was wrong, they didn't return the alcohol the next day. They didn't even enjoy it quietly by themselves. Instead they threw a party with it. If that isn't gloating, I don't know what is. Did they actively laugh about how proud they were to steal from us? I believe so, but ultimately that doesn't matter. We aren't fining them because they bragged. We are fining them because they stole from the members of this house for their own personal gain. We are fining them because that was incredibly disrespectful of the house, their fellow housemates, and their managers (especially social). The "new" information we've gotten from them doesn't actually change much except to confirm my beliefs. They definitely stole. They knew enough about their actions to hide them. They had too much alcohol for personal consumption, and they had to throw a party in celebration of what they did in order to get rid of all of it.

I think some extra thought on this subject adds one more point of new information: Jen and Patricia are liars. Their claims about not being malicious and not gloating don't make any sense. Their constantly increasing estimates of what they stole doesn't add to their credibility either.

So what do I think about reducing their fines now that I have this new information? I don't have to think about it very much at all.

Rosemary


Well that pretty much covers the situation. Feel the anger radiating off of my email? It burns so goooooood...