Been caught stealin'

A regular customer at my shop walked in, grabbed a catalytic converter, put it in his jacket and walked out. He didn't see me standing there. I about dropped a potato in my shorts. Did he just do that right in front of me? You have got to be out-yo-mind. As a matter of luck, while he was unloading his vehicle into a hopper a cop happened to roll in for no reason. Just to say hello. Scared that thief out of his skin. He grabbed the converter, brought it in and fessed up. Awesome day.

This is the only time that I know of him being alone. We always make sure someone is at the front door. Always. All I did was turn my back and he went for it. Amazing. It was one of those moments when someone had brought in a cat and we did not put it away yet.

Welcome to Cleveland Ohio lol. You have no idea how many times we had material stolen from us. You can't turn your back on anyone in that city. I remember one time we were working in Cleveland I think off Eddy rd. anyhow we were taking apart some huge industrial air conditioning units off the roof of a building. Long story short were we throwing the sheet iron off the roof onto the ground below and keeping the copper and radiators on the roof till the end of the day. Well the guy on the bobcat was making a trip to the container to dump his last load and we just threw some stuff over the roof. I heard a banging noise below and thought WTF I didn't hear the bobcat come back. HAHA some guy pulled up with his truck and was loading up the scrap we were throwing over. I yelled he got back in his truck laughed at me as he was doing it and took off I grabbed an old paint can and chucked it at his truck I missed the winshield by a foot or it would have been curtains for him. Just goes to show you that you can't turn your back in that city for even a second. That was lesson one. Lesson two happened on the same jobsite we left a bucket close to a garage door and went to lunch you couldn't see in the bucket and there was a ton of people next door in an industrial building. I come back from lunch the buckets gone. There goes my tools. I ask the girl smoking a cig outside what happened to the bucket we were gone for 10 mins. She said a guy pulled up in a truck got out and put the bucket in his truck. I asked her did you ask what he was doing and she said no he was wearing a hard hat I figured he worked for you. Hence to say I was super po'd that day and learned that you should never ever turn your back or leave anything laying out in that city. That was five years ago and I am still mad about it and it was maybe 200 dollars worth of tools and scrap combined but it was a hard lesson.

**** Pistone!

Lol.

Originally Posted by Filthy

once, when i was 5

I just got that. It went from thinking you were going to tell us about a time when you were five and you stole something which sparked the Jane's Addiction song in my head and then I ended up putting the two together. Thought I would share that thought process with everyone...

Because a cat in a jacket isn't obvious. What a goon.

Originally Posted by PistoneScrapProcessing

Welcome to Cleveland Ohio lol. You have no idea how many times we had material stolen from us. You can't turn your back on anyone in that city. I remember one time we were working in Cleveland I think off Eddy rd. anyhow we were taking apart some huge industrial air conditioning units off the roof of a building. Long story short were we throwing the sheet iron off the roof onto the ground below and keeping the copper and radiators on the roof till the end of the day. Well the guy on the bobcat was making a trip to the container to dump his last load and we just threw some stuff over the roof. I heard a banging noise below and thought WTF I didn't hear the bobcat come back. HAHA some guy pulled up with his truck and was loading up the scrap we were throwing over. I yelled he got back in his truck laughed at me as he was doing it and took off I grabbed an old paint can and chucked it at his truck I missed the winshield by a foot or it would have been curtains for him. Just goes to show you that you can't turn your back in that city for even a second. That was lesson one. Lesson two happened on the same jobsite we left a bucket close to a garage door and went to lunch you couldn't see in the bucket and there was a ton of people next door in an industrial building. I come back from lunch the buckets gone. There goes my tools. I ask the girl smoking a cig outside what happened to the bucket we were gone for 10 mins. She said a guy pulled up in a truck got out and put the bucket in his truck. I asked her did you ask what he was doing and she said no he was wearing a hard hat I figured he worked for you. Hence to say I was super po'd that day and learned that you should never ever turn your back or leave anything laying out in that city. That was five years ago and I am still mad about it and it was maybe 200 dollars worth of tools and scrap combined but it was a hard lesson.

Nothing sucks worse than to be a theft victim.

I have been a victim of theft so many times its not funny. I could write a book about it. Lets see the one I remember the most and surprised me the most was we were working in a steel plant in ohio and they had one security guard to cover 300 acres and he never left his booth. We used to just leave the keys in the tow motors and roll out at the end of the day. I come in one day no tow motors were we left them so I followed the tracks and low and behold some knuckleheads thought they were going to steal them. The dumb a$$es drove em right into the fence and got them stuck right on the poles. I don't know if they were really trying to steal them or just trash them. They wrecked one of the trannys on the CAT cost about a grand to fix it. Same job only later on I think it was Christmas of 2003 or 02 I can't remember. I came back on the first day after it walk into building two I notice the Gator we use to get around isn't there. I am thinking WTF we took the keys to it. I walk around the corner office window smashed out the other contracting company Tetra Tec had been a victim of theft the whole weekend they cut all there lockers open and stole all there tools that were of value and all there computer equipment. Now I am thinking where did they take it to. I follow the tracks and they cut the fence and had been taking stuff up and down a hill and down the railroad tracks to an empty lot the whole weekend. I don't know how much stuff they lost but I had to be into the thousands and thousands of dollars. They had there own key and stole the gator. Like I said I could write a book.