It's the recession Jim, but not as we know it!
Ex-Nokia Siemens engineer admits eBaying nicked routers
A hard-up ex-engineer at Nokia Siemens swiped wireless routers worth thousands of pounds from his employer to refurbish and flog on eBay. Dewaldt Hermann, 33, appeared at Swindon Crown Court to admit he was behind a spate of thefts some months after he started work at the firm, Newbury Today reports. Tessa Hingston, …
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Monday 28th May 2012 14:08 GMT Ross K
Re: Businesses - How about paying...
I realise that there are plenty of thirty year-old virgins working as techies out there who can survive on £16 a year. However, there are some out there who have managed to reproduce and aare paid barely enough to support a family.
I also know plenty of techies who are working second jobs to make ends meet, so I can see how this guy ended up doing what he did - "extenuating circumstances" I believe it's called.
The judge obviously didn't see the whole thing as crime of the century either, so don't lose too much sleep over it eh?
I don't know what you do for a living or how much you earn - maybe you'd like to share your budget with us if you're a techie?
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Monday 28th May 2012 14:56 GMT Charles Calthrop
Re: Businesses - How about paying...
"and aare paid barely enough to support a family" so we are agreed they are paid enough then?
"I also know plenty of techies who are working second jobs to make ends meet," my point exactly.
"The judge obviously didn't see the whole thing as crime of the century either," I didn't say it was either. But he stole because he obviously figured it the easiest option given the consequences, not because megacorp x are heartless bastards who force workers to work at starvation wages.
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Tuesday 29th May 2012 01:14 GMT Daniel B.
Harsh!
"Stealing" and calling this guy a thief is a bit harsh on the guy. A lot of this kit is usually decomissioned and thrown away to the bin (or to recycling centers) despite being in perfect working order. This bloke saw an opportunity and nicked the equipment to get a profit. While it is dishonest to nick/profit on company stuff, it isn't quite like stealing brand-new equipment. Most of the stuff had been already written off as a loss or as having chump change value, which even the judge pointed out.
Company garbage products is a lot more common than you might think of. We once built an entire server out of scrap parts in the office "junkyard"!
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Monday 28th May 2012 11:34 GMT The Fuzzy Wotnot
Re: Businesses - How about paying...
Oh bollocks!
He nicked stuff because he thought he could get away with it! Living beyond his means, he dug himself a nice big hole o'debt and thought this would be an easy way out of it.
Ask me he's bloody lucky he only got a year suspension and community service, you get more for peeing about with someone else's Facebook account these days!
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Monday 28th May 2012 08:47 GMT Stuart 22
Shame rally.
A fair sentence. Any losses to the company were minor, he was actually benefitting from re-cycling kit instead of it being landfilled. Howeve, a company has to expect some loyalty/trust in their employees' handling of equipment. And being so stupidly discovered they didn't have much choice.
But I note they are not suing him and the jobs are lost. Let's hope Siemens reciprocate with their same trust/loyalty towards their workers that they expect in return.
All a bit sad really.
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Monday 28th May 2012 11:10 GMT A Known Coward
Where is it stated that the articles were to be scrapped? That's right, nowhere. He stated it was his belief that they were to be 'dumped' but that doesn't make it true. In fact WEEE means these routers would not have ended up in a skip, they would have been sold to a recycling firm if they were to be disposed of. No electronic waste ends up in landfill any more.
If he had actually pulled them out of a skip you might have had a point, but they were in a storage room instead. The company could have decided to refurb them and sell them on instead.
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Monday 28th May 2012 14:24 GMT Anonymous Coward
Bit stupid ...
... checking your ebay account thru the same company's network that owned the kit you purloined. It was probably quite exciting though so hard to resist the temptation. I used to catch the chief of IT doing the same all the time. This happened before smart phones were plentiful?
I wonder how much of a dick he must have been for a co-worker to feel the need to grass him up. Can't think of many who would have bothered TBH, or even wanted in on it.
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Biting the hand that feeds IT
