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I worked at a company that had effectively no physical security during work hours until the second time someone came in during lunch and stole an armload of lap

I worked at a company that had effectively no physical security during work hours until the second time someone came in during lunch and stole an armload of laptops. Then we got card readers and a staffed front desk, and discovered our snack budget was too high because people from other companies on other floors were coming to ours for snacks too. I never felt the office was insecure, except in retrospect once it was actually secure.

PunchyHamster 8mo ago
How the fuck nobody notices some randoms coming to steal snacks in the first place ?
- mystifyingpoi 8mo ago
  I work at a company of ~200 people and I already don't recognize everyone. Seeing an unknown face, I just assume they are from some distant team that I never had to interact with, say hi and move on.
- kjs3 8mo ago
  We have nearly a 1000 people in my building. I don't track every rando that walks by, nor reasonably could I.
- hamdingers 8mo ago
  ~400 person company spread across a few floors, but only one kitchen. It wasn't weird for people you didn't recognize to come off the elevator and get snacks to take back to their floor.
- bombcar 8mo ago
  There's a huge difference between a company with its own building, and a company that shares a building in some way with other companies. Many I've seen have it setup so that if you get past the security guard at the lobby, you effectively had full reign of the entire building, including many companies that wouldn't lock the doors or common areas.
  - animal531 8mo ago
    In the early 2000's I worked at a company where our IT section was in its own building with only about 18-24 or so people spread out over three mostly open plan areas between development, testing and infrastructure. Even so we still had an incident where two guys walked in and just collected a few laptops before making their escape. We like to think that we are hyper-vigilant and intelligent as human beings, but in general we tend to just focus on what is in front of us most of the time. We assume that when things are happening that they must be ordinary, or else why would they be happening?
- nkrisc 8mo ago
  I worked somewhere with a few hundred employees across 3 floors. If someone wearing business casual walked onto our floor I would have no idea if they worked for us or not.
- atulatul 8mo ago
  Another aspect besides not recognizing everyone from your company is like this- even if someone knows for sure that a person from a different company is helping themselves to snacks, people are may avoid pointing it out. People may prefer to avoid conflicts or make someone else look bad. They are more likely to act if they see someone stealing from their desk, home, etc. That's kind of their domain. Also, a few other things may also be there- people won't make noise if someone steals snack packets, but they may make noise if someone steals laptops. Also, if one person steals it may get pointed out more than if a lot of people steal- where stealing is culture, etc.
- SomeUserName432 8mo ago
  Feels like every time I drop by the office there's 2-3 new faces I've never seen before. People I know seems to not take issue with them being there, so I'm sure it's probably fine. Fine enough for it not to be my issue to deal with in any case.
mikepurvis 8mo ago
What year was that? I was at a startup from 2010 onward and I'm pretty sure we had physical keys until about twelve people and after that it was straight to badges. There was never a time where you could just walk in.
- hamdingers 8mo ago
  Late 2010s. We actually did have badges but the doors were only locked outside work hours, so nobody carried them. The thief had to walk past a security desk in the lobby, take the elevator up to our floor, walk past a front desk to the kitchen, then open a door to get to the office area. Probably sounded like enough layers for whoever was in charge of security at the time, but both desks were frequently unoccupied during lunch. I know we had cameras too, but I never got updates on the investigation. I suspect it was an employee at one of the other companies in our building.
  - mikepurvis 8mo ago
    Interesting. I feel like most places still make you badge into the doors during business hours, and even specifically encourage not permitting tailgating, sometimes tied to a purported safety concern around being able to know who is in the building in an emergency... though honestly at most shops I bet no one has any idea how to get a report like "everyone who has badged in in since 6am this morning".
    - yreg 8mo ago
      My company worked just like hamdingers describes until about 5 years ago. An x-box went missing at some point though.
fxtentacle 8mo ago
I once lived in Singapore for a while and we were all sure that nobody would steal anything anyway, so we just never bothered to lock the doors. (That was also very helpful if you wanted to stop for a quick coffee with a date in the middle of the night.) You could see the MacBooks from the street, but nothing ever went missing. I don’t know what exactly it was, but Singapore felt incredibly safe and crime-free.
- deleted 8mo ago
  [deleted]
- ThrowawayTestr 8mo ago
  >I don’t know what exactly it was, but Singapore felt incredibly safe and crime-free. The extreme punishments for breaking the law might have something to do with it.
  - StopDisinfo910 8mo ago
    I don't think it explains everything. I think social norms have a lot to do with it. It's like the actual social costs of being the one who broke the social trust is so high it dissuades people. It worked for me on a lower level. Everyone cut queues and will grab an empty seat if it looks available at a packed restaurant here so I do it too but I never did that when I lived in Singapore because I knew that's not how things work there and people would genuinely be mad at me for doing it. It's like a self-fulfilling, self-improving environment. Same with Japan and cleanliness. State provided housing for most and a booming economy with low unemployment must help too.
  - wredcoll 8mo ago
    > The extreme punishments for breaking the law might have something to do with it. Historically speaking, this is almost never true. People constantly think the solution is crueler punishments and we have hundreds of years of records of what happens.
    - Camus134 8mo ago
3rodents 8mo ago
Twitch had badged entry and still managed to have a couple of incidents in which people walked in off the street to steal laptops. No snack theft though, thankfully some things are sacred.
- russdill 8mo ago
  Happened to me in downtown San Francisco. We had keycards, but my manager helpfully held the door for someone.
lelandfe 8mo ago
It's been really, really top of mind here in NYC after a guy walked into a Midtown building last year and gunned down people.
ralferoo 8mo ago
I once worked at a place where the receptionist held the door open for a thief who made off with about 10 PCs, taken from random work desks near the entrance. She thought that because he was wearing a suit and a badge from his "company" that he must have been supposed to be there, and assumed he was probably taking the computers away to be fixed. There was surprisingly little repercussion for violating the "one card one person" door policy and by someone whose job it was to know which visitors would be on-site on any given day, and so should have known that this guy wasn't supposed to be there.
- vidarh 8mo ago
  > There was surprisingly little repercussion for violating the "one card one person" door policy Presumably because "everyone" knows that "noone" complies with those policies, in part because it's socially awkward to e.g. close the door on someone who tries to tailgate, and so it needs to be heavily and consistently enforced before it becomes more socially unacceptable to be the person who potentially puts their colleagues at risk of disciplinary actions than to be the person who tells someone they need to swipe.
- joshstrange 8mo ago
  I once worked for a company that had a bad habit of not announcing employee departures (for both firing or quitting). At one point they let the VP of sales go and told practically no one. It came out that he was no longer with the company in an All Company meeting, not even on purpose. Someone asked “Where is X?” and the CEO was like “they are no longer with the company”. After that I lobbied, successfully but not easily, to have them send out an email that just said “X is no longer with the company” regardless of how/why they left. The “winning” argument was that if that VP had emailed me (or probably any of the developers) and asked for an export of data (our client list, stats, etc) we would have sent it to him. Probably even with him reaching out from a personal email address or via sms. What IC is going to tell a VP to “follow procedure”? Same deal with if he had followed me to the keycard door and told me he forgot his key card. No one is going to thank the IC who tells the VP they can’t let them in.
- NoNameHaveI 8mo ago
  When I began work at my last company, we all had to badge in to get in the parking lot, where there was 6 lanes 6-10a and just 2 other times. We also had to pass through 1 of 4 turnstyles, and we were subject to bag inspection going both in and out. We were trained to NEVER leave my badge in an unguarded location (ie my locked car at home, at lunch, etc). We were also trained to NOT display our badges off campus, especially when travelling. This made me make DAMN SURE I knew where my badge was at at times. Same hook in the closet. When walking OUT through the turnstyle, I usually either put it in my bag if I had one, tucked into my shirt pocket, or just tucked under my shirt.

PunchyHamster 8mo ago

How the fuck nobody notices some randoms coming to steal snacks in the first place ?

mystifyingpoi 8mo ago
I work at a company of ~200 people and I already don't recognize everyone. Seeing an unknown face, I just assume they are from some distant team that I never had to interact with, say hi and move on.
kjs3 8mo ago
We have nearly a 1000 people in my building. I don't track every rando that walks by, nor reasonably could I.
hamdingers 8mo ago
~400 person company spread across a few floors, but only one kitchen. It wasn't weird for people you didn't recognize to come off the elevator and get snacks to take back to their floor.
bombcar 8mo ago
There's a huge difference between a company with its own building, and a company that shares a building in some way with other companies. Many I've seen have it setup so that if you get past the security guard at the lobby, you effectively had full reign of the entire building, including many companies that wouldn't lock the doors or common areas.
- animal531 8mo ago
  In the early 2000's I worked at a company where our IT section was in its own building with only about 18-24 or so people spread out over three mostly open plan areas between development, testing and infrastructure. Even so we still had an incident where two guys walked in and just collected a few laptops before making their escape. We like to think that we are hyper-vigilant and intelligent as human beings, but in general we tend to just focus on what is in front of us most of the time. We assume that when things are happening that they must be ordinary, or else why would they be happening?
nkrisc 8mo ago
I worked somewhere with a few hundred employees across 3 floors. If someone wearing business casual walked onto our floor I would have no idea if they worked for us or not.
atulatul 8mo ago
Another aspect besides not recognizing everyone from your company is like this- even if someone knows for sure that a person from a different company is helping themselves to snacks, people are may avoid pointing it out. People may prefer to avoid conflicts or make someone else look bad. They are more likely to act if they see someone stealing from their desk, home, etc. That's kind of their domain. Also, a few other things may also be there- people won't make noise if someone steals snack packets, but they may make noise if someone steals laptops. Also, if one person steals it may get pointed out more than if a lot of people steal- where stealing is culture, etc.
SomeUserName432 8mo ago
Feels like every time I drop by the office there's 2-3 new faces I've never seen before. People I know seems to not take issue with them being there, so I'm sure it's probably fine. Fine enough for it not to be my issue to deal with in any case.

mikepurvis 8mo ago

What year was that? I was at a startup from 2010 onward and I'm pretty sure we had physical keys until about twelve people and after that it was straight to badges. There was never a time where you could just walk in.

hamdingers 8mo ago
Late 2010s. We actually did have badges but the doors were only locked outside work hours, so nobody carried them. The thief had to walk past a security desk in the lobby, take the elevator up to our floor, walk past a front desk to the kitchen, then open a door to get to the office area. Probably sounded like enough layers for whoever was in charge of security at the time, but both desks were frequently unoccupied during lunch. I know we had cameras too, but I never got updates on the investigation. I suspect it was an employee at one of the other companies in our building.
- mikepurvis 8mo ago
  Interesting. I feel like most places still make you badge into the doors during business hours, and even specifically encourage not permitting tailgating, sometimes tied to a purported safety concern around being able to know who is in the building in an emergency... though honestly at most shops I bet no one has any idea how to get a report like "everyone who has badged in in since 6am this morning".
  - yreg 8mo ago
    My company worked just like hamdingers describes until about 5 years ago. An x-box went missing at some point though.

fxtentacle 8mo ago

I once lived in Singapore for a while and we were all sure that nobody would steal anything anyway, so we just never bothered to lock the doors. (That was also very helpful if you wanted to stop for a quick coffee with a date in the middle of the night.) You could see the MacBooks from the street, but nothing ever went missing. I don’t know what exactly it was, but Singapore felt incredibly safe and crime-free.

deleted 8mo ago
[deleted]
ThrowawayTestr 8mo ago
>I don’t know what exactly it was, but Singapore felt incredibly safe and crime-free. The extreme punishments for breaking the law might have something to do with it.
- StopDisinfo910 8mo ago
  I don't think it explains everything. I think social norms have a lot to do with it. It's like the actual social costs of being the one who broke the social trust is so high it dissuades people. It worked for me on a lower level. Everyone cut queues and will grab an empty seat if it looks available at a packed restaurant here so I do it too but I never did that when I lived in Singapore because I knew that's not how things work there and people would genuinely be mad at me for doing it. It's like a self-fulfilling, self-improving environment. Same with Japan and cleanliness. State provided housing for most and a booming economy with low unemployment must help too.
- wredcoll 8mo ago
  > The extreme punishments for breaking the law might have something to do with it. Historically speaking, this is almost never true. People constantly think the solution is crueler punishments and we have hundreds of years of records of what happens.
  - Camus134 8mo ago

3rodents 8mo ago

Twitch had badged entry and still managed to have a couple of incidents in which people walked in off the street to steal laptops. No snack theft though, thankfully some things are sacred.

russdill 8mo ago
Happened to me in downtown San Francisco. We had keycards, but my manager helpfully held the door for someone.

lelandfe 8mo ago

It's been really, really top of mind here in NYC after a guy walked into a Midtown building last year and gunned down people.

ralferoo 8mo ago

I once worked at a place where the receptionist held the door open for a thief who made off with about 10 PCs, taken from random work desks near the entrance. She thought that because he was wearing a suit and a badge from his "company" that he must have been supposed to be there, and assumed he was probably taking the computers away to be fixed. There was surprisingly little repercussion for violating the "one card one person" door policy and by someone whose job it was to know which visitors would be on-site on any given day, and so should have known that this guy wasn't supposed to be there.

vidarh 8mo ago
> There was surprisingly little repercussion for violating the "one card one person" door policy Presumably because "everyone" knows that "noone" complies with those policies, in part because it's socially awkward to e.g. close the door on someone who tries to tailgate, and so it needs to be heavily and consistently enforced before it becomes more socially unacceptable to be the person who potentially puts their colleagues at risk of disciplinary actions than to be the person who tells someone they need to swipe.
joshstrange 8mo ago
I once worked for a company that had a bad habit of not announcing employee departures (for both firing or quitting). At one point they let the VP of sales go and told practically no one. It came out that he was no longer with the company in an All Company meeting, not even on purpose. Someone asked “Where is X?” and the CEO was like “they are no longer with the company”. After that I lobbied, successfully but not easily, to have them send out an email that just said “X is no longer with the company” regardless of how/why they left. The “winning” argument was that if that VP had emailed me (or probably any of the developers) and asked for an export of data (our client list, stats, etc) we would have sent it to him. Probably even with him reaching out from a personal email address or via sms. What IC is going to tell a VP to “follow procedure”? Same deal with if he had followed me to the keycard door and told me he forgot his key card. No one is going to thank the IC who tells the VP they can’t let them in.
NoNameHaveI 8mo ago
When I began work at my last company, we all had to badge in to get in the parking lot, where there was 6 lanes 6-10a and just 2 other times. We also had to pass through 1 of 4 turnstyles, and we were subject to bag inspection going both in and out. We were trained to NEVER leave my badge in an unguarded location (ie my locked car at home, at lunch, etc). We were also trained to NOT display our badges off campus, especially when travelling. This made me make DAMN SURE I knew where my badge was at at times. Same hook in the closet. When walking OUT through the turnstyle, I usually either put it in my bag if I had one, tucked into my shirt pocket, or just tucked under my shirt.