One day I had noticed that the engineer had thrown away an old Shortcut that was broken. This machine was in an old studio and had been there for years. It was beyond repair so the engineer threw it away. I asked the engineer if I could have it cause it would be perfect for my radio room. He told me that it was unrepairable and I reiterated that I only wanted it for decoration. So he said yes. What a huge score, I kept thinking about how nice it was going to look in my home office.
About an hour later the Operations Manager paid me a visit and asked if he could speak to me. We had gone to his office where he confronted me about stealing station property. I told him that I would never steal station property and he then asked me about the Shortcut.
I had told him about the conversation that I had with the engineer. It was in the trash and he said I could have it. The OM told me that this was considered stealing station property and that I was going to be suspended for 3 days without pay.
How in the hell could I stealing trash? It was literally in the trash can. The OM did not care. He was always a stickler for the rules and when it comes to old equipment, protocol was that paperwork needed to be signed in order to transfer or sell any station equipment that was no longer in use.
I went to my car and got the shortcut out of my backseat and returned it to the OM's office. Fucking ridiculous. Not only did I take a pay cut, I embarrassed myself. In the three days that I was out of work, rumors flew around the radio station that I was stealing.
One man's trash is another man's treasure and there's always someone out there to make sure you don't get it. I've experience the same thing with computer equipment.
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