[hamdingers]

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.

[fxtentacle]

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.

[jiggawatts]

I used to accumulate a pile of change on my desk from buying coffees.

Never got touched across about a hundred different offices around Australia (I’m a consultant).

Except once: the pile was replaced by a $50 note and a hand written apology saying the guilty party needed change for the parking lot machine. I had less than $30 there in coins so… profit!

[NoNameHaveI]

I'm going to wager the risk of corporal punishment is a significant deterrant. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caning_in_Singapore https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caning_of_Michael_Fay Not coincidentally, Singapore has one of the lowest recidivism rates globally. https://www.sps.gov.sg/files/annual%20reports/Press_Release_...

[stevage]

Wait, explain the quick coffee bit? You'd let yourself into a random person's house to make coffee?

[ThrowawayTestr]

>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.

[dominicrose]

Meanwhile in the UK $250k worth of Cadbury bars stolen from shops...

[ralferoo]

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]

> 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]

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]

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.

[3rodents]

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]

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

[mikepurvis]

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]

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.

[lelandfe]

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.

[PunchyHamster]

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

[bombcar]

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.

[hamdingers]

~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.

[nkrisc]

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.

[mystifyingpoi]

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]

We have nearly a 1000 people in my building. I don't track every rando that walks by, nor reasonably could I.

[atulatul]

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]

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.