Is it still the rule of a workplace..

[Bobbisox]

That unauthorized use of a phone without permission is classed as 'theft' from the company you work for or even taking a pen? have the rules been relaxed now? Maybe it was just BT, we used to be able to use the phone at will which was a perk I suppose till some Bimbo decide to use a phone every day to ring shore to ship to speak to her boyfriend in the Navy! they then clamped down and said doing this would be seen as theft and could be subject to disciplinary, very harsh back then :-(

[Bobbisox]

me too Mrs c, remember the bloody Microfish when that came in...oh dear
can you remember when they clamped down on phone calls?
I can't imagine it was a area thing, stayed at the Exchange only a couple of years and then went onto billing,,,very boring ..LOL

[craft1948]

pmsl @ microfish (sorry bobbi it's the picture of little fish I now have in my head)

[mrs.chappie]

Yes Bobbs, I do remember microfiche, as I recall we didn't have it for long so perhaps I left soon after it was introduced.

Don't think there was any restriction on our personal calls, as long as you didn't make them while on duty. I do remember having headsets with spouts that kept dropping off. And our switchboards were second-hand and knackered, they were another exchange's cast-offs. And silly starting and finishing times, like 8.48 to 5, or 9.48 to 6, or 10.36 to 6 with a Saturday morning. You could swap your shifts around....I liked that.

Happy days. :o)

[craft1948]

You think billing was boring, I used to compile the bloody microfiche................

[Bobbisox]

I am not the best speller I admit, it was a microfish in my lingo...LOLOLOL

[Bobbisox]

Bill was a level 2

[wendilla]

Don't know about nicking pens from work but I have just been in the building society and just realised I have nicked their pen.

[boxtops]

It's up the individual employers - my team always ask me if they want to make a personal phone call. When you work full-time, sometimes there are calls which you just can't make outside office hours.

[Bobbisox]

LOL@wendi, feef!!!

Boxy this is right, we had this as a perk of the job but it was abused

[boxtops]

If it's confession time, I took one of those crabby little blue pens from Argos last week.

[TWR]

On a point Bobbi, if there was 100 people working at the firm, 7 the 100 people made a call each on a daily basis obviously their bill would hike up, I think that's why a lot of companies are now taking the route of NO calls but you May use your own phone.

[woofgang]

In the NHS unauthorised personal use of the phone has always been fraud, as is unauthorised and deliberate late arrival or early departure, personal use of even small items, eg pencils and paperclips. In practice prosecution is rare, although I have disciplined one person for continuous and deliberate late arrival at work which meant that the person was not available to tasks that the person was supposed to do.
The key words here are "unauthorised" and "deliberate"