Questions below refer to the following graph and article.
Theft at Work: Results of a Survey of 100 Office Workers
(Workers aged 25-35)
Source: Survey and Polling Institute of New York
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Theft at Work
According to a recent survey, a majority of workers don't consider taking paper and pens home from work to be stealing. The Survey and Polling Institute of New York interviewed one hundred office workers aged 25-35. All of the workers had been at their current place of employment for at least 2 years. All workers were working full time. "I don't steal. I'm not a thief," says one man who has been working for his company for five years, "Sometimes I take office supplies home... but that is different from stealing." He said that he usually gave paper and pens to his children for school homework. "I work hard for this company, and I think the office supplies are a perk of the job. Anyway, I often use the pens to do extra work at home, too. Do I really need to buy pens just to do company work at home? I don't think so." According to the chart above, only 8 percent of people think that taking pens and pencils from work is stealing. This means that 92 percent don't think of it as theft. In the same group, only 20 percent said that taking desktop items like staplers and memo holders was stealing. 80 percent did not consider it wrong. However, 90 percent said that taking computer accessories like a mouse or a keyboard was wrong. They said that taking cheap items was OK. This 90 percent of workers said they often took items that cost less than $5, but anything that cost more than $10 was too expensive. 10 percent didn't see a problem with it.