Another John Gem

A couple of months ago, our truck driver, Reilly, lost his cell phone one night when he came to pick up a trailer around 3 am. He didn't know for sure if it had fell off his belt in our parking lot but he thought there was a good chance it had. When he arrived in my office the next morning, he told me about his cell phone and not being able to find it. I thought maybe it had dropped down between the seats in his semi so I grabbed my cell and we went outside to his truck to call his phone. We didn't find it but I told him I would keep an eye out and see if anyone else had found it. We asked all the employees but no one had seen it.

Itchie and Reilly end up seeing each other later that night and Reilly tells him he lost his phone. Itchie protests that he must have had it earlier because he heard it ringing in my office while Itchie was outside my door at his desk. Reilly's ring tone is a police siren so it's hard to mistake. The next morning Itchie tells me this story and it took me a second to put it together but I then realize that John was in my office when Reilly and I went outside to call his phone.

So Itchie point blank asks John if he has the phone and he says no. Itchie tells him that we are going to call the police and that scares him. It wouldn't be the first time they showed up here for him (the last time it happened, he asked me to bail him out with petty cash). He says he had the phone but he already gave it to someone else to sell. So I tell John to call that person and get the phone back right away. So he calls some girl and another employee takes him to get the phone. He brings it to me and asks if Reilly is going to pay him $20 for it. What? I explain to him that he found the phone on our property and that he was to turn it into me right away because it did not belong to him. He tells me, "Well the least he could do is buy a brother a cheeseburger, I could have got $40 for that phone".

I decide not to tell Reilly who had the phone because I don't want to cause any drama. But Reilly was able to figure it out on his own. He turned his phone on, called the last number that was dialed and asked the girl who answered the phone if she knew anyone that worked here. Of course she said yes and told Reilly it was John. I couldn't believe that John really thought he was owed something for turning something in that wasn't rightfully his. Funny thing is Reilly said he would have given him some money had he gotten his phone back right away. Maybe he'll learn the next time.

My boss actually dropped his money clip not too long ago somewhere in the plant and though we looked everywhere for it, someone must have already found it. We can't exactly strip search everyone to see who has an extra $150 on them and it wasn't like offering a cash reward of $20 would make someone give up $150 so we had to let that one go.