How a Security Guard Outwitted His Boss Over “Stolen” Electricity (and Won the Office)
Imagine being called into a meeting, facing your boss and HR, and being accused of—wait for it—stealing electricity for charging your iPad at work. Not embezzling funds, not pilfering office supplies, but siphoning off a few cents of company power to keep your writing device alive during a long, slow night shift.
That’s exactly what happened to Reddit user u/AmsterdamAssassin, a night security guard who, after years of dutiful rounds and quietly working on his novel during the idle hours, found himself accused of “electricity embezzlement.” What happened next is a masterclass in malicious compliance, office politics, and the delicious power of sticking to the (absurd) rules.
The High Crime of Charging Your iPad
Let’s set the scene: For nearly two decades, AmsterdamAssassin worked the night shift guarding empty office buildings. With about two hours of actual work per shift, the remaining six hours were for keeping awake and, ideally, not going mad from boredom. For some, that meant TV, crossword puzzles, or video games. For others, like our protagonist, it was an opportunity to draft novels on an iPad paired with a Bluetooth keyboard.
But tranquility shattered when a manager—described by OP as having a “personal problem”—decided to make an example of him. The charge? “Stealing electricity” by plugging in his iPad charger at the security desk. As one top commenter, u/RosariusAU, hilariously pointed out, “You can run a 50W charger continuously for 24 hours for less than $0.50 per day...yet the opportunity cost for an entire meeting involving multiple managers could be hundreds, if not thousands of dollars per hour.” The petty energy “theft” was a rounding error, but the cost of management’s time was astronomical by comparison.
Malicious Compliance: Level 9000
Faced with this ridiculous accusation, AmsterdamAssassin didn’t get angry. Instead, he upped the ante. “If you want to accuse me, do it properly,” he told them. “I haven’t committed theft. I’ve committed embezzlement, since the electricity was part of my reception area and under my supervision. Therefore, embezzlement is a vastly more insidious crime and you should send me home and gather the disciplinary committee to judge whether I should be fired for this crime. I would confer with my union rep.”
Cue panic. The accusation was promptly dropped. As u/tapandown put it, “Calling it ‘embezzlement’ and asking for the committee and union rep was such a perfect way to force them to admit how silly the electricity thing was.”
But management wasn’t done being petty. Signs went up: “No charging personal devices.” So, in a move that delighted the Reddit crowd, AmsterdamAssassin started bringing a typewriter to work. No charger needed, maximum clack-clack-ding energy. This not only complied with the letter of the rule, it made the whole policy look as absurd as it was.
Commenters reveled in this. “Did you at least enjoy using the mechanical keyboard? I do find the clacking while writing soothing,” asked u/Foe117. Others waxed nostalgic about the joys and pains of typewriters, with u/OldGeekWeirdo comparing them to “the stick shift of typewriting with no power brakes or steering.”
When Petty Rules Backfire
Of course, the anti-charging edict didn’t just inconvenience our novelist—it provoked the ire of every night-shift employee whose smartphone was perpetually on the verge of death. As OP noted, “All my colleagues charged their devices from company outlets, so their accusation would mean every employee could be arrested for electricity embezzlement.” The backlash was so fierce that, after a wave of complaints, management quietly removed the signs and everyone went back to juicing up their phones and tablets.
The community loved this poetic justice. “The meetings and the signs cost orders of magnitude more because someone was petty,” said u/funnystuff79. Another, u/Tmscott, cheekily suggested, “Calculate what you have ‘cost’ the company over your pay period. Go to your bank, ask for penny rolls and the day after that pay period and reimburse your manager with a bag full of the loose pennies preferably on their desk.”
The numbers don’t lie: charging an iPad or phone is almost literally a penny crime. As u/bot_or_not_vote_now calculated, a standard 20w USB charger used every shift would add up to a whopping $4 a year—less than the price of a fancy coffee. Meanwhile, companies burn thousands on pointless meetings about these “infractions.”
The Real Motive: Petty Power Plays
It’s clear the electricity accusation was never about the company’s bottom line. As OP explained, the whole thing was a ploy to provoke an emotional outburst, hoping to fire him for insubordination. “The ‘stealing electricity’ was just a rage-bait excuse to provoke me to get into an emotional outburst to my manager,” he wrote. “Instead, my response made him escalate to posting signs...that angered my coworkers with management.”
Redditors weren’t fooled. “If you were dismissed for theft, that follows you around, especially in security, I would assume. But arguing that it’s embezzlement instead and including the union rep? Genius,” said u/No-Lettuce4441.
OP’s wit didn’t stop there. When asked if management ever demanded his novel (since it was written “on company time”), he replied, “My manager asked me what I wrote. I told him it was suspense fiction. He asked if he was in my book. ‘Briefly,’ I said. ‘Very briefly.’ I use his name for a slimy character who gets whacked by my protagonist.” Now that’s karma with a literary flourish.
Conclusion: When Common Sense (and Petty Revenge) Prevail
This saga is a reminder that sometimes the best way to fight petty bureaucracy is with a little creative compliance—and a touch of humor. Whether it’s wielding a typewriter or calculating your annual iPad charging “theft” down to the penny, the community agreed: pettiness in management rarely pays off.
Have your own story of workplace absurdity or a time you outsmarted a silly rule? Share it in the comments—because nothing charges up the internet faster than a good tale of malicious compliance!
Original Reddit Post: Accused of stealing/embezzling electricity from employer