> This sucks. His ability to get work will be greatly diminished because he thought he could game some poorly structured Amazon system.

Poor him. All he did was abuse the trust that was placed in him by his employer. And now it will be harder for him to get a new employer to place trust in him. How unfair.

Pedantic, but Amazon isn't his employer. Flex is B2B contract work. The drivers pay for their gas, self employment tax, FICA, health insurance, etc.

So he robbed his client, not his employer.

I hope railroading this guy assures that none of my amazon packages are ever stolen in this kind of scheme again. I don't feel bad for him whatsoever. Play stupid games, win stupid prizes.

(Replying to the dead comment)

People are bloodthirsty because stealing packages is so much more personal than, say, shoplifting. The mail is personal. The shit you get shipped is personal. Especially around christmas. "Who the fuck steals the gift for my nana?"

And it's like, people don't usually even know what they're stealing. There's a damage&reward imbalance between the person who loses something of great potential sentimental value (it's not always amazon packages, sometimes it's stuff people send each other), just so that some petty thief has a shot at having something they care about / can make a profit on.

I'm with everyone else on this, fuck people who steal packages. Those and bike thieves.

It seems sensible enough to me. If you steal $item from a shop, you're a shoplifter. You stole it from an abstract corporation. If you take the same $item from /my/ doorstep, you stole it from /me/.

I don't eat the losses, Amazon do. So technically you stole it from them. But just as my insurance company eat the losses if you steal my car, I'm still going to internalize it as "you stole my $item." And I can't help but judge that much more harshly than shoplifting from some faceless name.

It’s also just plain inconvenient. Shoplifting doesn’t affect me as a customer at all, aside from the ambient rate eventually being reflected in prices. But when my package gets stolen, I have to report it and get a replacement sent out, wait for it, hope that one doesn’t get stolen....

It’s small potatoes in the grand scheme of things, but it’s definitely more than retail theft.

  stealing packages is so much more personal than, say, shoplifting

When it occurs at my house, and my name and address the thief clearly knows, it magnifies personal risk in a way that shoplifting doesn't.

Who knows. He doesn’t have to know the specific value. Maybe the thief has analysed the data in some way and has calculated the expected value of a package.

I agree. It's too bad we don't collectively apply that same, sane logic to wall street, banks and the corporations that led to '08 due to their "games." I wonder which is a larger problem...

The problem is we collectively employ the logic of "punish them or subsidize them with bail outs". A free market, without a lender of last resort or FDIC, will effectively punish those responsible for financial crises.

It's funny how bloodthirsty people are when it comes to someone being ultra-punished stealing a consumer product,

but I bet when people talk about wage theft and capitalist malfeasance this guy turns into a corporate lawyer.

I mean, the two scenarios are completely different. Yes, they both suck, but it's almost impossible to compare stealing physical property one owns and "stealing" the potential difference in wage between two individuals.

...that's not what wage theft is

You know, it’s tough. We don’t know this guy’s backstory, but we do live in a society where there are rules. His decision will have personal repercussions. Unfortunately that’s the way things are. And yes, other people steal too but never so much see a fine or jail time, but that’s the way the world works.

Why is it unfortunate that bad judgment or weak moral compass has repercussions?

I feel like it's much worse overall when those things have no repercussions...

Probably because it's obvious to everyone in this instance that this is not a super powerful person.

Lots of people have a weak moral compass and get away with it. It comes down to power, not the weak moral compass.

Give me a break He's a thief who tried to rip off his employer. You know which sort of behavior will stop future employers from trusting you? One guess.

There is no such Amazon system. This was merely his lie when he was caught. Don't feel bad.

>His ability to get work will be greatly diminished because he thought he could game some poorly structured Amazon system.

His ability to get work will be greatly diminished because he is a thief.

Second degree theft is a Class A misdemeanor in Oregon. It will likely have little, if any, effect on his future prospects.

Given that we're all talking about it I have my doubts. This is all one Google search away.