From checking into this more -- one of the other issues is tax treatment (at least in the US). It's favorable to give employees free food/drinks at work. If you're giving people stuff to take home, it potentially becomes a taxable benefit. Feeding people for benefit of employer outside work is partially taxable. So, even if you had a tacit understanding with employees of "we buy soda in huge quantities, so take as much as you want home, and we'll just reduce salaries by approximately the amount taken home", you'd have a problem. (which is absurd for soda, but I'd be fine with making $2-5k/yr less if I got to fill up my car at a work-provided gas pump, which is analogous).

In my perhaps limited experience, people rarely ride the line. As they get away with things, they get more brazen, so there turns out not to be much middle ground in practice between the OK "one for the road" and carting things out by the case.

It's also often the case that most participants are playing fair, but there are one or two who step way over the line. A friend of mine used to work in a place selling baked goods. One of the perks was that if there were any cookies left over at the end of a shift then the staff could take some before the batch got dumped. This went on happily for years until one day an email came in from head-office, stating that all food was to be dumped at the end, no freebies, etc. turned out that a manager at another store had been deliberately baking up huge batches of food to be taken home at the end of the night (think a few crates of cookies to cover the neighbours kids birthday that weekend), far beyond what had been considered fair game by the company.

These kinds of perks always seem to get ruined by that one idiot who goes overboard.

This was how we lost a discount on GE appliances at Microsoft; too many employees buying and flipping the appliances. Same thing with our (super sweet) video card discounts; 75% off video cards straight from nVidia lasted about six months.

I don't understand that reaction, one person did it so EVERYONE must be punished? Why not simply fire the person, charge them with theft, and sue them to recover costs making an example of them for anyone else who may consider doing it?

Jack Welch called it the corporate immune system. Once you've been hurt, you tend to over-bureaucratize the response to ensure that it never happens again. I think it has to do with the fact that human psychology tends to over-value possible negative outcomes vs. possible positive outcomes, as well as a certain amount of future discounting, plus social signaling to show the problem is being taken seriously: you put a stop to the very visible, very current, negative event with little regard for a possible, future, positive loss due to bureaucratic build-up.

It's irrational, but so is most management in practice.

The line is almost always one of quantity, but there are other rules.

(1) Will it cause a substantial loss/burden if everyone did what I'm doing. Everyone taking a case of soda home regularly would be a pretty huge burden. Everyone taking a can or two home every once in a while would not. You can apply that to pens, a pad of post-it notes, etc.

(2) Would I be embarrassed if someone saw me taking this item home and knew it was for my personal use. Generally, if you feel like you have to hide that behavior, that's a good point to stop and ask "why". You may not always come back with "I shouldn't do it" but you probably will most of the time.

(3) Assuming the first two aren't true, would my usage of the item embarrass my employer to their customers. This probably doesn't apply to the soda thief but does apply to a lot of other decisions of this nature. The best example I can think is "I ran out of paper, so I'll just use company letterhead to advocate people attend the annual KKK rally at city hall". I'm sure there's less extreme examples, but absurdity goes a long way toward making a point.

As for office supplies which are used for work at home, I'm guessing you mean more than just pens and paper. If the total take is over $20, I'd probably ask permission, but I've never been in this situation. My office supply is my laptop and these were officially given to me for work (and must be returned when I'm done working there), everything else I already have at home.

I mostly meant printer paper to use at home, actually.

(I tend to be picky enough about pens/pencils/computers/etc. that I just bring my own from home to work in most cases)

And hence the issue. Those that take advantage of a system never feel that they are.

Look at why it is provided. It's not a prize or a bonus. It is to keep you happy and productive while you work. The company feels that is worth the cost. Where in there does someone drinking soda on the way home figure? It doesn't.

If I were the person providing the free soda I would be upset at being taken advantage of.

Finishing your soda on the way home, sure. Grabbing an unopened one and walking out the door... that seems to me to be a good place to draw a line.

I would draw the line a little further away than a drink for the ride home, or even taking one or two drinks home with me for the drive the next morning. It's in their best interests if you make it to and from work happily and safely. If a drink makes the commute easier, it's worth it.

As an example, I asked my employer if I could borrow my steel toed boots meant for site visits to use during some work outside to help a friend for a weekend. I told them if I damaged them I would gladly pay to replace them. My boss told me that they would lose much more value from me missing work injured than those boots would cost to replace, so not to worry about it and then gave me a fatherly lecture about being safe using a chainsaw before digging out safety glasses to send with me.

It's hard to make a bright line for abuse, but for a general rule I won't take anything or take advantage of anything I wouldn't pay for myself without asking ahead of time.

I'd say that grabbing an unopened one on the way out the door is in the grey area, but more than that definitely goes past the line. And frankly, if people were grabbing an unopened soda (that probably costs the company 25 - 75 cents) on the way out, nobody would notice or care. If the company is 'cracking down' on these single-soda offences, then it's probably just as good an indicator of things going downhill as the removal of the 'free soda' perk altogether.

I'm not sure why "carrying one out" is the line here. Surely it's better to have an employee carry out one soda a day, than to have the same employee drink six sodas every day at the office?

Personally I stick to water because HFCS is bad for you.

The strategy somewhere (google?) where they charge or otherwise disincent consumption of unhealthy food and encourage healthy food is kind of interesting.

My beverage of choice is Ito-En bottled green tea. I'd prefer if it came in glass vs. plastic bottles, though, and it is $1/bottle even at Costco, so at home or office I tend to just make my own using either matcha teabags (also from costco) or looseleaf green tea.

I believe they just put the healthier foods in more visible locations than the unhealthy ones. Simple strategy, but it worked! http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2012/10/inside-googles-kit...

Going back to the topic of expense to the company - healthier foods are also generally more expensive than junk food. But if you think it's worthwhile to keep employees at optimal performance, it's a small price to pay...

  | HFCS is bad for you.

Whether it's a soda or a healthy drink isn't really the point of this discussion though. It could be anything.