Coworker Wouldn’t Stop Stealing, So He Welded Him His Own Special Place For His Things

Office thieves are rampant. They’re everywhere.

You have to keep a very close eye on your thinks on the job, y’all, because it seems as if there’s one in every crowd who will just walk off with it.

Even on union sites, apparently.

OP’s father was a union welder, working with a man with a nickname that he got for being a thief.

A little backstory to get you caught up. My father was a welder at a pulp and paper mill on maintenance with a union. There were around 500 people who worked here at the time. ( mid to late 80’s )

On my dad’s crew there was a man they called “squirrel” because he would take anything small enough to carry and take it home.

Some of the things were specialized tools made for a certain machine and they would have to be ordered in again at the companies expense.

I guess there wasn’t much the mill could do because somehow the union backed him.

When he messed with OP’s dad’s things, though, he messed with the wrong guy.

It wasn’t long before my father’s tools started going missing. He knew where to look and found them in squirrel’s tool box and some scattered on his work bench.

Squirrel was an average sized man. Around 5’9 to 5’10 but my father was a huge man standing at 6’5 and around 250 pounds so squirrel didn’t say a word. He was too scared to.

My father reported this to the union rep and the main office and was told they will investigate. Squirrel was give a one week paid suspension while the investigation went on.

They found many of the missing things in his locker, lunch box, tool box etc. Somehow he got the union to back him again and was allowed to come back to work at the end of his suspension.

Even though the union backed him up, OP’s dad didn’t let him get away with it.

My father grabbed his mobile welder and went into squirrel’s area and welded together a giant metal box. He took everything he could identify as squirrel’s and put it in the box and welded a top on it. He said he used 5/8 stainless to make it out of.

He then got the help of one of his work buddies to lift the box and dad welded it to the bottom of the I-beam on the ceiling. About 20 feet in the air.

The day squirrel came back he was looking for all his things but couldn’t find it at all. He asked everyone he could but no one said a word except, “I take care of my tools. Maybe you should take better care of yours.”

This went on for a couple of hours until squirrel went into the main office to complain saying someone stole everything of his. The shop steward and squirrel walked into the maintenance shop to ask the people in there where his things were.

Dad stood up and walked up close; and knowing him he was towering over squirrel, and said something along the lines of “Squirrels like to climb to store their stuff. Are you sure you didn’t climb the I-beam and put your stuff up there?”

He can laugh about it now, and always.

I guess the look of “oh ****” on the shop steward’s face was almost too good but the look of pure horror on squirrel’s face was my dad’s favorite part of this story.

He would laugh just as hard at every telling when he got to this part. Squirrel went into his work area and looked up. He saw the box up there. He tried to get anyone’s help to get it down but everyone seemed to have “important” things to do and can’t at the moment.

Squirrel took a day and a half working alone to get his things from the box and to remove the box from where it was welded.

My father said not a thing ever went missing again and squirrel worked there another 10 years or more until the mill was shut down. I can say I believe him because one night staying at his place I got drunk and was thinking about going home.

He went to the basement and made a little box and welded my keys in it. I got them back the next day.

I miss my father and his stories. I hope this qualifies as “pro”

Will Reddit think this is pro? Let’s find out!

This person says his dad was good looking out.

They bet this incident sent a message to everyone there.

Pro but with finesse.

They know how to take care of things.

Good dads solve everything with humor.

This is a great and fun story.

Unless you’re Squirrel.

If you liked this post, check out this story about an employee who got revenge on a co-worker who kept grading their work suspiciously low.