Labels

We work on the assumption they are a use once item, cast to the floor and swept up by the cleaners at night.

 

The pencils cost the betting shop / Ikea /etc. money. If the manager want's to give you some that's fine. If you take it without asking its theft.

I ask before I take cuttings from someone's garden. I don't see it as theft, in the same light as taking ANYTHING from commercial premises, but equally who's to say that the garden owner wouldn't be inordinately cheesed off to have that particular bit nipped off their plant? Seed overhanging a public right of way is of no value / consequence to the owner ... usually ... but, for example, I would be hacked off if people walking beside my property helped themselves to blackberries etc. that I was waiting a few more days of ripening. Would they have thought of that? No, they just help themselves. If they ask then they'd find out that I was looking forward to them for myself, or equally possibly that I would say "Help yourself".

We've had kids coming to get conkers from the trees; most would think that was fine ... until one of them falls out of the tree and kills themselves, or gets shot because we didn't know there was anyone on the land, and then all of a sudden its my fault. The kids know that they have to come and ask ... and that I always say yes (and remind them that they are not allowed to climb the trees) ... but every year I had to go down at the start of the season and remind them that its theft, and trespass, or might be inconvenient at that time (e.g. we were planning on shooting), until they have come and asked. How blinking hard is it to do?

Taking without asking is never acceptable; the fact that the person thinks it is trivial is totally irrelevant. A test for whether the other party thinks it is acceptable/trivial, or not, is simply to ask if you can have the item

 

On a slightly different vein.I had a single garage and converted it into a double,at the end of garden, but I only have one car.
One neighbor told his daughter to park on my drive,told him off and never spoke to me since.A new neighbor parked his bmw one my drive in front of the half of garage I was using.Went to go to work at 5.30am and could not even lift garage door up. I was fuming so knocked on his door at 5:30 and asked him to move it.
My double drive is next to the drive (single) of the person whose house is at bottom of garden.This neighbor has no car so her drive is not used but her daughter would park her car on my drive. I was even on the drive one day and she parked her car so i waited for her to ask "is it ok" she did not.Ever since then I have had 2 great stones on the half of drive I do not use.Like you say Kristen,no problem if they ask,no problem at all.