Q.The office supply cabinet at work overflows with pens and Post-it notes, and you figure that nobody will notice if you take some extra stuff. At what point does stocking up become stealing?

A. As tempting as it may be to raid the supply cabinet regularly, the moment you take more than what you need to do your job, you’re committing theft. Joel Saltzman, president of Shake That Brain, a business consulting company in San Diego, said employees who took a five-finger discount at work were no different from people who shoplift from Staples or Office Depot. “Stealing is stealing,” he said. “One too many is too many, whether it’s a pen or a box of pens or a carton of pens or a laptop computer.”

Q. Is this problem widespread?

A.Two recent surveys on the subject produced very different results. One of the reports, released last week by Lawyers.com, a legal resources company in New Jersey, found that 18 per cent of the 2,350 surveyed workers admitted to having taken office supplies for personal use. But a 2005 report from Vault.com, a career information firm in Manhattan, said 67 per cent of the 1,150 people it questioned acknowledged the same offence. Tracking distribution of office supplies is inherently tricky, because everyone needs to use these items at work, and many employees need to use them outside the office as well. C. Kerry Fields, a professor of business law and ethics at the University of Southern California, said an employee might see others taking office supplies and conclude that everyone had implicit permission to take what they wanted. “You can only take the ethical theory of relativism so far until it hits you: ‘This is wrong,’” he said.

Q. What’s so enticing about the office supply cabinet?

A. Many employees see the supply cabinet as a cookie jar without a lid. Roberta Chinsky Matuson, president of Human Resource Solutions, a consulting company in Massachusetts, says because supplies are there for the taking, workers apparently see no problem in grabbing whatever they can ? to the point that it becomes habit to help themselves to a pen or an extra pad of paper. “Psychologically, knowing nobody’s watching makes it easier for employees to justify taking more than they should,” she said. Employees also may raid the cabinet if they feel overworked or otherwise mistreated. A person’s reason for pilfering office supplies may also be purely practical: money. A worker who was tight on cash and felt underpaid might see office supplies as an earned, non-monetary bonus.

Q. Which items are most likely to disappear?

A. Smaller objects are easy to conceal, so it’s no surprise that these are the ones taken most often. A 2006 study by Pendaflex, a division of the Esselte Corporation, an office supplies maker in New York, indicated that 75 per cent of the 2,600 surveyed employees admitted to stealing pens and pencils, while 38 per cent said they stole company stationery. The Lawyers.com researchers said file folders, staplers and scissors also ranked high on the list.

In other cases, employees have been known to steal items of greater value, including computers, chairs, keyboards, modems, software, computer monitors and memory sticks. In contrast to supplies such as pads and pencils, however, these products are easier to track.

Q. What should you do if you suspect that a colleague is stealing supplies?

A. It may be difficult to determine when a co-worker’s restocking habits have gone too far. If a colleague goes through a box of paper clips a week, for example, using five boxes each month would not be excessive for that person. Kevin J. Fleming, an independent business consultant in Wyoming, said unless a company specified limits for each item, it was nearly impossible to determine objectively if someone was going overboard. Still, if you feel strongly that a colleague is abusing supply-cabinet privileges, speak up. Discuss the situation with your colleague first. If the colleague denies wrongdoing but you still feel he’s a thief, consider reporting him to your boss.

Q. Can a worker be fired for this behaviour?

A. Companies can pursue legal action against employees for taking too many supplies. Frederick D. Baron, heading a law firm in California, said the fact that most office items were of minor value did not necessarily prevent a company from taking stiff action against an employee caught stealing them. If an employer looks at pilfering as a serious ethical breach, it can end a person’s employment, he said.