Tool theft in the wind industry

 I work for a large utility owner operated. Don't get to excited, it's the dirty unregulated kind where we're not really subject to any standards or audits unless you count a yearly visit from ERCOT. 

I write this to bitch: My tools got stolen.

We're not talking about a couple of screwdrivers and whatnot, but an entire WERA screwdriver set and WERA 1/4" Drive socket/driver set along with my (actually good quality) ICON rechargeable headlamp. 

This was my so-called "everyday carry" (E.D.C). Not a day passed when I wasn't using this kit or when one of my colleagues was reaching for it to repair a damaged hub cabinet control rack, replace a slip ring, ect... 

Well, some bastard took it. God knows I'll never see it again. 

I didn't bring it up to MGMT (not the band) with the words "it was stolen" but said "I had some items go missing from my truck" hence why I had taken the truck keys home in the days following. 

All in all, the tools probably cost to buy new (there's not really a used market in this sort of thing) somewhere in the neighborhood of $400. Imagine someone stole your Ruger Security 9 or a Sig Sauer .22 LR. You'd be pretty pissed. And hell, $400 goes pretty far once you go over the border. 

I brought it up to the supervisor who shrugged and said "You should keep your truck locked." He didn't ask any follow ups as to what was stolen. The screwdriver set had been issued by the company, so that'd be a theft of company property, and the socket set was a gift from my former lead at my last company. The light was bought with the company credit card. I guess, the whole point in all this is they sort of shrugged it off and don't care that they have a thief in their midst. 

Did I leave it at the tower? Well, I free climbed that 300 foot tower in the heat of the day as the lift was out of order. To my dismay it wasn't there. I back-tracked to all the towers I'd gone up but to no avail. It was pretty easy ground to cover as I knew more or less the last time I'd used them and we'd had a little over two days of a site stand down due to a technician falling inside of the tower section (was it fifteen feet? Fifty? I don't know because the "investigator" & MGMT didn't care to tell us or didn't know. The guy lived). 

All in all I probably went to two towers that I actually went up. No one else had been to these towers and very few people had even been on that side of the park as it's far out of the way. 

The point here is that people suck. I'm forgetful sometimes and have to run out to my truck to get another part I forgot to turn in, paperwork that was amiss or the myriad of things you forget between the car, office and truck as you're damn near living out of the thing five to six days a week (It used to be 12 days, but that's another story). 

The lesson here is put Airtags on anything over a certain price range. Why they didn't institute this police after a right angle impact went missing over a three day weekend is beyond me. I think they just don't care or they're resigned to theft as one is to the weather. 

There were also rumors that someone had been hocking stolen site tools of a greater value on site. The sort of stuff you usually check out from the tool room like impacts, drills, ect... 

I do know that during the same week or so my colleague, a travel guy who'd give you the shirt off his back had his company hat and leatherman stolen from a truck he'd been riding in. 

The hardhearted will say "well it's your own damn fault!" I suppose they're right but the sword cuts both ways. I recall my networking teacher years ago talking about when he left his wallet on his car parked next to a busy street in Saudi Arabia. He left to go to shopping and came back three hours later to see it was still there. In Singapore Youtube creators have made videos where they leave a laptop in a cafe or some other expensive item and no one steals it. I grew up in a pretty high trust society. I saw the police one time in my neighborhood the entire time I lived there. It was from when my dad called the police on me for not wanting to stand in the corner for some (what I considered) minor infraction at the ripe old age of 15.

Oh well. Lock up your shit people because as Tom Segura says "people suck."