There’s getting robbed and then there’s getting robbed. The kind of “robbed” I’m talking about is the kind where people break into your office with screwdrivers and take off with some laptops and the projector from your conference room and you spend part of your busy morning talking to a cop. That’s the kind of robbing I experienced this morning.
With no further ado, I give you my 8 steps to getting robbed:
1. Don’t put a deadbolt on your doors. Don’t even think about it. A deadbolt makes it impossible to jimmy open a door using a screwdriver. If you put a deadbolt on your door then the only alternative the thieves will have is to rob your neighbor’s office.
2. Don’t put in an alarm system. This will scare thieves away because they’ll think they might get caught by somebody who would be alerted by the alarm.
3. Don’t have a camera system installed. A camera system will put thieves at the risk of having their mugs on film, which would make it easier for the cops to track them down.
4. Don’t put blinds on your windows. If you do this, burglars won’t be able to see what you have inside your office, and therefore they are perhaps not as likely to burgle you as if they could see your laptops sitting all around.
5. Don’t use the blinds that are on your windows. If you already have blinds on your windows, it’s probably a bad idea to use them. Make sure they’re wide open to provide maximum visibility of the items in your office.
6. Don’t take easy-to-steal property home, nor hide it. What’s the good of leaving the blinds open if you put things in cases and keep them out of sight? Put laptops on tables next to windows where they’re sure to be seen, that’s my advice.
7. Don’t get property insurance. This doesn’t have anything to do with getting robbed, but it’s a good follow-up. I mean, if you get robbed but then someone gives you money for the stuff you lost, what good is that? You’ll be right back where you started in no time.
8. Don’t worry. People who worry about things sometimes have a tendency to take actions that prevent them from needing to worry about said things. But if you want to get robbed, it’s better to not worry in the first place.
————————————————–
But in all seriousness, it wasn’t that bad. We lost a projector ($1,450) and two older laptops ($1,250 total). Neither of the laptops had any critical data on them. I was surprised the thieves left all the desktops, monitors, and other assorted goodies. I was also relieved since the data on the machines that didn’t get stolen is the most important asset our company has. I guess they knew what they wanted. But the joke’s on them, because now they have to deal with the blue screen of death I kept getting on that laptop. Ha.
