Safety box is gone

While I was away from Siem Reap with business trip, incident happened in my office.

A safety box with cash inside which was placed in the locked drawer of our accounting room of our office were stolen in broad daylight. Our office is regular house. So if someone from outside try to steal it, the person have to open heavy metal entrance gate and open the big wooden door of our office then have to go in to accounting room and then identify the drawer and unlock it, then take the cash box which happened to have lots of cash inside on the day. I say, only Arsene Lupin can pull this trick off.

The circumstance unfortunately said that it was an inside job. Since we only have 10 staffs in the office, the thief should have known that we will find out who did it.

And so, there were one female staff who suppose to resign on the next day of the incidence. And as my staff reported me that her reaction before the incidence surfaces were clearly odd and immediately after they found out that safe was gone, everyone pointed their fingers at her and accused her directly by saying “You did it, didn’t you!”. Haha.

But of course she denied and they decided to call a police. Calling a police in Cambodia means to cost extra money. It will be the same if you call fire fighters or judge/court. If you try to solve a problem and let public officials involve, it costs you “a lot” in here. Because of that, most of Cambodians try to solve problem by themselves.

Well, anyways. With their investigation, she confessed at police station. Apparently, she had sent the money to one of her account from her another account via WING (Money transfer system in Cambodia like Western Union thing). It was the evidence to close the case.

The incident costed for our time and energy and left bad taste in our mouth but we retrieved the money at the end. That was very good outcome. And my staff being able to solve the incidence by themselves while I was gone was another very good outcome in this bad experience.

The girl who stole money called me and said “I did it with impulse I’m sorry. Forgive me please. But I can not cover the fee to pay to police so, why don’t your company pay for it?”. …Let me just say, why in the hell the company need to pay? She was preparing copied key for the drawer. It can not be an impulse incident. But since explaining it to her is only a waste of time, we just ask her to sell her motorbike.

If I let someone go to market, they say “I lost the money” or “I get robbed” or “I got cheated for change” and if I let someone control a farm, they say “I don’t know what happened but thief came and stole”. Or they once told me water of our fish pond dried up and fish disappear with it. …Well, magical things keep happening in here but I say that this is only a piece of a reality of doing business in developing country. So, I got to deal with it.

 

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