Wish me luck...

[Scarpia]

So I quit my job recently, couldn’t take my toxic and incompetent boss any longer so I am leaving for a much better role in the same field, but in a different industry.

Here’s the thing: my work keyboard is a really nice Topre TKL that I convinced them to get for me when I joined, and I’d really hate to leave it behind, especially since noone in my team knows enough about keyboards to want it.

Been trying to come up with a casual way to ask my (petty, vindictive, egotistical, and did I mention incompetent?) boss if I can take my keyboard with me when I leave, but I reckon there’s a 50/50 chance he’ll say no just to assert his last iota of dominance over me.

So wish me luck!

[rjohn]

or dont ask ,buy a new 10$ keyboard and replace it.both will be happy

[//gainsborough]

or dont ask ,buy a new 10$ keyboard and replace it.both will be happy

yup - definitely this.

On the other hand, do you even want the topre board? Won't it forever be associated with working for a petty, vindictive, egotistical, and incompetent boss?

[depletedvespene]

or dont ask ,buy a new 10$ keyboard and replace it.both will be happy

yup - definitely this.

I concur. Replace that keyboard with a new, cheap one that kinda looks like it and take the good one with you. EVEN IF they notice, they will be happy to get "better" stuff.

On the other hand, do you even want the topre board? Won't it forever be associated with working for a petty, vindictive, egotistical, and incompetent boss?

The keyboard deserves to be disagreeved. Heck, when I left the Green Mud Bank, I didn't abandon the Model M keyboards that I rescued from there and had kept in my office.

[PlacaFromHell]

Just swap it for another TKL, they will never know. Or just cut the cable in some not so obvious place and tell your boss that the keyboard broke and then buy another for them.

[webwit]

It's irrelevant if they're going to bin it because just some used keyboard. Grow some balls, it's just a piece of replaceable, used kit they payed for, and leave without even mentioning the keyboard, instead of lowering yourself and bargain to get a little keyboard from someone you despise, like a little man. FFS.

[Darkshado]

Taking it without permission could be considered theft; even if they don't go to the police, is this bridge already burnt to a crisp?

Depends on company culture and how vindictive that soon-to-be ex-boss of yours is.

Who does "IT asset management"? Ask that person about what'll happen with your old gear and go from there.

[Delirious]

Or just buy a new topre board as a congratulatory gift for getting out of that trash pile of a job.

Contemplating more than 5s about taking a keyboard from a shitty job is just as petty and low as the job and the boss.

[Findecanor]

Who does "IT asset management"? Ask that person about what'll happen with your old gear and go from there.

This!

[Redmaus]

or dont ask ,buy a new 10$ keyboard and replace it.both will be happy

I'm in agreement with this, just buy a cheap TKL say it was the same one

[kbdfr]

I would suggest you also take your chair when leaving.
After all, your boss also paid for it.
Good luck then.

[AJM]

Taking it without permission could be considered theft .....

The wording "could be considered" is a bit strange. It IS theft.

[Tias]

Imo, you shouldn't do something that could potentially come back to haunt you later down the line. Just taking the board with you as you* leave or replacing it with some other generic board and then taking it is essentially, as mentioned before, theft. No matter how much of an ass your former boss its not worth the risk of just taking that board.

If you really like it and feel like you'd like to hang on to it then I'd try asking them if it would be possible to take it with you as you leave. If not, then I'd say you should (also mentioned before) treat yourself to a new similar board as a gift for yourself getting a new and hopefully better job.

GL on your new job, hope all goes well.

[fohat]

Are you still working there? Swap the keyboard for a similar one *now* to allow it to become the keyboard that people see you using and nobody might even notice - unless you have been talking about keyboards and your co-workers know how much you like this particular one ....

The day that you leave, walk a manager over to your desk and show him around (the tape is here, the scissors are here, etc) and verify that it is all good as-is.

[purdobol]

Can't believe people are recommending theft so blatantly.
It's wrong on so many levels. With the only goal being to satisfy egoistic desire.

Just ask. And if the answer is no just move on, and buy one yourself.
Have some honor.

[Scarpia]

Thanks for the replies and the support.

First off, I’m not going to just run off with it, since it’s company property and I wouldn’t do that. The company ponied up good money on it to make me happy when they could have reasonably told me I had to find a cheaper one. I’m not going to repay that with theft.

Second, while it’s just a replaceable keyboard (and sure, maybe I should just let it go rather than endure talking to my boss), it’s also a $250 board that costs another ~$100 to import here, and it just happens to fit perfectly in my collection.

Finally, I’m not in a position to spend another $350 on keyboards right now; this year I’m replacing the car, getting married, furnishing and doing several projects on our new house, feeding our new baby, and paying a $6-7000 penalty for quitting ‘early’, so even with a six figure income there’s a limit to the luxuries I’ll afford myself this year.

To those who recommend talking to IT asset management, you’ve got a point. That’s how it should be handled and if my boss was in any way running things by the book then I’d just do that; but he’s not.

[rant]

Spoiler:

He’s very much the “I openly demand loyalty to me (not the users or even the company), I expect my team to scramble and cover for me when I constantly lie to the company leadership about our progress, security, compliance etc.; and I will waste tens of millions of euros of the companys money on doomed projects while ensuring that noone ever sees the (staggeringly negative) ROI” kind of manager. He is an authoritarian, a bully, an unapologetic micromanager, a sexist, a raging self-promoter, and he basically considers the team his private property. Chances are if I spoke to IT asset management to ask about keeping my keyboard, he would be furious, find a way to overrule them and then come after me for ’insubordination‘. And while he can’t fire me I just don’t want any more of his toxic crap in my life.

[/rant]

So I’m still not sure what I’ll do.

[andrewjoy]

To those who recommend talking to IT asset management, you’ve got a point. That’s how it should be handled and if my boss was in any way running things by the book then I’d just do that; but he’s not.

As an IT manager myself , i don't inventory keyboards even expensive ones. They are not something that you can depreciate over time and are considered consumable by most IT guys .

Just ask IT manager and offer to buy new a "new" replacement.

Don't steal kit just because you want it , that is a perk of working in IT .

[Scarpia]

I went and asked the friendly guys in IT asset management (their office is right by the coffee machine and I had nothing to do anyway) and they said no problem, just keep the mouse and keyboard. I guess they have better things to do than de-cap and de-grease people’s old keyboards just to be able to reissue them - when a new basic one is effectively free.

[andrewjoy]

I went and asked the friendly guys in IT asset management (their office is right by the coffee machine and I had nothing to do anyway) and they said no problem, just keep the mouse and keyboard. I guess they have better things to do than de-cap and de-grease people’s old keyboards just to be able to reissue them - when a new basic one is effectively free.

I keep alcohol and cleaning wipes around for that Whilst i dont inventory keyboards i work for a not for profit , so every penny counts. If i can get another year out of a keyboard i will clean it.

i have fully stripped apple editing keyboards ( the absolute shit A1048 model) before now and given them a full clean i even lubed the large keys !!. You dont often see IT managers washing key caps in the sink !

( i had to clean the G80-11900 in our AV rack once as some muppet spilt coffee on it ! I was not a happy bunny! You can kill A1048s all day, but dont hurt my G80-11900!)

[Scarpia]

I keep alcohol and cleaning wipes around for that Whilst i dont inventory keyboards i work for a not for profit , so every penny counts. If i can get another year out of a keyboard i will clean it.

My hat’s off to you! And especially working for a not-for-profit I can respect the frugality. My company is very different - it has revenues in excess of €10B a year, and it’s is most definitely for profit, so there’s a lot of waste and no significant pressure to reduce it. I know we work with a large e-cycling company so old hardware is given new life or recycled responsibly, but still.

[andrewjoy]

My hat’s off to you! And especially working for a not-for-profit I can respect the frugality. My company is very different - it has revenues in excess of €10B a year, and it’s is most definitely for profit, so there’s a lot of waste and no significant pressure to reduce it. I know we work with a large e-cycling company so old hardware is given new life or recycled responsibly, but still.

We do have a small for profit filming/editing and room hire business on the side but it only just about breaks even.

We keep it going as we can use it ourselves for our not for profit for free!

Recycled hardware is awesome! I thank you for the cheap 10 gig network cards and netapp disk boxes, that ( not without a sense of irony ) get re used in a freenas server , it would only be more funny if i used ex sun/oracle disk boxes

[Scarpia]

Ha, great to hear that “our” hardware ends up in good hands. Actually last year they were dumping a ton of old gear from the R&D floor and I noticed a pile of Nortel BayStack 48 port 10/100 managed switches that they were sending to the e-cycler. I don’t know much but they looked expensive, so naturally I grabbed one and took it home with me; worked perfectly! Gave it to a friend of mine since I really had no use for it myself. Ah, the perks of working in an enterprise.

[andrewjoy]

10/100 are pretty old now but excellent for a home lab when your learning / training . A virtual switch is all well and good but no substitute for learning on the real thing!

Unless it's older Netgear stuff , then you will just want to kill yourself , the UI is terrible

[John Doe]

Btw, the company must have profited a lot so that they could invest a keyboard with 350$ for their employee.

[XMIT]

Given the number of barely used Kinesis keyboards I've seen at recycling centers, I don't think anyone cares about you taking it.

To most "normal" people it's just a keyboard.

At some places bureaucracy works to your advantage. The engineering manager - even the shitty, berating micromanagers - care about the engineering budget, not the IT budget. The keyboard was purchased by the shitty manager (since no one wants an ergonomics complaint to be filed) via a requisition through accounting/finance, approved by a VP in the IT department, delivered by a delivery person and installed by an IT or facilities contractor who may no longer even be with the company. The IT support person may have never seen this keyboard, know nothing about it, and be unable to tell it apart from a Logitech rubber dome except for the size - and what sort of weirdo wants a keyboard without a numpad?

What's right here? Leaving the keyboard with the company, who will put it on a shelf, forget about it, and trash it when they change locations? Or, having it sneak its way into a good, loving home and staying out of the trash?

(as someone who has found many nice keyboards in the trash, I advocate for the former )

Sometimes the IT manager hates the engineering manager as much as the employee and will work within their sphere of influence to formally release the item from company inventory.

There can perhaps be a complication if the item was purchased with funds earmarked for some particular purchase, such as public or grant funding. These are at times heavily audited.

Me personally, I don't take a job that doesn't pay me enough to buy the tools I need, and I buy my own tools. Laptops are a dime a dozen (by which I mean they're not terribly special), the company can buy and keep that. But keyboards, mice, chairs, headsets, even monitors - when possible, these are mine, and follow me from place to place.

[kmnov2017]

I dont think anyone cares about it being taken away. The company I work for, bins all used IT equipment when someone leaves and buys new ones for the next employee. Laptops have to be returned, due to data protection, sensitive data and software licensing. Keyboards and mice - no one cares about. Also from an asset management point of view - I've never seen keyboards and mice being ever tagged.

[Scarpia]

Btw, the company must have profited a lot so that they could invest a keyboard with 350$ for their employee.

Yup, it’s big money for sure.

As for the bureaucracy, my now-former job had lengthy processes in place for these things, but they only had one or two keyboard options (volume discounts I assume) so I actually just ordered itmtself with my company CC and had the company reimburse me out of the vast seemingly-not-audited blanket budget for my department. Once my manager had approved the expense that was the end of it. And since it technically came out of his budget and not corporate IT, I was worried he might get petty about it. So far I haven’t heard anything and that Realforce has already replaced my Leopold at home.

[Scarpia]

Me personally, I don't take a job that doesn't pay me enough to buy the tools I need, and I buy my own tools. Laptops are a dime a dozen (by which I mean they're not terribly special), the company can buy and keep that. But keyboards, mice, chairs, headsets, even monitors - when possible, these are mine, and follow me from place to place.

Good point XMIT. I certainly could have done that - or just brought one of my nice keyboards from home. Truth is my team was in a huge open plan office with >1000 others and a lot of random people coming and going, and I wasn’t comfortable leaving $300 of my own money on that desk.

[John Doe]

Btw, the company must have profited a lot so that they could invest a keyboard with 350$ for their employee.

Yup, it’s big money for sure.

As for the bureaucracy, my now-former job had lengthy processes in place for these things, but they only had one or two keyboard options (volume discounts I assume) so I actually just ordered itmtself with my company CC and had the company reimburse me out of the vast seemingly-not-audited blanket budget for my department. Once my manager had approved the expense that was the end of it. And since it technically came out of his budget and not corporate IT, I was worried he might get petty about it. So far I haven’t heard anything and that Realforce has already replaced my Leopold at home.

It means you still have to send it back if the leader happens to realize something one day?