I stole thousands of dollars in change over 2 years working at a restaurant with very little repercussions.

When I was 19 I got a job as a host at a casual dining restaurant chain. I hated taking out the trash, so I would always try to go out with a server instead. A lot of times the server would hand me a bunch of loose change from their apron and ask me to put it in the tip jar for them while they were busy rushing food out.<br><br>I realized that nobody keeps track of how much is in those tip jars, as there are about 5 of them. Sometimes I would “forget” to put the change in the tip jar and instead put it in my pocket. Once a week I would take $20, sometimes $50 in change that wasn’t mine. I never felt bad about it, because I made shit and all the servers made good money in tips.<br><br>One night, a server asked me to dump the tip jar in his apron because it was full. I didn’t have time to go empty my pockets first, so the stolen change fell into his apron. He called me out on it immediately. I told him that I was just trying to keep track of how much I owed him in case he wanted to split at the end of the night. The server was understanding, and I continued to do this for the rest of my time there (about a year). <br><br>I did get caught official by my manager once, and all that happened was a verbal warning and my hours got cut for a month. I still did it anyway because I knew they couldn’t catch me. I would take the change from other servers and put it in my pocket to count at the end of the night, and not tell anyone how much I had accumulated.<br><br>I left my job as a host and took a job as a server. Then I really started to take advantage of the system. I would always take my own tables instead of relying on other servers to give me their sections. I would accumulate change from my cashouts and my tips, and instead of putting it in the tip pool, I would put it in my car at the end of the night. Sometimes I would take it back inside and pocket it again. Once, I stole around $100 in change from the server I worked with on a double.<br><br>I never got caught, but I’m sure everyone knew I was taking change from the restaurant. Sometimes I would bring it up out of guilt, and everyone would laugh and say “oh yeah I never put all my change in the tip pool.” I would usually take around $20-50 a week, sometimes $100.<br><br>After I left the job, I started counting all the change in my car and at home. I had probably accumulated around $1500-2000 in change over 2 years. I never felt bad about it until I moved out and had to count all that change. My mom said “wow you made a lot of tips working here!” And I felt so guilty I didn’t tell her the truth.