Letters to the Editor
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for awhile, I stole shoes
I would just wear them out of the store.
Is that awful? I don't know why I did it. I think I just wanted new shoes.
I gave the matter some thought, and realized I felt deprived because I didn't have the shoes that I needed, primarily for work. I wasn't being paid enough, but I needed shoes.
Kid, we've all been there. Maybe not with shoes. Anyway, I got the shoes that I needed and I stopped stealing the shoes. What do you need that you're not getting?
Books for school? A nice lunch? The feeling of being able to save? Vacation in Cabo? I would skip the therapist and see a financial consultant who will offer you advice on how to save.
I don't know about putting the money back - YAWN to that advice. I doubt anyone's missed it or would miss it. Boss sounds a bit ditzy.
Decide what you need. Work out a savings plan. Don't steal the shoes.
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you're missing a big part of it Cary
Cary just focused on the material need, the moeny, the stuff.
But there's a whole other aspect that is all the more important: why do you choose this self-destructive act?
Why do you want to ruin this good job.?
These acts are more about hurting yourself than about acquiring money or stuff.
It's important: why are you making such self-destrictive choices LW?
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Here's HOW to quit
I'll chime in with everyone else in saying that you, LW, have to quit.
But it seems like the heart of your question isn't that: you know you have to quit. The question is, how? It's easy to say "just do it", but that may not be enough. To some extent, this seems like a very human thing -- most of us don't do things on par with stealing from our boss, but we all have (or have had at one time) habits and compulsions that we know are quite bad, but do anyway: perhaps we don't exercise even though we know that we're at risk of diabetes, or fail to study or procrastinate so much that we fail out of college, or cheat on our spouse when we know we shouldn't. Yes, all of those things are wrong (some wronger than others; the exercise thing is just an analogy, so please don't take me as saying that not exercising is the same as adultery) -- but if "just quit" worked, then the world would be a lot better place than it is.
The good news is that you can take some lessons from people who have studied how to quit these other things. So, on that note, some suggestions.
1) I second the idea of getting a lawyer and a therapist. Not just because of their professional advice, but because doing so creates an external person who you have to report to about how you're doing, if you're actually stopping. This is probably the single most useful thing you can do: people who succeed in starting exercise programs, stopping cheating, etc, often do so because they have someone who will know when they've failed - they join a group, confide in a friend, whatever. It is a lot easier to rationalize to yourself when you don't also have to rationalize to a person who won't buy into the kind of BS reasoning that it's easy to use to justify it to yourself at the time. The trick with this is that you have to set it up while you're rational, i.e., away from the temptation. So DO IT NOW.
2) A few people suggested going to a courtroom and basically scaring yourself straight. It's a good suggestion, but not done in isolation. Fear rarely motivates you to stop something that you clearly have an irrational compulsion to do -- it might in the short term, but soon enough you'll forget it and go back to your old stealing ways. It might, however, motivate you to do #1 above, if you have a hard time doing that without being scared to death.
3) Indulging in a little armchair psychologizing, I'd guess that part of the reason you do this is for the power and control it represents. Yes, in the long run it makes you more powerless -- which is part of the vicious cycle and why you have to keep taking more and more -- but in the short run it makes you feel great, I bet: you get a little frisson of delight that you're getting away with it. This is the reason people indulge in a lot of addictive and compulsive behaviors. To get beyond it, the therapist will help a lot, but you should also look at what you can do to make yourself feel more in control in the rest of your life: because if you do, you won't need it as much. Not sure what to suggest here, since I'm not sure what your life is like, but it might be about college (are you in the major you want to be? are you sure college is right for you?) or something about your personal life (do you find yourself playing a "role" that you don't feel you fit?). Figure out what that is and try to change that, and I'm sure it'll help with the stealing.
4) If all else fails, you might actually consider talking to your boss. I'm aware that this is a dangerous option, but it's far less dangerous than getting caught - particularly if your boss is as fair and nice as you say she is. I'm not an employer, but I'm a teacher, and I can tell you that if a student came to me and said "I've been having a hard time stopping myself from cheating. I cheated on X and Y tests. Can I retake them, and can you work with me on this, maybe making it harder to cheat in the future by having me take my tests where I can't see other students' responses?" then I would actually be kind of impressed and would have a very different response than if I caught them myself. If you catch them yourself, it's a tremendous betrayal of trust, and all their cries in the world that they're sorry just seem like crocodile tears - I throw the book at them. If they come to you beforehand, that speaks very well of their character -- I would watch them like a hawk, to be sure, but I would probably not punish them at all, and actually come away fairly impressed. So if you went to your boss, and not just confessed but did things to show her you were serious about changing -- i.e., calculated how much you had taken and asked her to take it out of your paychecks, asked her to take away your key to the safe, and told her you were seeing a therapist about how to stop it -- then I really doubt she'd bring the police in. And at minimum, you'll finally feel good about yourself... the importance of that, as you continue in your life, cannot be underestimated. And even if she did get the police involved, you'd probably face a far lighter punishment than if you had been caught red-handed.
Because, make no mistake, if you continue as you have, you will be caught some day.