By Qin Silin

Catching the Thief

By Qin Silin

I’ve dealt with money on a daily basis for many years and have thus witnessed numerous tragedies spurred on by the desire for money.I felt lucky to have been able to manage my business well enough to avoid such incidents.However,greed is such a power that it drives people to find flaw in even the strictest of procedures.Then came the day of my encounter with evil.

My Encounter with Evil

A couple of years ago,I opened a branch of my pawnshop in Songshan District,Taipei.An old school friend,Mr.Guo,was hired to be my store manager.He was very bright and especially good with numbers. Aside from him,I also hired a Ms. Zhang,who worked for a bank as an accountant,and two sales assistants. It was a small and simple team.

One day I was approached by Mr. Guo.He briefly said to me on the phone,“You’d better come by. There are problems with our accounts.It looks alright on the computer,but my instincts tell me that there’s something wrong.”

Mr.Guo is an expert with numbers.If he had a suspicion,there had to be something.I told him,“We’ll have to figure it out today. If we take our time,the thief will have time to destroy the evidence.”Immediately I closed and locked the doors and announced that we were going to audit the accounts.I also asked the staff to inform their families of later hours and promised to pay overtime.As I finished my speech,Ms.Zhang spoke up with a faltering voice,“I...I can’t work overtime today.”

I half-jokingly told her,“I’m sorry but the doors are locked.No one can get out.Why don’t you call your husband now?”

We then started auditing every transaction of the books on the computer.But no matter how we added the numbers up,they matched.A glimmer came into Mr. Guo’s eyes—the discs we burnt every month.Each branch store burnt all the accounting books onto a disc and then sent them to the head office to keep backups.We called and asked a colleague to deliver all the discs of the past 12 months over to our store.We compared the data on the discs item by item with that on the computer,and the sum was the same.Was there some sort of misunderstanding?

It was getting late and everyone was getting tired and frustrated. Suddenly,another glimmer shined in Mr.Guo’s eyes,“I see!Let’s try again.But this time,let’s not compare numbers but read the items.”

As we went along,we found big differences between the disc data and the computer data:some additions had become deductions.

We found four deductions.With this in and out,the cash shortage was about 130,000 Taiwanese dollars.So the thief had altered the computer records to first raise the amount of sum and then use four deductions to balance the books. Therefore the final number looked the same but cash had gone to someone’s pocket.Luckily the disc data couldn’t be altered.Otherwise, we would have never be able to discover the truth.

Mr.Guo and I both looked towards Ms.Zhang.She was terrified but shook her head in denial.I said,“There’s no point denying this. There are only four people in this store.Besides the two sales assistants,the only two who knew the passwords and had access to the computer were you and Mr.Guo. Today it was Mr.Guo who requested this audit.It’s impossible that someone would steal and report it himself.Who else could have done it?”

Ms.Zhang continued to deny.I had to call the police.Ten minutes later,two police cars pulled over in front of our store.Ms.Zhang broke into tears and admitted her theft. She mumbled with tears,“I had no choice.My husband and I owe a lot of money.But our combined salaries will never fill the hole.”

This internal theft shocked me.I started to reflect on my own management.I had followed what management textbooks taught me to do but had neglected the most important factor of people.As a supervisor,I shouldn’t have only looked at their work performances.What they did after work was also important.If I discover that my employees have fallen on difficult times,I should offer assistance rather than let them be,as one’s personal life would affect their work life.

Change of Management Style

After the incident,when I needed a store manager for my Shilin branch, my first considerations of the applicant’s qualities were their ethics, discretion and industriousness.A candidate’s name surfaced in my mind.He was a manager that had worked with me for a very long time.He was practical and hard-working.I employed him and the branch was soon opened.

One time I was reviewing employees’attendance of the Shilin store when I noticed that he clocked in five minutes late from time to time.This was unusual.According to my knowledge of him,he was not the type to come in late.So I asked him,“You were never late.Why have you started coming in late after working in the Shilin store?”

He explained,“I live in Qidu District of Keelung.Coming to work in Shilin,I have to take a bus and then a train and then a subway.Sometimes the train is late and sometimes I can’t get on the train because there are too many people.So,occasionally,I’m a few minutes late.”

I forgot about it after the chat until one night I couldn’t sleep and thought of it again.I remembered hewas a middle-aged married man, but he was still renting in Qidu and commuting to Taipei for work.It was obvious he wasn’t financially sufficient,yet I had him managing a store worth millions.I felt like I was taking a bit of a risk.

After a week,I found him and asked,“You’re in your mid-30s. How come you are not able to buy a house yet?”

He scratched his head and said,“I used to run my own business but it failed.I still owe some debts,so I can only afford to rent a flat in a cheap area.”

“But I let you manage a big store. I’m not very comfortable with this. It’s not that I don’t trust you.But how could you not have a house? Why don’t you consider buying one in Taipei?”

He was slightly mad at my words. He said,“Of course I want to.If only I had the money.Do I need you to remind me?”

Seeing him getting angry,I calmed down,“You don’t have the money but I do.”

He was dumbstruck for a few seconds,“What do you mean?”

“It’s simple.You could choose a second-hand house or a foreclosure. I will lend you the down payment and there’s no hurry in paying me back.Your salary should be good enough to pay for the mortgage. What do you think?”

At first,he thought I was joking. But when he saw how serious I was, he nodded hard.The next six months he looked at houses and finally one day,he told me he’d found one.The deposit was 2 million Taiwanese dollars and I paid it for him as promised.

He didn’t ever disappoint me. Since he bought the house,he worked even harder.He was always the first to come and last to go.After 7 or 8 years,the store was so well managed that even in a rather difficult market,the business in Shilin was flourishing with clients even from the mountain areas of Tianmu and Yangming.

(From29 Prawn Tickets:Volume II,Jiuzhou Press.Translation:Zhang Lei.)