"I would intercept these rewards and put them in my backpack for the bus ride home, in order to avoid creating perverse incentives for the operations team. But did anyone call me 'hero'?"
Wait so you stole rewards for a team that was spending time (I assume extra or stressful) on something you didn't do or have any part in. And you want a cookie?
I mean I get it, the company was probably not great in it's infancy. But what?
Yeah but does anybody believe that the engineers would deliberately break things so they could have to work in a stressful environment bringing things back up just to get some free beer?
If your incentives are aligned w/firefighting as opposed to fire prevention b/c management is not motivating and rewarding the extra work that goes into avoiding these scenarios in the first place, you're encouraging fire.
Indeed, the usual motivation to try and be called a hero for putting out the fire you started is much more valuable than free booze: a title promotion with a pay bump.
That's usually called stealing, or something a little softer than that. It's interesting that you shared that experience expected for us to laugh at it. The rest of the comment was hilarious and I'm happy you shared it, but that bit is very odd. I also see where you're coming from. But your act was ethically questionable.
It's one of those jokes where if the story isn't true then the entire basis for it being funny disappears. (And if it is true then the joke isn't good enough to make up for the actions.)
Wait so you stole rewards for a team that was spending time (I assume extra or stressful) on something you didn't do or have any part in.
The HR department in my company does this, and then redistributes the gifts to everyone in a random drawing at the Christmas party.
One year some department got a bunch of PlayStations, and a couple of them ended up in my department. The only thing my department contributed to the kitty was candy. I bet some people in that other department were disappointed.
Wait so you stole rewards for a team that was spending time (I assume extra or stressful) on something you didn't do or have any part in. And you want a cookie?
I mean I get it, the company was probably not great in it's infancy. But what?