Photo Credit: Leo Malsam

The fictional story of Greg, an overzealous hospital loss prevention manager, facing a chaotic Christmas Eve after accusing a sly co-worker of theft.

This is one of a collection of stories that are like “Final Destination” meets “The Monkey’s Paw” (W. W. Jacobs, 1902). As such, they are tragedies more than either mysteries or horror, and would appeal most to readers who enjoy the inexorable pull of a story arc that leads to doom. In each story, a protagonist makes a wish that comes true with fatal results for someone, often the person making the wish. Nothing supernatural, but just how things work out. (Or is it?) The technical details surrounding the fatal (or near-fatal) event are drawn from real cases in the US OSHA incident report database or similar sources and are therefore entirely realistic, even if seemingly outlandish. The plots draw lightly from cultural beliefs around actions such as pointing at someone with a stick or knife, wishing in front of a mirror, or stepping on a crack.

Greg was the department grinch, and Christmas was his busiest time. As a hospital loss prevention manager, it was his job to police the disappearance of high-value items such as clicky pens, staplers, and dry-erase markers. He took his job very seriously, perhaps to a fault. Greg put on a show of friendly banter to allay any suspicion that he was a serious security official, but this was a ruse. He was keenly aware of everything going on around him, ever alert for signs of pilfering.

“Here comes Inspector Gregory Clouseau. Quick, hide the Post-It notes!” said nurse Ronald Patel in an urgent stage whisper. Fellow staff members gathered at the 3 West Orthopedics nursing station laughed quietly and avoided catching Greg’s eye as he glided past surreptitiously.

“Hot on the trail of lost property, no doubt,” suggested one.

“Perhaps he can find my mind, I lost it yesterday,” responded another before everyone headed off in different directions on patient rounds.

Greg believed himself to be unobtrusive as he prowled the hospital hallways keeping an eye on staff but, in fact, he was exceedingly obvious. Everyone was well aware of who he was and what he was doing. Nobody was fooled by his attempts to be inconspicuous. As Nurse Patel had implied, Greg was far more Inspector Clouseau than Sherlock Holmes, Miss Marple, or Hercule Poirot.

There was indeed a degree of “shrinkage,” as they say, related to the hospital’s office supplies. Staff members occasionally took the odd thing home: a pen, markers, a pair of scissors. If one added up the cost of all these misappropriated items over a year and then multiplied that amount by the number of hospitals in the chain, the total value was surprisingly high. High enough, some might argue, to pay someone to police it and wrestle it down. There were even those that argued that pilfered office supplies were predictors of worse things: If pilfering increased, it might signal that staff satisfaction was decreasing and intent to leave was rising. Likewise, some suggested that a person who stole office supplies was probably stealing bigger things, things with real and serious implications. They might, for example, graduate from taking a notepad to stealing expensive drugs. In fact, someone had graduated from taking a packet of wrist tags to stealing a pair of bandage scissors, and more than one person over the years had pinched a kidney dish, hemostat, or surgical pliers.

As much as Greg might have envisioned his crusade as the sharp edge of loss control, it rather paled in significance to other sources of loss. Linen, for instance, was a much bigger problem, and, of course, drugs. There was a reason that Greg was not tasked with these far more serious causes of loss, and that reason was that Greg was a bumbler. Where tenacity and having a mind like a mousetrap were important in policing and preventing serious shrinkage, Greg unfortunately tended to think small, to latch onto seemingly irrelevant issues, and then doggedly pursue them while ignoring bigger problems and often irritating staff in the process. When, for example, he held up a shift change while he conducted a search of personal effects in pursuit of a missing tape dispenser (later found being used as a doorstop in Records), there was nearly a strike by the nurses’ union. The management team decided to keep employing Greg for two reasons: Firstly, he was probably actually succeeding at decreasing office supply theft whilst discouraging staff from graduating to slipperier ideas; Secondly, he was such an obvious character that the security team members that management had looking into theft of far more valuable items could move about undetected. If all eyes were on Greg, it was easier to get on with the more serious business, such as drugs, linen, and ghost workers.

Greg’s fellow employee, Simon, found Christmastime to be his busiest time of the year, as well as a period in which his income peaked. Simon was employed in the records department, and was exactly the kind of person the management team had in mind when they thought of risk. He was squirreling away over $200,000 in addition to his salary of $42,568, and the leadership team didn’t have the faintest idea it was even missing. The main reason they didn’t notice anything was that Simon’s theft didn’t reduce any inventory—nothing went missing—and the balance sheet didn’t budge when Simon made a large withdrawal. The $35 to $55 that Simon received in return for selling a person’s medical record didn’t appear as a deduction on any line item. With thousands of staff and residents, and tens of thousands of patients flowing through the hospital and across Simon’s desk every year, there was some serious money to be made if one knew how and didn’t have a very high moral fence.

On Christmas Eve, Greg was on heightened alert. He had already halted the misuse of office stationery for decorating a Nativity display, the misappropriation of an IV drip stand-cum-Christmas tree, and the misemployment of an office stapler for hanging holiday decorations. Greg knew very well this was a night when a swig of eggnog, a slice of brandy-overinfused fruitcake, or simply the spirit of fun might tempt someone to pocket a stapler or scissors. As the emergency department filled with the results of falls taken while hanging holiday lights, smoke inhalation from chimney fires, burns from candles and cookie sheets, and the occasional swallowing of a new toy’s battery by a toddler, Greg patrolled the premises vigilantly.

Simon, on the other hand, was relaxing and feeling well-pleased with himself. It was quitting time, he had just packaged and sold a tranche of patient records that pulled in a tidy $23,800 Christmas bonus, and he was headed out to a nice, quiet restaurant for a solo celebration. As he ambled past the nurses’ station, Simon absent-mindedly pocketed a small spray bottle of whiteboard cleaner, thinking it’d help de-ice his windshield and spare him some annoying frost-scraping. The sudden “AHA! I got you!” startled Simon out of his pleasant reverie and, looking around, he was alarmed to see that parody of a security guard bearing down on him red-faced, bulging eyes swimming behind cheap, black-rimmed spectacles.

“I know what you stole!” Greg bellowed triumphantly. “You’re coming with me.”

Greg reached out to grab Simon by the elbow. In a panic, Simon swung his attaché case at Greg, landing a glancing blow that knocked Greg’s spectacles askew and caused his bulbous nose to spurt blood. Simon bolted away as Greg roared in agony, then Greg staunchly shook off the pain and launched himself after his quarry at a furious pace. Dashing down the passageway to the main atrium, the two passed shocked nurses, alarmed patients, and curious physicians.

“Stop, thief!” Greg shouted repeatedly.

With Greg closing in on him, Simon neared the end of the mezzanine floor in front of the twin escalators. Greg attempted to pounce, but instead accomplished more of a sort of mid-air bellyflop. Simon suddenly found himself sporting an enormously heavy human backpack and, unable to veer left or right, carried straight ahead into the hospital’s Christmas display. Amidst an explosion of festively-wrapped gift boxes, Simon slammed into the Christmas tree, embracing it as he fell forward.

The momentum of the men’s bodies carried the whole lot up and over the mezzanine railing. Pursuer, prey and pine plummeted 20 feet like a gaudy comet, trailing blinking lights, tinsel and ornaments, Greg gripping Simon, Simon gripping the tree. When the trio slammed into the atrium’s grand piano, a sonorous, splintering crash reverberated through the hospital. That moment marked the first and final meaningful bust of Greg’s career—proof that while petty pilfering doesn’t always portend more serious crime, a little theft just might thwart a grand larceny.