The First Facility Management Blog

After spending most of this week covering the ASIS security show, I have seen an abundance of criminal deterrents for the work environment. But even after visiting thousands of booths and sitting in millions of classes (that’s what it felt like, trust me), I can’t say I came across a solution for this outrageous security violation.

By the way, today’s Friday Funny was submitted by TFM FM Frequency Columnist Jeff Crane. He has supplied us with several other “Funnies” and writes a monthly op/ed/humor piece in the magazine. You can get a better sense of Crane’s tongue in cheek perspective (including his most recent column) here.

Bill Dougherty owns a company that manufactures and installs coin operated car wash systems called Magic Wand Inc. These are complete systems, including the money changer and money taking machines.

Dougherty’s company installed a car wash system in Fredericksburg, VA. The problem started when the new owner complained that he was losing significant amounts of money–several hundreds of dollars, in fact–from his coin machines each week. He went as far as to accuse Dougherty’s employees of having a key to the boxes and ripping him off.

Dougherty just couldn’t believe that his people would do that, so he set up a camera to catch the thief in action. Well, they did catch the thief on film! Check out this sequence of photographs:

That’s a bird sitting on the change slot of the machine.

The bird had to go down into the machine and back up inside to get to the money.

This bird has three quarters in his beak.

Another amazing thing is that it was not just one bird — there were several working together. The starlings were initially attracted to the glint of the coin cup, more than likely, since shiny objects are used by these birds to attract mates or incorporate into nests (not to buy sodas or snacks from a vending machine–see today’s related post here).

The truth of this story has been verified on Snopes, the Web site that debunks Urban Legends. To read the full Snopes explanation, click this link.