I always try to learn from my mistakes. Given that one of the prime focuses of our company is educating customers, I try to let them learn from my mistakes as well. That can be a bit embarrassing at times.
Tuesday evening, I was relaxing a bit after returning from the gym. My phone rang, and it was the alarm company reporting a burglary alarm at the office. I left for the office pretty quickly, but assumed it was the cleaning people accidentally setting it off. It looked like a false alarm at first, but as I looked around, I discovered that the inside door had been forced open, and the cash drawer stolen. Not a big deal in terms of monetary value, but quite annoying. It appears to be someone associated with the office complex, since getting to the side door requires a key to the a public hall in the building.
As the officer was completing his report, he asked about any video surveillance. I glanced around, and remembered that we had installed a camera in the showroom so we could see who was coming it when we were not out there. Unfortunately, we had never bothered to setup recording of the images. Given the inside nature of the theft, were video available, the thief would probably be behind bars now.
The moral of the story is that if you are going to pay for technology, use it to its full value, and don’t let some of all of its features sit on the shelf. That is a bit like having a deadbolt lock on your door, and never locking it.