1. Apple Store employees are idiots. I bet they won't even be able to take downa Starbucks barista in a steel cage match although both of them might just commiserate about their college experience before dropping out to do peddle ipods and coffee.

2. Most likely they weren't stealing from the retail inventory but the returned or broken phones waiting to be shipped back to Cupertino for servicing since the process for accounting those are much more relaxed.

It's also possible that they simply put in a huge internal order and decided to burn their bridges. I've worked retail and some of those people are INCREDIBLY dumb. I've been forced to deal with people who walked off with the day's deposits and returned six months later asking when their next shift was scheduled.

@Alaska Miller:

1. How was I to know that I was on secret double probation?

2. Anybody need a pair of white headphones?

@raincoaster:

unless one of them is a store manager that has a retail manager contact in Cupertino there's no way for them to place orders

Why did it take someone over 300 phones to notice what was going on? "Sir...we seem to have a slight discrepancy in the stock take"...."Dont worry...im sure they'll turn up!"

upon reading the other reports it appears one of them is a manager and both of them got caught on the surveillance cameras carting out the phones.

it's obvious my overthinking of unethical activities has been trumped yet again.