The Missing Two Minutes
You work security at a distribution warehouse. At 3:05 a.m. a forklift operator reports that a pallet of high-value electronics is short by one case. The dock door was open from 2:40 to 2:55 a.m. for a scheduled trailer swap. Your patrol log shows you were "at dock" at 2:45 a.m., but you actually were at the break room from 2:42 to 2:50 and wrote "2:45 dock" afterward from memory. The shift supervisor asks you to write an incident report and says, "Just put that you were watching the dock the whole time, it'll make the report cleaner."
1. What do you write, and how do you handle the supervisor's instruction?
Read the worked answer
Write the truth, and separate what you know from what you reconstructed.
- Do not falsify the log or the report. "I was watching the dock the whole time" is a statement you cannot support, and a false entry converts a loss into a misconduct issue for you.
- Correct the record: note that the 2:45 "dock" entry was written from memory and that you were actually in the break room 2:42–2:50.
- State only observed facts: dock door open 2:40–2:55 per schedule; pallet short one case reported at 3:05; no one observed removing a case.
- Respond to the supervisor: "I can't write that I was watching when I wasn't-I'll document the gap and what I did observe."
Reasoning: an incident report is evidence. Its value depends on accuracy, and a "cleaner" report built on a false statement is worse than an honest one with a coverage gap.
2. What should the report include to be useful to the investigation, given the coverage gap?
Read the worked answer
A useful report:
- Timeline with times and sources: door open/close, break-room interval, discovery at 3:05.
- Facts vs. inference clearly separated-do not assert who took the case.
- Physical details: which pallet, case count, seal condition, whether the trailer was sealed, camera coverage of the dock (and whether footage exists for 2:40–2:55).
- People present during the window, by role, without accusing.
- The coverage gap stated plainly, plus what you did during it.
- Preservation steps taken: request that dock camera footage be saved before overwrite.
Reasoning: the gap is not the end of the investigation-identifying the footage window and preserving it may recover the missing two minutes. Honesty about the gap protects the case; the camera may show what you did not.