The Help Helping Themselves

Working as a servant in the home of the wealthy and powerful is a source of many temptations: you get to see how the other half lives up close, and you're aware of just how vain, corrupt, and wasteful they can be. So what harm will it be if a bottle or two vanishes from the wine cellar, or a pair of earrings from the lady of the house's jewelry box? They can afford it, and if they're Rich in Dollars, Poor in Sense, they might not even notice it's gone...

The Help Helping Themselves is when a wealthy person's butler, maid, housekeeper, or other domestic servant steals or appropriates something for themselves without their masters' knowledge or permission. Besides simply stealing things, it can also include activities like borrowing their employers' clothes and accessories, eating their food, drinking their booze, taking their car for a joyride, or partying in their home while their employer is gone. (Expect a Home-Early Surprise if that last one happens.) The servants often bank on the assumption that their lowly status makes them Beneath Suspicion and that their master is unlikely to suspect foul play. Positive portrayals may try to justify the theft by depicting the employer as a Bad Boss and the servants as Just Like Robin Hood (or at least Karmic Thieves). Negative portrayals, on the other hand, may portray the robbery as a supreme betrayal of their master's trust and generosity.

Common subversions include a thief attempting to frame a servant for whatever they take, or a paranoid owner misplacing something and accusing a servant of stealing it. This showcases their avarice and belief that everyone else is as covetous of their wealth as they are, as well as any classist or racist biases they have (especially if they accuse their Ethnic Menial Labor). If the master learns the error of their ways and apologizes, it's a Prejudice Aesop about not judging someone because of their ethnic or social background.

Compare Stealing from the Till, Inside Job, and The Butler Did It, as well as Wild Teen Party and Kids Raiding the Wine Cabinet. Contrast Kindly Housekeeper and Old Retainer for the kinds of servants least likely to do such a thing. If someone is posing as a servant to steal something, see Janitor Impersonation Infiltration or Black-Tie Infiltration.

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Examples:

Anime & Manga

• Lucy-May of the Southern Rainbow combines this with Mistreatment-Induced Betrayal. Mr. Pettywell is a rich asshole who treats his help horribly, from berating them to threatening to freeze their pay over small things. As a result, one of his servants, Adam, conspires with a group of robbers to steal from him.

Film — Animation

• Daffy Duck's Quackbusters: In "Daffy Dilly", Daffy Duck tries to get past a butler by disguising himself as a bottle of wine for the master of the house. The butler brings the bottle in... then looks to see if anyone's watching and opens it for himself. He doesn't realize that the "bottle" is really Daffy until the little black duck offers a toast.

Film — Live-Action

• Empire of the Sun: A day after Jim loses his parents in the confusion of the Japanese attack on Shanghai, he returns to his family's empty estate, where he sees a maid (whom he berated earlier in the film) and a companion stealing some furniture. When he demands to know what she's doing, the maid stops what she's doing, walks over to Jim, slaps him in the face, and then leaves with her companion and the furniture.
• Maid in Manhattan: The Cinderella Plot begins when the hotel maid Marisa tries on a wealthy guest's designer outfit, catching the eye of a famous politician. She loses her job and the politician when she's found out, but things work out on both counts.
• Parasite (2019): After the Kim family successfully get themselves all employed as servants of the Park family, they take advantage of the first time the Parks go out of town to hold a party in their house.
• The Rocky Horror Picture Show: The butler Riff Raff pours a glass of champagne for his master Frank N. Furter, then drinks the rest of the bottle himself. (Considering how Frank treats him, he probably needs it.) Magenta also takes a piece of "Meat Loaf" at dinner.
• The Wolf of Wall Street: Jordan's butler organizes a gay orgy at the penthouse when he thinks Jordan and his wife are away, only to be walked in on by Naomi.

Literature

• The 1861 Book of Household Management by Mrs. Beeton discusses this as a failure on both sides of the master-servant relationship — if a footman was hired for his looks or a valet for his gambling connections, it's no surprise that he looks for "the perquisites he can lay his hands on".
• In Cards on the Table, this trope turns out to be Anne Meredith's motive for murder. She's a kleptomaniac who can't resist stealing small but expensive items whenever she sees them. In the past, Anne worked as a live-in companion for two elderly women and stole from both of them; the first was naturally forgetful and messy, so Anne was able to get away with it, but the second was shrewder. When Anne realized that her thefts might be discovered, she poisoned the older woman in an "accident" involving switching a bottle of medicine with hat paint.
• A Christmas Carol: The Spirit of Christmas Yet to Come shows Scrooge that unless he mends his callous, miserly ways, not only will he die alone and unmourned, his servants will happily pawn his possessions, right down to the sheets off his deathbed. It's implied that they were also stealing from him during his life.
  Charwoman: I certainly shan't hold my hand, when I can get anything in it by reaching it out, for the sake of such a man as he was...
• Discworld:
  • One footnote in Hogfather explains that aristocrats often label their good wine in their cellar backwards to prevent the servants from swiping it. The servants are not fooled and the aristocrats often don't notice that the booze has been topped off with "eniru".
  • Feet of Clay: Discussed. Commander Vimes notes how everyone takes small, inconsequential things from work, and how there's nothing wrong with a household servant putting old sheets or spare boot polish to good use. He's only investigating because a maid had the bad luck to take home an arsenic-laced candle stub that poisoned the Patrician.
    Vimes: But you take home the candle stubs? Still half an hour of light in 'em, I expect, if you burn them in a saucer?
    Mildred: But that's not stealing, sir! That's perks, sir.
  • Snuff: Discussed. The Patrician's secretary Rufus Drumknott is such a scrupulously honest Paperworkaholic that he can't even bring himself to steal a paperclip from his office, which is why he's one of the very few people the Patrician trusts and treats as a Confidant.
• In Dracula, Van Helsing puts a gold crucifix and some garlic flowers in Lucy's coffin after she's been killed by the Count; however, a servant steals the cross, which allows Lucy to rise from the dead as a vampire.
• The Famous Five: In Five Run Away Together, the irritable Mrs. Stick is the cook at Kirrin Cottage, accompanied by her vile son and husband, while George's parents are in hospital. When the Five get sick of putting up with her and run away to Kirrin Island, Mrs. Stick and her family rob the house of anything they can lay their hands on.
• Fire & Blood: When the young Queen Jaehaera Targaryen fell (or "fell") from a window and died, one of her bedmaids came under suspicion when it turned out she had stolen two of the little queen's dolls and a pearl necklace. While she was found innocent in Jaehaera's death, she lost a hand for the thefts.
• A side plot in one Garrett, P.I. novel is that various minor knickknacks are vanishing from the client's house. It eventually turns out that the butler was stealing and selling them because his employer hadn't revised the household budget to allow for inflation in years, and he needed the extra money to keep the estate going.
• Miss Marple:
  • Discussed in "The Four Suspects", one of the short stories in The Thirteen Problems. Miss Marple relates a story about a charwoman suspected of stealing money from her employer, and while they didn't accuse her outright, they lost their trust in her and generally made her life more difficult. Miss Marple then comments that it was actually another employee — the governess — who stole the cash.
  • In "The Case of the Perfect Maid", the spinster Skinner sisters hire a seemingly perfect maid named Mary who, after a few weeks, mysteriously vanishes, having stolen cash, jewels, and other valuables from the sisters and the other tenants of the building complex where they live. This turns out to be a subversion, though, as it's ultimately revealed that "Mary" never existed — Emily Skinner invented the persona with the help of her sister and disguised herself to be able to swipe the goods.
• Sherlock Holmes: In "The Musgrave Ritual", Musgrave fires his butler for sneaking around and looking around in the family's papers. To his surprise, it's nothing of any value, only the questions and answers that make up the title ritual. The butler disappears a few days later, having figured out that the ritual in fact showed the location of historical treasures and enlisting the help of the housemaid to find it. The housemaid he had recently dumped in favor of another girl...

Live-Action TV

• All That: A Detective Dan skit shows a butler blatantly stealing items from the mansion in the background while the detective tries to find the culprit.
• The Americans: Invoked. In the final season, Elizabeth takes a job as a nurse for the ailing wife of an American diplomat so that she can plant surveillance bugs on the husband's clothing, allowing the Centre to get some insight into what the Americans are planning in their peace talks with Russia. Since she's "the help", the couple just assume that she's "borrowing" their clothing whenever a coat or a vest goes missing for a day or two, and never guess that something more devious is at work.
• Arrested Development: Lucille Bluth is paranoid that her Hispanic maid Lupe steals from her, and demands to search her purse before she lets her go home at the end of the day.
• Blackadder: Mr. E. Blackadder, Esq. of Blackadder the Third regularly takes advantage of his position as butler to Prince George, the Upper-Class Twit par excellence. In "Dish and Dishonesty", it's revealed that the Prince's clothing budget has ballooned and Parliament is threatening to cut him off because Blackadder keeps stealing and reselling his master's silk stocks.
  Prince George: It was as if someone was coming in here, stealing the damn things and selling them on!
  Blackadder: [coughs nervously] Impossible, sir. Only you and I have access to your socks.
• Burn Notice: In the pilot, Michael investigates an art burglary from a realtor named Pine, in which both the police and the chief of security, Vince, suspect the groundskeeper Javier. Pine insists Javier is innocent and that the police are just being racist for immediately suspecting the Ethnic Menial Labor. Subverted when Michael quickly figures out that Vince stole the art on Pine's orders in an attempt to commit Insurance Fraud, they're using Javier as their fall guy, and Pine's defense of Javier was simply Propping Up Their Patsy.
• Castle (2009): The Victim of the Week in "Lucky Stiff" is Jay Hixton, whose life went off the rails after winning $117 million in the lottery. Among the suspects is his butler, who stole a rare Charles Dickens book from his employer; Hixton didn't read, just liked the look of the books, and the butler considered taking it a "stupidity tax". He returned the book, however, after becoming concerned that Hixton's bad luck would be contagious.
• In The Cleaning Lady, Thony, Fiona, and their co-workers sometimes lift some of the leftover food that they're paid to clean up. One episode has Fiona finding a leftover half of a cake while cleaning up after a birthday party and gleefully taking it home to her kids.
• Cluedo: The maid Mrs. White tends to steal small valuables from Mrs. Peacock, such as silver spoons. In one episode in the second series, the murder victim is a private detective whom Mrs. Peacock had hired to investigate things going missing.
• Columbo: Invoked in "Dagger of the Mind". As part of their scheme to cover up their murder of Sir Roger, Nicholas and Lilian also kill Sir Roger's butler Tanner and fill his home with rare books stolen from the estate. The police (except Columbo, of course) fall for it, concluding that Tanner had been stealing from Sir Roger and killed his employer to avoid being found out.
• CSI: In "Maid Man", it's revealed that a maid named Paulette was stealing jewelry and luxury supplies from the private suite of a wealthy Middle Eastern prince. When her coworker Maria found out and went to report her, Paulette killed her.
• CSI: NY: In "On the Job", three nannies conspire to steal valuable items from each other's employers and sell them in order to afford health insurance, which none of the families provide. They figure if any fingerprints happen to be found, they'll be in the clear since their own prints won't match. Sandra steals from Glenda's employer, Glenda from Matrice's, and Matrice from Sandra's. All goes well until Sandra feels guilty and returns the Russian nesting doll she'd taken. This prompts Matrice to kill her, and the whole plot unravels.
• Downton Abbey:
  • The Jerkass footman Thomas Barrow helps himself to the estate's wine cellars, then pins the blame on the valet who catches him in the act.
  • The kindly maid Phyllis Baxter's Dark Secret is she was coerced into stealing jewelry from her former mistress and spent three years in prison for the theft. She confesses it to Lady Grantham rather than let Thomas continue to blackmail her; Lady Grantham is shocked but decides to keep Phyllis on.
  • Queen Mary's Royal Dresser Miss Lawton is revealed to steal small valuables from every house the Royal Family visits. Anna the housemaid catches her and blackmails her into helping out with some tailoring, but Miss Lawton is unrepentant given the huge privilege her "victims" enjoy.
    "Doesn't it ever worry you that on each table in this house there's an ornament you couldn't buy with a year's wages?"
• Friends: In "The One with the Stain", Monica is paranoid that the maid Chandler hired is stealing her clothing.
• Game of Thrones: When Cersei was nine, she had her guards beat a servant girl (who was also nine) until she lost an eye for the crime of stealing a necklace. Tyrion is notably disgusted by this.
• Grace and Frankie: In "The Horrible Family", the Hansons have a collective Jerkass Realization when they realize that the housekeeper they'd fired for stealing food and smoking indoors was innocent — they'd been doing it and scapegoating her.
  Grace: So you stole cookies from your children and blamed your housekeeper?
• Jeeves and Wooster: In "Pearls Mean Tears", Bertie's aunt Agatha accuses her maid of stealing her pearl necklace and goes off on her. In the end, after he finds the real culprits, Bertie gives Agatha a withering "The Reason You Suck" Speech deriding her maltreatment of her maid and her bad judgement that allowed the necklace to be stolen in the first place.
• Key & Peele: In "Stan Lee's Superhero Pitch", one of the Author Tract characters Stan pitches is a villain "Overweight Jamaican Maid" whose only notable trait is stealing things.
• M*A*S*H: In "Chief Surgeon Who?", Radar, the company clerk who oversees Lt. Col. Blake's supply requisitions, is seen by the General sitting at Blake's desk and enjoying Blake's whiskey and cigars. The General asks Radar if Blake minds him doing these things, to which Radar replies, "Very much, sir." The General asks why he's doing it, then.
  Radar: Well, I don't mind, and I figure so long as one of us is reasonable...
• Monk: The killers in "Mr. Monk Takes a Vacation" turn out to be a group of hotel maids who steal financial data — mostly stock tips and inside information about big companies — from the wealthy brokers and investors who stay at the resort; as Monk puts it, "no one thinks to hide their briefcases or their laptops". One member of the group either wanted more of the cut or developed a conscience and was going to turn the others in, so they killed her and hid her body.
• Odd Squad: In "Crime at Shapely Manor", it's shown that the butler and maid who work in the eponymous manor, as well as Lord Rectangle's friend Miss Triangle, are the ones who stole Lord Rectangle's birthday cake, out of anger that Rectangle never remembers their birthdays. Once everyone apologizes, Rectangle destroys his cake and decides to make cupcakes for everyone instead.
• The Sopranos:
  • In "46 Long", Tony hires a Trinidadian housekeeper named Perrilyn for his mother Livia. She later tells Tony that she suspects Perrilyn is stealing items from her house, though Tony suspects she gave away those items and doesn't remember them.
  • In "Mr. Ruggerio's Neighborhood", the Sopranos' housekeeper Lilliana tells her husband Stasiu that occasionally she steals things like steak knives and champagne glasses from the house, reasoning that the Sopranos are well-off enough that they won't miss things.
• World's Dumbest...: One clip shows a housekeeper caught on camera stealing from her client... who's a police detective.
  Kevin McCaffery: Stealing from a detective? That's so dumb, it might actually work! Oh, wait, it didn't? Never mind.

Magazines

• Playboy: Discussed in one of Bobby London's Dirty Duck comics. The eponymous Dirty Duck is interviewing a shapely woman to be his biographer and hands her a jar and says he needs a urine sample for drug testing. He also claims that the video camera in the bathroom is because "we suspect the maid is stealing toilet paper" and she can just ignore it.

Theatre

• At one point in Così Fan Tutte, the maid Despina makes hot chocolate for her mistresses Fiordiligi and Dorabella, and expresses her frustration that she won't get to taste it; she finally does steal a sip just before the ladies arrive. As it turns out, she's the only one who gets to enjoy it, as the ladies are in despair that their lovers have gone to war, and Dorabella flings the hot chocolate to the floor.
• Near the climax of Don Giovanni, Servile Snarker Leporello is serving Don Giovanni his dinner. When he thinks the Don isn't looking, Leporello steals a piece of pheasant to eat himself. Unfortunately, the Don does notice, but he pretends not to and toys with Leporello — ordering him to speak more clearly and then to whistle for him, which he can't do with his mouth full — until he finally confesses.
• In the Gioachino Rossini opera La Gazza Ladra (The Thieving Magpie), lady of the house Lucia accuses her servant Ninetta of stealing silverware from their estate. She is arrested and is nearly executed for the crime, but is spared when it's discovered that a magpie has been stealing and hoarding all the missing valuables in its nest.
• The Importance of Being Earnest: Having noticed that his butler's register notes eight bottles of champagne as having been consumed at his most recent party, Algernon asks his manservant Lane about the missing wine.
  Algernon: Why is it that at a bachelor’s establishment, the servants invariably drink the champagne? I ask merely for information.
  Lane: I attribute it to the superior quality of the wine, sir. I have often observed that in married households the champagne is rarely of a first-rate brand.

Video Games

• The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion: In the Sidequest "Canvas the Castle", the Countess of Chorrol's favourite portrait of her late husband has been stolen from her bedroom; the lead suspects are her porter and her Court Mage. You discover that the mage took it out of unrequited love for the Count and can choose whether or not to turn them in. If you do, they disappear from the game, presumably out of a job.
• In HuniePop 2, the player first meets Nora, a maid at the resort where you're staying, when she gets caught trying to steal some jewelry and you have to intervene to prevent her from getting fired.
• In Storyteller, many scenarios involve the butler stealing the Duke's gun to murder the Duke and Duchess. This is downplayed in one story, where the butler simply picks it up and returns it, making the Duke happy to see it's still in its place.

Web Animation

• In the MeatCanyon video "Tragedy Of A Reaction Streamer", three cleaning ladies try to steal from the huge secret treasure of the streamer xqc. All goes well until one of them drops a jar and gets his attention...

Western Animation

• The Batman:
  • Subverted in "The Butler Did It". The Batman Cold Open makes it look like Alfred is guilty of this, but the plot eventually reveals he and two other butlers had been hypnotized into doing it by the Villain of the Week.
  • Discussed in episode The Icy Depths. Alfred's friend Algy notes a silver serving platter in Wayne Manor and jokes about Alfred lining his pockets, implying that Bruce would be too rich to notice anything missing. Alfred immediately retorts that he would never steal anything from Bruce.
• Central Park: In "A Boat-iful Mind", while tending to Bitsy's gout, Helen realizes that she has gout herself. A flashback montage then shows that Helen developed it due to helping herself to Bitsy's leftovers behind her back.
• Family Guy:
  • In "Road to Rhode Island", Stewie invokes this by stealing his grandmother Babs' pearl necklace and hiding it in a maid's pocket. At the end of the episode, the maid is seen getting arrested.
  • "Padre de Familia" sees Peter get fired from his job when it's revealed that he's an illegal immigrant. He has trouble finding steady work because of his status, so Lois offers a job working for her father Carter. Peter initially thinks she's giving him a handout.
    Peter: Lois, immigrants don't take handouts. They just take one DVD a month from the house they're cleaning until they have a respectable collection.
  • Parodied in "Dog Gone" when Stewie accuses Consuela of stealing a thousand dollars of his fake play money. Consuela admits it up front, and when Stewie demands it back, she replies, "Come get, bitch."
• Iwájú features a variant: As a kid, Bode stole from his mother's employer so he could buy himself a necklace. This got his mother fired.

Real Life

• Purposefully invoked as a test by wealthy homeowners in the 19th century. They would leave a coin under a rug before their help began cleaning. If the coin was found and returned to the owner, it meant the help was trustworthy enough to keep employed. If the coin was still under the rug after cleaning was done, it meant the help hadn't done a thorough job and were fired. If the coin was missing and not returned, it meant the help had kept the coin and would be fired.

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