Everyone wants to make their day-to-day work a little more interesting.

For one pet store employee, that meant turning his job in the fish section into a secret operation that quickly turned a small scheme into an aquatic empire.

Read on for this surprising confession!

I worked at PetSmart in the early 2000s and stole hundreds of $ worth of tropical fish

I was the “fish guy.”

I set aside two of the tanks to put problem or bully fish, and fish that people brought into the store to get rid of (usually just overgrown plecostomus).

There were no cameras at all on the fish section.

So he took advantage of this.

I would very often just put fish (ones for sale) I wanted into one of those tanks, mark them as dead in the system, and bag them up at the end of the day.

Then I’d walk out with them in my lunchbox.

As his confidence grew, so too did his brazenness.

I eventually started ordering fish specifically for myself—fancy stuff like discus, ghost knife fish, pacu, and tons of others. I marked them as “dead on arrival.”

This went on for nearly two years, and I ended up with over 1,000 gallons of tanks running in my house.

Sorry.

Seems like he looks back on this endeavor with more pride than guilt.

What did Reddit think about these wild antics?

This commenter seems to think the fish ended up getting a better deal out of being stolen.

This user ended up getting roped into a similar scheme.

PetSmart isn’t exactly known for treating their animals humanely.

This commenter has heard similar horror stories.

The tanks kept getting bigger, and so did his secret.

We don’t mind, though.

If you liked this post, check out this story about an employee who got revenge on a co-worker who kept grading their work suspiciously low.