In every issue of this fine rag my hack team of wannabe journalists and I tackle some of the most laughable criminal acts that have recently happened in our area. Then - if we're doing our job - we write about those crimes in a way that makes you chuckle, or at the very least gives you something better to do than count the days until the release of Scott Weiland's new Christmas album.

It's not the most important job, but someone has to do it. At the Weekly Volcano Crime Desk, along with paying homage all week to my soul patch (2000-2011), it's our life's work.

This week's column takes us to Fife, where tempers sometimes flare.

Enjoy. - Matt Driscoll

Jobs aren't necessarily the easiest things to come by in Pierce County these days. Or anywhere for that matter. As has been widely reported, the unemployment rate in Pierce County rose to 9.9 percent in August, a full point higher than Washington's statewide 8.9 percent unemployment rate. For those playing at home, that means there are a lot of folks out there without work.

Of course, there's a decent chance those playing at home know this all too well. ...

The moral: people with employment should be at least moderately thankful for it.

However, sometimes the employee/employer relationship gets so fractured that there's no going back - even in times of economic strife. Sometimes especially in times of economic strife. Sometimes the anger and hatred boils over. Sometimes the hostility can't be contained. Sometimes all of this manifests into a debacle so out-of-the-ordinary that local news outlets can't help but take note.

The News Tribune's Stacey Mulick reports that police in Fife arrested a longtime Milgard Manufacturing employee Monday, the morning after they say he broke into a Milgard warehouse in the 900 block of 54th Avenue East in Fife and inflicted what could tally up to as much as $1 million worth of damage to equipment and inventory.  The number crunchers were still hard at work adding up the carnage as of Ragnet press time, but suffice to say anywhere in the ballpark of $1 million is a shit-ton of doors and windows.

According to Mulick's account, citing Fife police Lt. Tom Thompson, the suspect is a Spanaway resident who has worked for Milgard for 30 years and was recently reassigned. Police say anger over his reassignment is what led to the overnight rampage.

"He didn't like his reassignment," Thompson told the News Tribune.

Gee, ya think?

Discovering the damages at 7 a.m. Monday morning, police were quickly called to the scene, where it was determined someone had broken into the warehouse overnight - backing a tractor trailer into equipment and destroying inventory.

In no time at all investigators were sent to the suspect's house, where Thompson tells the Trib the man soon confessed. The whole thing was wrapped up, documented and posted on the Trib's "Lights & Sirens" blog by noon, so it's safe to say no much time was wasted on other suspects.

The man was booked into Pierce County Jail on suspicion of burglary and malicious mischief. If abhorrent stupidity was illegal, they probably would have hit him with a charge of that too. - Gill Bates, Window(s) Related Crime Correspondent