It's nothing new. Sometime in the early 70's I was cleaning the insides of a school with a mate. We were doing the kitchen and he put his squeegee down on a chair while he was ragging some stamps (little Georgian panes
)
Quick as a flash one of the dinner ladies dropped a tea towel over the squeegee and carried on whatever she was doing. She was hoping my mate wouldn't remember what he'd done with it and would go looking for it, giving her a chance to hide it while he wasn't looking.
Unfortunately for her, I was looking in through a serving hatch and shouted at my mate to pick it up. He did, and the dinner lady picked up her tea towel and carried on without batting an eyelid. :
