Ajahn Brahm has a nice story about this from one of his Dhamma talks. The excerpt below is copy-pasted (with added paragraphs for readability) from the very rough transcript, so the impact would be better if you ignore reading it and instead listen to him tell it.
Ajahn Brahm's story
There is another part of the human being which we call the ability to restrain, to be able to see the consequences of our actions and to realize, yes, that just going with those urges gives like momentary satisfaction, but long term harm and pain and difficulty. Is that aspect of a human being. To sort of assess the consequences of their actions. Which stops one. And that’s something which we develop, especially, you know, in the practice of meditation. The Buddha actually gave it words. He called it hero tipa. He said it’s the fear of the karmic consequences of your action and also a sense of conscience or shame. I don’t want to do this even if no one else finds out and I can’t live with myself. I’ve done something wrong. I know it’s wrong. I’ve hurt someone, I’ve hurt myself. Or the karmic consequences is even more important that each one of you have lived long enough. Now you see the consequences of some actions. No, you don’t get away with things. You think you might get away with it. But you know you see yourself doing that.
It’s an old story I haven’t told us for a long time. It’s a story of this, uh, Indian teacher a long time ago, and he had a number of students. And it was the custom. This was like 1000 or 2000 years ago, 2500 years ago. And the time where, like one wise teacher would have just a number of students, maybe about 10 or 12, and teach them everything they want to know about life and also about sort of morality and religion and and counting and English and everything else, or Sanskrit in those days. And this teacher had one daughter, and his daughter was very, very beautiful. Okay. It’s a bit sexist, but this is 2500 years ago. Okay. And had one very beautiful daughter. And all the students wanted to marry her.
So one day the teacher brought all the students together and said, look, I know you’d all want to marry my very, very beautiful daughter. And according to our custom, you know, this is 2500 years ago. I have to marry her to one of my students. But I can’t think which one to marry her to. So we’re going to give you a test. It’s a test of obedience, but it’s also it solves another problem I have because being a teacher, I’m very, very poor. And I know that whoever marries my daughter will need like a house, or need some cooking stuff and need all the stuff to set up in life, and I haven’t got that much money. So what I want you to do, each student, I want you to go to the nearest villages. I want you to steal things from the village. The test of your obedience. And whoever steals the most will be able to marry my daughter. Because I know, therefore, you’re hard working and resourceful. But also, whatever your steal will all put together. And whoever sort of steals. And Rosa knows my daughter will get all the loot and that will be able to set you up. Okay, but but be careful, you said, because we have to be careful. Don’t let anyone see you stealing. I have to remember that. Don’t let anyone see you stealing. Otherwise you know who might know what might happen.
So all the students were quite surprised because their teacher was usually a very, very honest, very upstanding and moral person. And they wondered what was going on. But they liked the girl and they were obedient. So okay. Off they went. And they stuck in the houses at night time. They steal this. They stole that. And after a week, the teacher called them all together and say, okay, you can stop. Stop stealing now, because we’ve already got so much stuff. That’s enough here to set up anybody, any couple happily in their first months of marriage. And now I want to announce sort of who’s stolen the most. But before I announce who stolen the most, there’s one of my students here who hasn’t stolen anything. You disobedient young man. Why didn’t you follow my instructions? He said to this poor little student. And he still said. But, master, I did follow your instructions. Well, why didn’t you steal anything then? He said to his master. I went into the houses at night time. I waited for the occupants to fall asleep or to go out. And then I snuck in and I snuck in, and I was about to sort of grab hold of some money or some jewelry. Then I noticed that somebody was watching, and you told me, don’t steal if somebody is looking. And the master said, but I thought you said all the people had gone out of the house who was watching? And the students said, I was watching. I was watching me steal. And you told me, don’t take anything if someone’s looking. I’m lucky, he said.
And that the master said, oh, thank goodness that at least I have one student who is smart and wise. And he said, you win, my daughter. All your other students take back all those goods from the houses where you stole them from. You don’t need to worry, because I told all the villagers to expect you a long time ago. It’s a setup. It was a test to see if you understand what morality and virtue is, because whenever you take something, just as this student understood, you see yourself stealing. That’s why if you have any sexual impropriety, your wife may not see, your husband may not see you, but you see you doing that. That’s why you cannot hide any sort of bad acts of body or speech. That’s why we have to be restrained. Because whatever you do, you see yourself doing that. And that has a huge imprint on your mind, on your happiness and well-being. That’s what the Buddha meant by the the conscience and the karmic consequences of these things. It’s imprinted on the mind of the one who does it. So we all have to have some type of restraint in life.
OP, regarding your situation, I’d say you’re not breaking any precepts. Especially because you receive a monthly salary—if you billed by the hour and charged customers for more hours than you actually worked for them, that would clearly be immoral. Whether your actions align with the sila, hiri, and ottappa in your heart is something you have to investigate yourself. The precepts are tools for training the virtue in the heart.
The modern workplace puts a lot of stress on keeping perfectly pure precepts. I have difficulties along similar lines in my profession. Each layperson has to to deal with these sorts of things in their own way, unique to their particular job. This common passage from the suttas speaks to that fact:
It isn’t easy, living at home, to practice the holy life totally perfect, totally pure, a polished shell.
-MN 101
We just have to do our best and keep refining.
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Living in Thailand is a great reeducation on that front! The “sabai” culture is sometimes shockingly relaxed! 