You can only leave your station to get a tool for yourself, and you can't even go to a “central” location that everybody frequents unless you have a reason to go there. Like the computer where people move stock when a job is done, you cannot go there unless you have stock to move. Therefore you cannot put a tool next to the keyboard for your coworker to find. Tried leaving a note about who took the USB cable (me) and where I was when/if it was needed again, but management obviously took it because someone later on was wandering, demanding to know where the USB cable was.
Yes, management provides tools but expects us to share a small number of them rather than providing enough to go around. The latter might be outside of the budget, but budget doesn't justify banning people from putting things back, agreeing with CW's about where I should leave something, or just giving us the benefit of the doubt when we go to where the tool is supposed to be, return it and go back to our desks without even talking to anyone.