Seriously I see these posts all the time about people who have a co-worker who steals food so they make gross food to ‘get back at them’ cause HR doesn’t do anything.
Legit question but how do you not just freak out and yell at the person? If a co-worker stole my food the 1st time I’d yell at them and curse them out, the 2nd time I’d threaten to shove the food in their fat face next time I see it happen. If HR didn’t do anything I’d threaten to quit and sue if they claimed I don’t get EI because it’s a toxic work environment.
I just don’t get how people are so passive when co-workers literally steal from them? I’d be fucking livid.
Put in laxatives or something that fucks them up
That’s poisoning and you absolutely can be held liable for any injury you cause.
Also, it’s a completely reasonable reason to fire you.
What do you mean? It as a laxative to help me poop. Why are you eating my medicated sandwich?
Careful, people have been terminated and been sued for this kind of behavior.
You can make it very very spicy, however, as long as you’re willing to eat it too
What if you love shitting and are willing to shit too?
That’s technically legal but basically no authority figure will believe you.
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Where I work HR put a big sign on the refrigerator door about not stealing food
Did it help?
It was stolen
Can’t have shit in Detroit
I’m guessing that they don’t know who stole the food
I would still make a big deal about it, and demand a solution
So say 100 people work at this company, the other 98 not involved don’t want to listen to you rant and rave either. They might understand, but the more you escalate the less they want to deal with your shit either.
Maybe because the only co-worker food theft stories that get upvoted and therefore seen are the dramatic ones about passive-aggressively making gross food for the food thief. And who knows how many of them are true stories and how many are creative writing projects for internet points.
Making inedible or spicy food to catch a food thief is a trick as old as time and I have even done it myself. There is no other way to catch them out usually.
Y’all need to start rubbing your ass on decoy food. Go ahead, eat my butt croissant.
I have wondered since that episode aired how many people were inspired to do it for realsies.
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Sounds like the thief won. Made you change your habits.
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If you’re happy then it seems there really wasn’t a problem in the first place.
Thanks for the insight, Professor
I’m sorry but I feel if you approach the person with the right tactic, you can get them to alter their behavior.
As opposed to continuing to bring the thief food?
Or here’s a thought, put a stop to the thieving.
My cop relative said everyone working in police stations keeps their stuff in lockers because cops constantly steal from each other. Not just food.
This is the least surprising thing I have learned today.
What do you expect when most cops are criminals
ACAB, eh?
Stealing food is theft - it may be petty theft but it’s still theft. If you report it to HR and nothing is done then you can sue the company for a hostile work environment.
If you use laxatives, excessive spice, whatever and injure a coworker then you can be fired with cause and possibly be civilly or criminally liable if the damages are significant enough.
If you report it to HR and nothing is done then you can sue the company for a hostile work environment.
Good luck
Filing a lawsuit over a sandwich (or threatening someone, as OP mentions) is a comical overreaction anyway. There are a dozen simpler ways to solve the problem.
Um yea I think thats just social media attention seeking. I don’t think that is any more common than something like shoplifting.
Reddit loves to upvote drama.
That doesn’t say much, shoplifting is super common.
Maybe it varies by industry, but I’ve been a white collar desk jockey for 18 years and I’ve never once heard of lunch theft in real life, only seen on social media.
Theft of both food and desk items was a huge issue at two different large office jobs I had. In the second one, HR and management didn’t care until someone stole the electronics from the break room and they finally put up cameras. I think the correlation is that those big offices had large phone sales and support staff that works in the building. Those roles underpaid, under-appreciated, and have high turnover. I can definitely see some of those people being on their last rope and not giving a shit about stealing from either the company or people they feel have “cushy” jobs.
Because that’s not how the corporate world works. You want to freak out and yell at them? Go ahead. Next they don’t eat someone else’s food for a week. Meanwhile you’ll be hunting for a new job. You threaten another employee? You’ll be lucky to be employed at the end of the day.
Life is a series of tradeoffs. The squeaky wheel gets the grease. Tim may steal food, but that doesn’t mean it’s throwing off the status quo. You yell at Tim, you’re upsetting the status quo. So go ahead, and have fun with your pink slip. Hope it was worth it.
Or you can keep your lunch at your desk.
Nah you’re just complacent, old man
Correct, that is another way of putting what I said.
If the choice is:
- Have a stable job, continue paying my bills on time, enjoy the coworkers I do enjoy, continue on with my life -or-
- Have a few seconds of glib satisfaction after yelling at a coworker
I mean, yeah, I’m gonna just keep my lunch at my desk.
The one true way is to find a new job if your coworkers/boss/the job itself is mistreating you.
We did not mistreat you, so don’t take it out on us.
Good lord this makes me happy I’ve not worked in corporate and stayed in blue collar work.
Someone steals food in a shop, that someone’s gonna have a bad day and the boss yells at anyone “whining”, including the guy who got his ass kicked.
That sounds awful all around
Yes, life on earth as per usual. Humans are the problem as usual.
The only time I’ve ever had my food stolen was when I was working as a deckhand on a tug. I’ve been working white collar jobs for the past 25 years and haven’t had to deal with it since.
Also, my solution was to spray degreaser on my food the next day and wait to see who complains. Turns out, I’m the one who got in trouble for that even though I put a ‘do not eat’ sign in the food.
gain a tolerance to very hot food. problem solved.
Are you really going to yell over someone accidentally taking the wrong ham and cheese sandwich?
If it’s in my lunch bag that doesn’t look like theirs, then yes I would
Yall dealing with people stealing food? Ive worked in an office setting for almost 20 years and ive not once ever heard of someone taking someone elses food
Where I work there was a night guard who would go around at night and steal food from alle the office break rooms. They installed combination locks on them ans gave the code only to people in the department. When they found the culprit, they fired him. Which is the only sensible thing to do when someone is stealing on the job.
Steal from the company, not from the employees.
If they’re any good at it, you won’t know who stole your food. If I did know who the thief was, yelling/cursing/threatening would get me fired. It’s easier to keep my food at my desk in an insulated lunchbox with an ice pack.
And finally, HR doesn’t give a flying fuck about your lunch. They would laugh in your face if you threatened to sue them.
I would only use them if they denied me EI after leaving the company and claiming I left due to the toxic environment. In Canada that’s how EI works, you can get it if you quit if the working environment is illegal or toxic etc
Not familiar with the acronym “EI”
I think I’d just bring extra food the next day so both I and they can eat. Clearly someone isn’t able to bring their own food for whatever reason, and I can’t really blame them for choosing to eat when the alternative is starving, even if it is annoying that I missed my lunch that day.
This is the most legitimate answer.
Our children always went to school with extra (our dinner the night before was their lunch for the most part, we always tried to make extra).
