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.
Never ever been in a place where people take food that isn’t theirs. I cannot even comprehend it. And if it happened more than once I’d keep my food in a backpack at my desk.
Is it yours? If no don’t touch. Simple as that.
Happened to me too. Didn’t know who it was. I ended up keeping my lunch in my backpack (thermally insulated container), and no one stole my lunch after that.
I empathize with your outrage. I once worked at a place with 100+ employees and high turnover, and people would steal lunches there. When I first heard about it I was horrified. The reality is that the company doesn’t care, and unless you’re the person whose lunch is being stolen, most co-workers won’t care either – they wouldn’t even know how to help you.
A solution could be as simple as a camera pointed at the fridge, along with firing any thieves. IMO the fact that most places don’t take it seriously is evidence of how little they care about the employees.
I mean the real answer to your question is that those posts are all fake because the internet loves stories about revenge on such a small scale they can’t be disproven.
But I want to know what kind of job keeps you by the fridge 24/7 so you can always witness food theft. Most people don’t work in the break room, so they have no way of knowing who to yell at when their food disappears.
Where I work HR put a big sign on the refrigerator door about not stealing food
Did it help?
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.
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.
Because that’s not how the corporate world works. You want to freak out and yell at them? Go ahead. Maybe 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.
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
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.
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.
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
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.
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.
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.
That doesn’t say much, shoplifting is super common.
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).
gain a tolerance to very hot food. problem solved.
