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.
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.
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.
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.
That sounds awful all around
Yes, life on earth as per usual. Humans are the problem as usual.
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.
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.
A guy I worked with had his lunch stolen from the freezer one day. He walked around and found the empty container in the trash of a new guy. He was canned that day.
Be wary of such proof.
As a young kid in the 80s, I went to stay for three days at an adventure centre. One barn was converted to house bunk beds and there were about 20 kids of about 11 years old. Everyone else was there for a week and I joined midway, and found it difficult to integrate.
One kid, the only one who had shown me any welcome, had his woolly hat stolen. Another kid suggested searching everyone’s bags for it. There was general resistance, most kids thought he’d lost it somewhere and that never happened.
When I got home the following day and unpacked, I found the hat in my bag. Someone had planted it there, probably the kid who suggested searching bags. Taught me a lot about people, that did.
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.
ACAB, eh?
What do you expect when most cops are criminals
This is the least surprising thing I have learned today.
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.
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.
excessive spice
Why? I could just say that “wow, my friend gave me some spicy peppers because I like spicy food, but this is way overkill. I’ll have to go get takeaway.”
Not tasting food before eating it is not a crime.
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.
I agree. It’s theft.
HR should absolutely get involved because it’s going to really affect the working environment. And if you’re hungry as a result, you’re really not going to be doing your best work.
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The average person wants peace in their life.
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These are the fringes that the malicious operate best.
- Because it’s not really worth the hassle to you.
Most actually don’t want to yell and scream at someone, to escalate a situation, to involve themselves with “authority figures” that do nothing but work preserve the hierarchy around them.
It’s exhausting just to exist while we suffer this way of life. People just gotta pick their battles because we are losing the class war.
- Because they feel safe to antagonize relentlessly.
these malicious actors know the average person wants this peace. They pick and poke ceaselessly like the vultures they are. What are you gonna do about it? Nothing.
Even if you do stand your ground, you will be vilified for putting the front of their face into the back of their skull.
Or if you yell and scream, others will think you’re crazy/dramatic/unreasonable regardless of the circumstances.
Or perhaps you plead uselessly to your indifferent “authority figures” who only exist to exploit you in the most efficient way possible. Utterly toothless. Can you be surprised? We are not free while living like this.
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Because they don’t know what i put in there.
The only work theft I ever tolerated was coffee creamer, because we all knew who was addicted to coffee, and we all sort of stole in a circle from each other for a day or two when we ran out of our own.
How else are they going to identify middle management prospects?
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).
I always keep Lunch in my backpack at my desk or eat in a cafeteria. The best way to be chill about a problem is to avoid having the problem.
I’m with you. They’re literally taking your sustenance. This is way serious.
