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.
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.
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.
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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.
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”
Employment insurance?
Idk, if they fired you for screaming and threatening someone, seems like they’d have an argument that you were the toxic one. The company didn’t steal your lunch. Even if you could prove you made every possible effort to report the thief and handle it through official channels, falling back on screams and threats would really detract from any argument, IMO.
I’m not Canadian though so I can only say I personally wouldn’t intentionally burn bridges like that over leftovers. To answer your original disbelief that anyone could be so passive about accepting lunch thefts, I’ve not had it happen with any frequency that would make me put my employment at risk by acting out.
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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.
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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
Put in laxatives or something that fucks them up
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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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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.
Because they don’t know what i put in there.
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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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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.
