Malicious Food Tampering vs. Stupid Food Thieves

[Andara Bledin]

I don't know what more you could really want on the dimissal angle.

I mean, one of my co-irkers was let go for "horseplay" in the office that resulted in another worker having to see the doctor, and that wasn't even done with malice in mind. It just showed a lack of maturity that left the company potentially open to liability, so she was removed from the equation.

Same with someone perceived to have tampered with their food in an attempt to get retribution upon another worker. It shows a lack of maturity and a lack of good decision making skills and has the potential to open the company up to liability if they don't take action. Said action often being dismissal.

[Ginger Tea]

Well I myself currently do not have to worry about making lunches let alone loosing them, so googling the size of your average fridge friendly lockable lunch box is low on my list.

It's a bridge not built let alone crossed.

My last work fridge was the size of a UK domestic half height, those are designed for single people or couples, not work forces.

The more boxes there are the less space for the rest of the work force.

5 people and its a fine size, 30 is it fuck, granted we fed them at work so the fridge was mostly for milk and spare cold deserts we made that were due to expire, I was one of only a few who used it for shop or home bought food and that was only due to the late shift. Sometimes I even took to putting my lunch in the office fridge (which was smaller) when questioned about it I just said, sometimes my food goes missing and I actually want to eat on the evening break. I would get it before they closed up for the night if I had not already consumed it and put it in the staff fridge as everyone else had gone home. I didn't loose food constantly, nor was I forced to migrate to the other fridge, I just did it for a few days after loosing a meal and as I only brought stuff in for the late shift, I wasn't bringing in food daily either. Hell sometimes I bought stuff I could leave in my locker because I fancied that that day and not because something went missing the last time. I like to have options, even if that means a triple pack of Jaffa cakes in the evening.

Oh and I used to work in a giant fridge so if I really wanted to, I could just put my shopping out of the supervisors sight should they want to come into my room at any time, but as we were not allowed to eat on the shop floor I rarely did that even though I knew it wasn't going to be opened in the room, I didn't want to do it constantly to keep my food from wondering as I didn't want to risk getting written up because they believe I might have eaten it in there.

One place had no fridge so I just had room temperature friendly food in my locker, I didn't mind warm sandwiches apart from the summer as we never kept them in the fridge at school but our bags, you just got used to having stuff that didn't go manky during class.



I've mainly kept on coming back to this thread as I was hoping for a bit more meat on the whole dismissal angle other than "just don't say you hope he takes your allergen food and chokes on it."

If this was based of a court case I gave enough plausible options for trace amounts for the defence, so far all I know the prosecutors have is if someone said anything incriminating or not.

[Andara Bledin]

Of course no solution is going to fit all cases.

But, hey, don't actually try any of them.

Better to curse the darkness than light a freaking candle, after all...

[Ginger Tea]

That all depends on the size of your work force, I've seen fridges where its not feasible to have lunch boxes like I used to have at school in the fridge especially if 50% of it is unused space, what if all I wanted was a single sandwich, something no bigger than, well basically 2 slices of bread (some days I was lazy and never bothered cutting them). I've not looked into lockable lunchboxes, but I cant see them being space saving.

So without this 'locker' fridge being on the market, it might go from "My food sometimes goes missing, I'll buy a lockable lunch box." to "I cant get my food in the fridge for all these lockable lunchboxes."

Also I would NOT use the leftovers shelf, for the same reason this thread partly exists, food allergies, if you put anything there it had better be fully identified or be a shop bought product with an ingredients list still attached, any sensible work policy would say "out of date or no allergy info and its in the bin."

Good luck on getting those keys back, we rarely got keys back so some staff never had a locker for a week or two till someone went through the book and found out 5 guys had left and none returned the key, so they only got a locker after the old lock was busted off and replaced by maintenance whenever that ended up being.

Charge for the key and get the money back, do that and they get the idea that £5 will be reimbursed should they or the fridge leave.
Cash upfront not garnished from the first pay cheque.
A> what if they quit in a day? probably wont think of returning the key unless they are kicked out and the shift lead collects keys.
B> it says that its a refundable amount when they leave, having it as a deduction might not register when you see so much crap in the pay slip.

EDIT:
I was thinking on the shape of the fridge and how most are deep and that would be a waste in this scenario, then I thought why not have them on a spindle like some vending machines, then it hit me. It is basically a vending machine, you could retrofit one so that instead of a key you could have a pin (the payment) and your locker (the old product code) and it would spin your lunch box to the front so you can add or remove items.
You could add locks to that style of vending machine but if it can all be done via pin/pass card it might be more viable.

[cindybubbles]

Please see this thread here.

My ideal workplace would have a big fridge with multiple lockable doors, each leading to a space just large enough to fit a lunch for one person. There would be a bigger space that will be unlocked, of course, for storing milk and cream for tea and coffee and leftovers from yesterday's company potluck. The smaller units, however, will be labelled and numbered and remain locked, opening only with a key issued to the employee on his or her first day (and relinquished when employment ends).

Generally whatever goes into the big unit would be for everyone to share, and what goes into your personal unit is yours and only yours.

[Ginger Tea]

Frankly this hypothetical food thief must be a special kind of stupid.

I've mentioned this as well, I've referred to it as Russian Roulette with a fridge and others have called it Darwinism in action.

As this is purely a work of fiction as the OP has stated that this is not happening to them, its hard to actually imagine this happening in real life.

If this was a pending court case or a concluded trial deciding if anyone could be held accountable, or if the outcome was right, short of some corroborated statement that someone said they were going to lace everything they brought in I would be leaning towards acquittal and "why the fuck did this go to court anyway?"

[Teysa]

Frankly this hypothetical food thief must be a special kind of stupid. If someone has life threatening food allergies why on earth would they steal food when they had no idea how it was prepared or exactly what's in it? That, to me, is just asking for trouble.

[Andara Bledin]

If you have your food stolen regularly or irregularly, you have three options:

1) Do nothing, suck it up and let them walk all over you.
This is apparently what too many people do because they've got no ability to deal with confrontation.

2) Do something to 'get back at' or 'punish' anyone who might choose to steal your lunch.
This is a shitty thing to do, and you're essentially become nearly as bad as the other person. You have a brain, use it to stop being a victim, not to victimize someone else.

3) Take a step to proactively protect your lunch from theft and stop acting like you're helpless, because you're not.
It took me literally 10 seconds (and most of that was waiting for the results to load) to find this page on how to crate a simple alarm for a lunch box with a simple 'key' to keep it from sounding for more than a second when you open your box.

If you can't figure out how to safeguard your own lunch without booby-trapping your food, then you're failing at civilized life as much as the person stealing other people's food.

I really don't understand what's gone wrong with people who think that retaliation and violence are even remotely acceptable responses to petty theft that doesn't, itself, lead to a potential health crisis.

For those of you who require food at given times, take it up with HR and let them know that if your food is not available when it's time to eat it that there is the potential for there to be a medical crisis and ask them for advice on how to work with them to ensure that no such crisis happens. Come to them as allies instead of adversaries, and you'll be much better off.

[Jetfire]

The other option as well is to just make it harder to steal your food. Get a lunch container that you can lock up would be the simplest.

Another idea (which I don't know if it exists but it should; maybe Think Geek has something like this?). Get a screamer lunch box. If anyone opens it but you, it emits a loud annoying noise. You carry a key fob or something that will disable it if its close enough.

[Ginger Tea]

If you know someone’s been stealing your food, which is the entire premise of the thread, then you’re not in the category of “without the expectation that it’s going to be stolen.” Your intent, therefore, unless you’re just totally clueless, includes BOTH “if this is stolen, the thief will eat it” AND “if this is not stolen, I will eat it.”

Although the OP stated that their hypothetical thief was known and had allergens, in most if not all my examples I had stated that its not me every day, food goes every day, but not always mine.

If it was me each and every day I would be complaining to higher ups daily and as posted, it would probably be a case of fire the noisy guy (me) than look into it. Or I would go out for lunch and if back late, I would just say "well if you didn't do fuck all about my food going missing every day I wouldn't have to leave the office to get food on my lunch break." which again gets me listed as a problem worker and TBH it would only be a me and me only who experiences food theft and shit all being done about it for quite some time where we would get the worst case scenario I last posted about should I catch someone in the act.

Also my last post I pointed out that unless I catch them in the act taking my food, all I know for sure is it's going missing, maybe over time speculations might form, but not caught red handed = no proof. Hell even if someone says to a supervisor "I saw X take Ginger's lunch box." they might not do anything about it, I've had many instances where I inform higher ups about coworkers doing something they shouldn't and being told nothing is to be done because basically they didn't see it so it's my word against theirs.

Sure they could tell me that X took my box, but it's 2nd hand information, hell it could be a misdirection and that it was Y who took the box and is lying about X's actions.

Granted X will be on my radar after that, but because Y said so isn't strong enough for me to confront them other than a passing comment that my lunch got stolen. And no I don't mean "Boy I hope it doesn't happen again because incrimination incrimination incrimination." no it would be a casual bitch about it to a coworker just the same kind I would have if X wasn't a suspect.



I don't go up to people taking a bag that is obviously not mine and say "What's the name on that?" they don't have my food and I sure as hell am not going to be the lunch police making sure Dave hasn't picked up Sue's bag unless I know for sure that it is Sue's for example the Hello Kitty Tupperware.

[wolfie]

But if I did have a problem with a food stealer, I wouldn't sabotage, nor will I label any more than just my name on my food. I'd just start complaining to HR and in general, and get louder and louder each time it happens, until something is done about it.

Problem is HR is there to protect the company. If the easiest way to stop the complaints about food theft is to get rid of the complainer (identity known) rather than the thief (either identity not known, or known but "untouchable" - e.g. the boss), then the complainer is SOL.

The point people are making is if your food is being stolen regularly, and if you know who is doing it, and if you know that person happens to have an allergy of some kind, then it is wrong to plant that allergen as sort of a trap if and when they steal food again. That's it. If you are choosing to do something with the intent of causing harm to someone else, either actively or passively, it's wrong and could even be criminal.

So long as an ingredient isn't banned by company policy (e.g. "This is a peanut-free workplace"), and it's something I want to eat, it's fair game for me to put in my lunch. Who knows, maybe tomorrow is the day I'll get to enjoy the lunch I paid for. The lunch thief can EASILY avoid allergy issues by not stealing a lunch belonging to someone who doesn't have their allergies.

If you intended to eat it, then you did not intend to get someone else sick. That's what intent means.

Look, here's the deal: If someone brings an allergen-laden lunch to work, labels it with their name (or brings some kind of obviously identifiable box/bag), without the expectation that it's going to be stolen by an allergic culprit, who then gets an allergy attack then clearly it's the thief who is to blame.

Exactly - and regardless of how often someone's lunch is stolen, unless an ingredient is on a banned list, it's their right to put anything they damn well want to eat in their lunch.

[HYHYBT]

If you know someone’s been stealing your food, which is the entire premise of the thread, then you’re not in the category of “without the expectation that it’s going to be stolen.” Your intent, therefore, unless you’re just totally clueless, includes BOTH “if this is stolen, the thief will eat it” AND “if this is not stolen, I will eat it.”

So far no one has convinced me that I could be in the wrong, unless I prove intent by saying "I'm gonna get that fucker." or something else incriminating.

Logically, this is the same as saying “it’s only wrong if I get caught.” Which has never been true.

The big thing to get out of this is I have this principle where whenever I make decisions in life, I try my damndest not to kill anybody, even if they steal my lunch. If I find out someone who's allergic to peanuts steals my lunch and I want to eat peanut butter, I'm going to call them out on it and tell them that I sometimes like to eat peanut butter and they really need to be careful. Hopefully they'll heed my warning and I keep my streak of 0 deaths per day going. If they don't heed it, then I'll still feel better knowing I did warn them.

Amen.

[Andara Bledin]

... worst case they do their explaining between spitting out blood and broken teeth.

This is not healthy.

[Ginger Tea]

It's the getting caught in the act part that can be tricky.

Found taking your food, 100% busted.
You see them taking a banana out of the fridge, well I didn't have a banana in my lunch bag, I don't know whos it is so I assume its theirs.

Someone later complains that their banana has gone, well was it the only banana in the fridge, did I see more than one person eating a banana other than the one I saw taking one from the fridge?

Now say for example, someone brought a salad in a hello kitty Tupperware box, box is gone, I didn't see anyone take said box, but I did see someone eating a similar salad in clear Tupperware.
Did that person just so happen to have a nigh on identical meal, or did they dump the contents and ditch the as yet unfound hello kitty box?

If I see someone taking my food, best case scenario they are frog marched to the higher ups to explain themselves, worst case they do their explaining between spitting out blood and broken teeth.
But if I see someone taking food that isn't mine, I assume its theirs, unless I see someone walk off with Hello Kitty Tupperware and I know there is only one in the office.

[Andara Bledin]

Well, until you bring something that isn't PB&J.

All you've really accomplished by that is a delaying tactic. You haven't actually solved anything.