Malicious Food Tampering vs. Stupid Food Thieves

[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?"

[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]

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identified or be a shop bought product with an ingredients list still attached, any sensible work policy would say "out of date or no allergy info and its in the bin."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.

[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]

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]

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]

Whos food was perceived to be tampered with?
Person A's food taken by X or A tampering with X, I agree with X's food being fucked with is bad.
If it was X eating A's food, did they give any indication that they could be up to no good?

Or did it turn into a case of X ate A's food which just so happened to contain an allergen by it being in the recipe?

If they lost their job due to someone getting sick from eating other peoples food and never made a fuss about food going missing, or nothing malicious about revenge, the company can still be open to liability due to an unfair dismissal case.

Now if they had been over heard saying "I'll get that fucker who ever it is." then that's a smoking gun, a smoking gun a random meal isn't.

I can dress up my reasoning's many different ways and still come to the conclusion that I did nothing wrong and it was just an act of fate that that day was the day my food went missing and on that day I picked up one of two blind bags I had made the night before, but as it was cut with a peanut coated knife both were to be considered a risk. But as my work place has no policy regarding labelling allergens or out right banning them and I am meant to be the consumer, I cant bring myself to ever seeing myself in the wrong if I have not been mouthing off with threats of retribution.

Oh and my hypothetical fridge isn't big enough to have too many lockable lunch boxes for the amount of employees so we've been told not to use them and just name our stuff or have stuff on our desks (where we can have our lockable lunch boxes) if they wont go bad at room temperature over the course of the day till lunch.

So if I were to be fired due to a random act of fate I would take the company to court for unfair dismissal seeing as I never made any threats of any kind.

I might have dropped the dismissal angle had you posted this instead of your other posts which boiled down to "it's bad mmmkay." and don't incriminate yourself or if they could prove intent vs random meal choice.

You could have said

look I used to work with this guy who every so often lost his lunch, one day he said if it happened again whom ever did it would regret it.
I asked him if he knew who it was he said he did not, not that it mattered to him.

One day someone went home after not making it to the toilet and shit himself in the hallway, guy laughed at him and said "That'll teach you."

We never found out if he was sick because of what he ate and if what he ate was his own food, but as guy told me and others in ear shot 'they would regret it' we automatically assumed he was behind it and management interviend.

He admitted that he had lost some food and did lace a meal with laxatives and he saw the meal had gone before seeing the other guy in an unfortunate and embarrassing situation.

Because of his actions they saw no other option but to let him go as who knows what could have happened should he had used something that could set off an allergic reaction and we told him this when we fired him hoping he never made the same mistake again at his next job.

They also had the other guy in to talk to him about stealing food which he denied doing and said he had been feeling under the weather all day and just didn't make it to the toilet in time.

They felt that shitting his pants and the resulting embarrassment was enough of a deterrent and let him off with a warning to not do it again.

Only to go all M Knight Shama llama Ding Dong and say that someone else was already in the shitter regretting eating that nutella sandwich.

Edit: though my fictitious example is tampering and not safe for anyone to eat unlike all my 'safe' options I've been using, its the narrative that expands on management that is the main meat and doesn't look like a longer way of saying "It's bad mmmkay". The fact you had a real world example to work from and didn't, your one might have been a tale from my safe pile saying "Well you might think its the perfect crime but ... quote box.

Edit: if those that used hot sauce lauded over the guy, could would they also receive marching orders? No one was injured, but its set a precedent that if he's willing to put hot sauce in his food and laugh at people who eat it he can do something else. As they never said they got the sack for it I am assuming they either never brought it up, all parties including the company agreed to never let it happen again, or it was at a time where rules and laws might not have been written on such things.

[XCashier]

If you can end up in hospital or the morgue due to food allergies, then why are you taking food you didn't make in the first place?

Exactly. If you have food allergies, make and bring your own food that you know is safe to eat. Taking someone else's food is just plain stupid, bordering on suicidal.

Even food that is brought in to share isn't always safe. If a coworker brings in muffins, I have to ask what kind they are, as I'm allergic to bananas. Oftentimes, they aren't labeled, so if I don't know, I don't take, even though they're for everybody.

[siead_lietrathua]

Exactly. If you have food allergies, make and bring your own food that you know is safe to eat. Taking someone else's food is just plain stupid, bordering on suicidal.

maybe this is why some of the stuff in this thread confuses me. it's like we're shifting diet responsibility from the thief (who needs to monitor their food for an allergy) and placing that burden on his victims (who should not need to monitor themselves on the off chance they are victim-of-the-day).

i mean, lets say i know my lunch typically gets stolen on a wednesday, though it can randomly happen different days, and i know the person has a nut allergy. Monday i bring a PBJ, because i want one, and statistically my lunch is least likely to be the one stolen that day. but it does get taken, and the dude has a reaction.
now, is that my fault, because i was unprepared to have my lunch stolen monday instead of wednesday and didn't prepare something proper for thief to eat. or is it thief's fault for stealing someone else's shit?

sorry for a crass comparison, but to me the whole "you should have locked your lunch up" rings too much like "well you shouldn't have worn that skirt". it's victim blaming.

[Sarah Valentine]

sorry for a crass comparison, but to me the whole "you should have locked your lunch up" rings too much like "well you shouldn't have worn that skirt". it's victim blaming.

This is pretty much what I was thinking, I shouldn't have to think about making an "acceptable" lunch just in case it gets stolen. I put things together that most people wouldn't think mix well, I like it but it might make someone else sick. It's NOT my fault they're a theiving asshole, they shouldn't steal lunches in the first place so the one at fault is the thief.

[Andara Bledin]

No shifting here.

But just because the health of someone with allergies is their own lookout, it does not mean that laying a trap for them isn't just as sociopathic.

Both parties can be 100% wrong.

I really don't understand why people feel the need to go through mental contortions to somehow claim that just bringing whatever they bring normally makes them part of this equation.

If you are not changing your lunch for anyone other than yourself, you are not being discussed in this thread except by injecting yourself into a discussion about something you're not doing.

It's about people who steal food vs people who adulterate their own food to punish them.

Both groups are fucking assholes, but while the former are theives, depriving people of their rightful meals, the latter have managed to convince themselves that poisoning a food thief is a reasonable response.

It's not and anyone who thinks it is should probably seek professional help.

[Ginger Tea]

If you are not changing your lunch for anyone other than yourself, you are not being discussed in this thread except by injecting yourself into a discussion about something you're not doing.

It's about people who steal food vs people who adulterate their own food to punish them.

It's just that I've had replies that in one breath say "Oh no you are fine carry on." and then in the next paragraph say "You brought food with allergens to work knowing their is a food thief with allergies, you are a bad man."

I even said to you in one such conflicting reply that people can look at the actions of column A and treat them like column B just by the outcome of an act of chance.



That coupled with lack of real reasons for how and why you should get fired outside of damning yourself at every lunch with vindictive talk.

If for example the post about always missing out on lunch on a Wednesday, should I or that person have a structure where it's become ingrained that people know it's Turkey Tuesday and Ham Friday, but no idea Wednesday as it's never been a day when food is there and you knowing you've never eaten on a Wednesday since well you cant remember, have varied the options in the hope of finding something they wont like, even if it means loosing Tuesdays food.

So far all options have gone on a Wednesday regardless of contents and all you are left with is having the same flavour twice, well twice is better than nothing at all and although they've eaten damn near anything, they've never touched PBJ, Turkey, Corned Beef or Ham, maybe its because they don't like them, maybe its because on those days they will only target someone else, well you don't fancy Turkey or Corned Beef two days in a row, or changing the order as it's so ingrained. So it's down to just PBJ and Ham as the contenders for the encore. You have a flash "Why not both?" so ditching the Jam for Ham you have a new Wednesday sandwich.

Now all things considered you would have to be blind or stupid to miss peanut butter in the ham sandwich if you make them like I do.

But as the OP's original thread has stated that the thief is known (though how and why nothing has been done if every Wednesday you go without as does the Monday guy and all the other days of the week) and we are aware they have peanut allergies, some could argue that as it is a given that you might as well not bother on a Wednesday* and that bringing in a peanut based meal is malicious, others would say "even blind pew could see the peanut butter dripping down the edges."

*But doing so just means that someone looses 2 sandwiches a week or if you have more employees a new one becomes the victim, the net result is two people are without lunch.

If you take a peanut butter and ham sandwich because hey it's Wednesday you always take that co workers food and still bite into it when it is plain to see, well you do deserve the Darwin award.



Now same scenario but this time its not home made but Sub of the day or similar daily special at other establishments.
You still buy one on Wednesday and just to tide you over you might even bite into one (I omitted that from the sandwich ones as the size of one you might as well finish it) not many people like eating where others have started, cooties don't faze this guy. But hey you managed to get a bite of it either on the way to work or on your first break before it vanished at lunch.

You've become accustom to the daily specials and one Monday you are given something else entirely, you ask confused and are informed that the sub of the day has changed, it's still one you like, it's just not what you were expecting, so your stomach laments its not getting its usual Monday noms but its getting noms anyway.

Wednesday rolls around and as usual aside from what you managed to scarf at your desk the rest is gone.

Now in both scenarios I kept a routine going, the routine was changed by an outside factor in the 2nd no one but the food thief is in the wrong, the first as I say is up for debate depending on if you see it as "X is vegan so why did you bring Chicken" or "X is vegan so obviously they wont take the Chicken".

As the post I took it from stated that Monday was PBJ I couldn't fall back on my fail safe of it was cut with the same knife when I made 2 days worth of sandwiches so it couldn't even be chalked up to a thin slither on the cut edge.

In both cases there was no talk of retribution, bitching and moaning from all affecting yeah, well if it had been going on for a month and nothing had been done, I think people would be ragging on upper management, just so long as no one said "I hope they like hot sauce" or "They'll get what's coming to them". So I cant side with the any company saying you knew yet still did it you're fired, as they never outlawed the PBJ from Monday.

And if the thief is known and still nothing is done (and lets say the fridge is barely fit for the amount of staff so those lock boxes are still out) there is more chance of one of the 5 being sacked than the thief as if you know he's always taking your food and is unrepentant, well sooner or later you will say out loud "I aint working with no thief." when brought into the office for refusing to help them in their daily tasks, tasks that you are meant to help out in.

"We wouldn't have a hostile work environment if you did your job and told him to pack it in."

the phrase Shape up or ship out springs to mind, but if its ongoing chances are it would be said to you along with "it's only a sandwich you wont starve."

[siead_lietrathua]

I really don't understand why people feel the need to go through mental contortions to somehow claim that just bringing whatever they bring normally makes them part of this equation.

because we're beyond talking about intentionally poisoning people. we can all agree that trying to kill someone is a douche move, so there's no point in really talking about it.

we've moved on to, basically, outsider perception, where it shifts from black and white to grey.

jumping back to my original fake names, even IF sarah was a sociopath that wanted to kill bob, the food she brought was still in a bag marked "Sarah". so to any other parties, it could simply look like bob took her bag and got unlucky with the pbj. there is no way for an outsider to tell if sarah was a sociopath, or if she simply wanted a pbj that day. and that's the thing. how can the outsider tell the difference between intent to harm or intent to dissuade. without being mindreaders, or having a sarah confess.

now if sarah brought in peanut butter cookies and marked them as 'for bob', that shows clear intent to cause harm.

[TheHuckster]

jumping back to my original fake names, even IF sarah was a sociopath that wanted to kill bob, the food she brought was still in a bag marked "Sarah". so to any other parties, it could simply look like bob took her bag and got unlucky with the pbj. there is no way for an outsider to tell if sarah was a sociopath, or if she simply wanted a pbj that day. and that's the thing. how can the outsider tell the difference between intent to harm or intent to dissuade. without being mindreaders, or having a sarah confess.

The only answer I have is this is why the legal system can't ever be perfect, and some people can get away with murder. It doesn't make it justified or anything. But, because of the presumption of innocence (which I'm not criticizing) chances are Sarah wouldn't even be brought to trial.

Now, there might be a civil trial where Bob tries to sue Sarah for negligence or something else. I really don't know how that would go down, since tort law is very different from criminal law and has its own rules. The presumption of innocence isn't as well-defined and might not even be brought to trial if they just decided to settle out of court and move on.

[Andara Bledin]

there is no way for an outsider to tell if sarah was a sociopath, or if she simply wanted a pbj that day. and that's the thing. how can the outsider tell the difference between intent to harm or intent to dissuade. without being mindreaders, or having a sarah confess.

The intent to eat pb&j or poison bob with pb would be a matter for character witnesses to help sort.

After all, if Sarah made a comment of "damn it, I'm bringing a pb&j sandwich in some time, and we'll see how that asshole likes that," that would be used against her as premeditation.

As for intent to harm vs intent to dissuade, if harm was actually done, then it would just be the difference between whether it was intentional harm or unintentional harm - she'd still be prosecutable and convictable for doing the harm if if could be determined (through witness statements or physical evidence) that she brought in a specific ingredient specifically because Bob was allergic.

And, as the Huckster brought up, just because the evidence isn't enough for a criminal trial, that does nothing to stop the filing of a civil case, nor does it protect Sarah from getting sacked over it.

The only way to avoid the potential for suspicion is to either not give any impression that you would ever do such a thing (don't make threats, don't rant about your lunch having been stolen, etc) or to put in some effort to protect yourself and your reputation in another manner, such as finding a solution with a lock, or not keeping your food in a communal area.

Yes, it would be fucked up if you brought pb&j without any thought of getting a food thief an allergic reaction but people thought you did it because they'd heard you ranting about how you wanted him or her to choke on the food they'd stolen. But that sort of thing does happen, which is why it baffles me that people are so resistant to doing anything proactive to protect themselves from such perceptions.