Dear Coworker: Were you really THAT hungry?

[deborak]

Please be gentle here, all. This is not just my first post in the pit, it's my first post EVER here at the SDMB.

Dear Mysterious Coworker (and you *know* who you are):

After a year and a half working here, you probably are aware that I don't take lunch. My boss, kind and gentle soul that he is, recognizes that I am averse to the hell of early morning hours, and thus permits me the incredible luxury of "flex time", which means I get to come in at 10 am. However, since I enjoy going to the gym after work, and since lunch in this heavy-business area is usually at least an hour-and-a-half ordeal, I choose instead to eat at the office, at my desk, while performing work, so that I can put in 8 or 9 hours and still get off by 6 or 7 pm. This allows me to work out and still get home fairly early, in time to eat dinner and then not watch network TV.

For the last year and a half, I have brought in one of the following: 5 frozen microwave meals (one week's worth of lunches), or sandwich fixings to last the week. Hey - it's boring, but it keeps me fed and allows me to work uninterrupted (or at least surreptitiously surf the net whilst eating). :)

So, yesterday I worked from home. For those counting, it means I have an extra frozen meal this week. Yay. Today, I came in (early, no less! Ugh.) and immediately jumped into a huge, massive, intensely important project. At about 3 or so, the hunger pangs had overtaken my very soul, and I decided to walk the ten steps to the kitchen and nuke myself a meal. Now, for those counting, I have 3 meals left, right? Wrong! Oh, so very wrong! There are NONE left.

Coworker, I'm on a deadline here. I really didn't even want to break for lunch, but my energy was fading. Because of YOU, I had to walk downstairs, get in the blistering hot car, and drive 10 minutes to MacDonalds - cursing you every 20 seconds or so - where I got a Fruit and Yogurt parfait. I drove back to the office, and guess what? The damn parfait is still frozen. I can't eat it (although let me tell you, I tried). So now, the migraine is kicking in from low blood sugar, and I'm pissed, and I STILL have this deadline, you know?

Coworker, I know all about the (mis)conception that occurs in all offices. You know, the one where you think any food in the fridge is yours. I may get mildly perturbed if my Coke goes missing, but hey, them's the breaks. If you were strapped for cash and didn't have any food, I'd welcome you to one of my meals - you don't have to tell me about it (though it would be nice), and hell, you wouldn't even have to pay me back. But THREE MEALS??? What, did you need dinner too? It's so fucking obvious that you KNEW I wasn't in yesterday, and figured you could sneak them right on out. I mean, maybe I wouldn't even notice that ALL THREE of my meals were gone, right?

So, hey - thanks a lot. And fuck you. You broke my concentration, you wasted a half-hour of my time that needed to be spent on a very time-intensive project (did I mention that it was crucial?), you gave me a migraine that's STILL pounding, and you just pissed me right the hell off.

And they weren't even GOOD meals. They were fucking Lean Cuisine.

[apotheosis]

The solution to your problem:
[list=1]
Purchase another 5 Lean Cuisine meals.
Choose one, preferably the one with the most appetizing picture on the front of the box.
Hi, Opal! :D
Freeze the other 4, put the 5th in a Ziploc bag, and find somewhere warm. Leave it there for a week or so.
Re-freeze the 5th one.
Take all 5 to work, put them in the freezer, and wait for hilarity to ensue.
[/list=1]

[apotheosis]

(Oh...and welcome to the board. :D)

[scott evil]

Can't you bring in one Lean Cuisine® every day? That's what I do, although they're not always Lean Cuisine® ;).

But I've taken to eating at my desk (and not going on break with my group) for a few reasons:

1. The conversations at lunch are so goddamn banal.

2. I'm legally entitled to two paid 15-minute breaks every day, but I go out for five-minute smoke breaks a few times a day, so it's really not fair for me to take a 15-minute break in the morning (my group never takes break in the afternoon) in addition to the time I spend outside smoking. However, maybe this and not eating with the group make me considered antisocial - even though I'm friendly and good-natured with everyone - and contributes to my fears I've expressed in this (http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?s=&threadid=115798) thread.

3. Hi, Opal! :rolleyes:

4. It takes my manager out of her office so I can surf openly. Do you think I do any actual work while they're at lunch? Noooo way! Anyway, it's my half-hour, unpaid lunch break. I should be able to do what I want.

Anyway, I don't see why you can't bring in one frozen dinner every day as I suggested. That's what I do. They're not the greatest, but they're food. More or less...

- s.e.

[Slainte]

Very articulate! Great post, and an asshole co-worker. Welcome.

[Snooooopy]

Could it have been three assholes acting independently?

[apotheosis]

Three assholes in one office?

Not likely outside the Beltway. Or a proctologist's office.

[BoBettie]

Welcome! Please, for everyone's sake, print that out and post it on the fridge. Then report back to us on the results. For scientific purposes! Come on!

Zette

[BiblioCat]

Sounds petty, but could you put your name on them?
You know, just a slip of paper that says "This is deborak's fucking Lean Cuisine, it's not even that good, so don't eat it!"

[deborak]

Wow, thanks for the welcome! How exciting to Actually! Get! Responses!

Apotheosis - you are baaaaad. I love it! :D

Scott Evil - Yes, bringing an individual meal each day IS the logical thing to do. Unfortunately, even 10 am is just too early for my mind to function. I'm lucky to make it to work with my briefcase and my shoes! If I had to count on remembering to bring lunch every day, I'd be starving half the time and wouldn't even have a coworker to blame it on...

It's just so strange - I'm the ONLY person who keeps meals in the freezer - EVER. I work in the smaller suite upstairs, where I'm the only female, and suffice it to say that the engineers I work with would most likely die before passing up a long lunch to eat a crappy frozen meal.

Someone was either really desperate or has peculiar klepto tendencies. But it was still pretty shitty, and this was the worst day to have this happen. Grrr.

From here on out, I get to resort to kindergarten tactics. Name on my lunch in big, bold, black magic marker!

And WHY do people think that if it's in the office refrigerator, it's theirs?

[voguevixen]

Originally posted by BiblioCat
Sounds petty, but could you put your name on them?
You know, just a slip of paper that says "This is deborak's fucking Lean Cuisine, it's not even that good, so don't eat it!"

That's a little too subtle for me. I usually take a red Sharpie, draw a skull and crossbones and write something like: "DANGER! POISON! TOXIC WASTE! DO NOT EAT!!!!!!!!

And, just in case: THIS MEANS YOU!!!!!

[reprise]

Why do people think what's in the office fridge is "theirs" until it comes time to clean the fridge - at which point in time everyone denies all knowledge of its contents?

Seriously - great intro to the boards and you didn't even complain about the MONEY you were out : lean cuisine and similar meals run at about $5 upwards each here...

[apotheosis]

Until recently, we never had problems like this at our workplace. Our whole floor is occupied by the IT department, and one of the perks provided to keep everyone happy (e.g. not out hunting for higher-paying jobs) was free Otis Spunkmeyer cookies, complete with a little oven.

The freezer was kept well-stocked with these huge plastic bags of frozen cookie dough balls, which very few people bothered to actually bake before eating (the smell would quickly attract hyena-like packs of bloated, malodorous scavengers from the marketing department downstairs). Consequently, no one saw the need to steal food.

<olde_pharte>
Ah, the heady days of the internet revolution.
</olde_pharte>

All the perks disappeared when the tech bubble popped, of course; but for a while, life was swell. Now we're forced to resort to guerilla tactics, some of which have been considerably less pleasant than that described in my first reply.

[Bryan Ekers]

mmmmm... frozen cookie dough balls...

[Eva Luna]

This is why I like to cook huge batches of weird ethnic food, not easily identifiable by anyone outside of that ethnicity, on the weekends and bring it in individual Tupperware. If they don't know what it is, they aren't likely to snatch it. I happen to love homemade borscht, but if you put in enough sour cream, it looks an awful lot like Pepto-Bismol...my co-workers may tease me if we eat together, but it tastes a lot better than the slop the fast-food place across the street dishes out. (And it's cheaper and healthier, too!)
The 2% milk, though, which I buy to avoid the hideous chemically based non-dairy creamer that the office buys, disappears like hotcakes, no matter how big I write my name on it.

[Annie-Xmas]

I once had a cow-worker like that. You could not bring in any food that she didn't immediately try to "taste" (which meant eating half of it). I once ran to the grocery at lunch, and she asked me "What food is in the bag?" I said "MY FOOD," and she got angry "What's wrong with me taking a little bit of it?"

I bought it, I paid for it. Get your own.

[interface2x]

A friend here at my office had a problem with someone taking some of her food, so most recently she attached a note to her stuff that read: "If you take this food, I will hunt you down, rip off your arm and beat you to death with it ... have a nice day!"

Seems to work so far.

[RainbowDragon]

A friend of mine had problems with this. Her meals were Healthy Choice, and would notice one or two meals disappearing in the course of a week.

She tried placing her name clearly on the package. She even opened up the package thinking that the thief might think it could have been tainted in some way. She even left nice (and then hostile) notes on the refrigerator door. Nothing seemed to work, her food was still being stolen.

We tried every bit of detective work to track the thief. We could never find the packaging the meal came in, let alone any clues to the thief’s identity.

Then I got an idea. We went to a card store and picked up a musical greeting card. It was a graduation card that played a beeping “We’re in the Money” when the card was opened. We extracted the mechanical bits and placed them in one of the dinners.

Sure enough one of the meals turned up missing… Then from our boss’ office we heard a familiar tune….

Never even thought of checking his office trashcan.

[Mangetout]

A word of warning; gratifying as it might be to adulterate some foodstuffs and leave it there for the hapless thief to consume, knowing that this might cause injury or discomfort, there might be adverse legal implications in so doing; sad but true.

[/wet blanket]

[miamouse]

We had a problem with this, and curiously nobody cared until it happened to a manager. Then we were entreated to a company wide email. Her points were basically that it's not just a tuna sandwich. After running home on the train, cooking, eating, cleaning up after dinner and kids baths and putting them to bed, she prepares for the next day which includes:
1. Kids clothes and bag for daycare.
2. Her clothes
3. Checking homework
4. MAKING THE SANDWICH YOU JUST STOLE OUT OF THE FRIDGE!

It's not just a sandwich or the fact that she paid for lunch twice. It's TIME. She could have easily and more happily spent that time cuddling with her husband or reading a book. It's the time she took to make sure she had the items in the house to begin with. It's the time she had to take to go get another lunch 'cuz your sorry ass was to lazy or too irresponsible to plan ahead. And I agree with her.

[rushtopher]

I would suggest putting your name on the meal for another reason. I routinely bring food, then don't eat out. Then I bring in the meal for the next day, forgetting I have one.

Not only would your name keep people from stealing your food, but it would keep you from looking in the freezer and thinking, "Now which of these is mine?"

[Bad News Baboon]

1. open box carefully.
2. remove contents. eat. 'enjoy'.
3. fill box with trash weighing aproximately the same as a frozen dinner. make sure its obvious trash. toss in a banana peel or two. maybe an old shoe?
4.reseal box with spray glue.
5. lable box with name
6. place in freezer
7. place evil grin on face

[ouisey]

You guys....

I hang my head in shame. I STEAL FOOD AT WORK. Its true. And I really have no excuse because my work caters in lunch everyday AND fully stocks FOUR kitchens full of junkfood. Yet I still surreptitiously throw that little splash of illegal milk into my coffee everyday. Its not mine, someone else bought it and put their name on it. I feel so frigging guilty now.

Never again.

[Alexxandra]

My dad had someone stealing his chocolate bar out of his lunch every day...not a huge thing, but annoying. He bought a dairy milk bar, carefully unwrapped it, turned it over, and hollowed out all the little squares. He then melted ex-lax in the microwave, and filled up the little squares again. After cooling and a careful re-wrapping, he popped the bar into his lunch and went to work the next day.

When he went to get his lunch...the chocolate bar was gone.

Needless to say, later that afternoon, the culprit was painfully (!!) obvious. Dad and the guys had a good laugh and nobody has messed with his lunch since!

[Sunshine]

At my old job, we were required to put our name on everything that went in the fridge. (I generally put mine on a post it and taped it to the item so there was no possibility of someone saying they didn't see the name or they thought it was theirs.)

Eating or drinking something with someone else's name on it was an immeidate termination offense and everyone had to sign a document to that effect during orientation. You just had to find the culprit who drank your diet Coke and you could have them fired! We generally did not have any trouble with it. Although, I used to keep ONE diet Coke in the fridge, with my name all over it, including a post-it taped to the side. I brought one in every day and had it at lunch. There was someone who would drink my diet Coke before I went to lunch and replace it with another one, on which they had taped a post it with my name. The problem was that when I went to lunch and wanted my diet Coke, it would be all warm since it was just put in there by who ever drank my nice cold one. It was REALLY annoying! And I could never find who did it. I ended up complaining loudly to everyone who would listen each time it happened that drinking a warm diet Coke sucked and if I ever found out who was stealing my nice cold diet Coke I would have them fired. It started happenening less frequently and then I left the job so it didn't matter anymore. I guess I can be happy knowing that jerk is drinking his own warm diet Coke now. Harrumph.

P.S. ouisey, Shame on you! See what trauma you are causing your poor co-workers? No more. Flog yourself with a wet noodle and call it good.

[apotheosis]

Originally posted by Mangetout A word of warning; gratifying as it might be to adulterate some foodstuffs and leave it there for the hapless thief to consume, knowing that this might cause injury or discomfort, there might be adverse legal implications in so doing; sad but true.Granted, but if you do it the way I suggested, who's to say it wasn't spoiled when it was purchased?

IANAL, so I'm in no position to speak to the legality of the matter; but would a lawsuit like that really have legs? I mean I've heard of thieves suing homeowners for bodily harm incurred during a crime, but what statute addresses being grossed out by spoiled Chicken Fettucine Alfredo?

(Serious question, BTW, not rhetorical.)

[Lute Skywatcher]

I once took food from the office freezer. For weeks there was an unopened box of 10 ice cream sandwiches, no name on it or anything. It was in there for so long that I figured it had been abandoned so one day I decided to open it myself and eat one. I checked the freezer the next day the entire box was gone. Either the rightful owner finally claimed it or everyone else started thinking the same as I had been.

[Cat Whisperer]

Spoiled food can kill you. I wouldn't mess around with that kinda stuff, even as payback. (Add my name to the "wet blanket" list, I guess :))
I like the "boobytrap with the musical thingy" idea - totally bust the culprit.

There's a fine line between somebody's food and abandoned food. I used to work with people who made a habit of forgetting about their food in the community fridge to the point that we couldn't fit new food into it. We finally had to adopt a policy of tossing everything in the fridge and freezer out every Friday. One guy who was one of the worst offenders got 6 or 7 tupperware containers tossed on him, after being notified multiple times it was going to happen. He had the audacity to ask for the containers back after I rescued them from the garbage, bleached them out, and started using them myself (I have a very high gross-out threshold).

[Mangetout]

Originally posted by Alexxandra
...ex-lax...nobody has messed with his lunch...Fnar

[voguevixen]

I've got it. How about you get one of those locking cash boxes. They're less than $10 and probably big enough to hold around 3 frozen dinners at a time. You could just put the whole thing in the freezer.

[cmosdes]

I don't know about where you work, but around here, the fridges are cleaned every week. Whatever is in there is tossed, no questions asked. Is it remotely possible the cleaning crew tossed them? Personally, I like the idea even if I have lost a couple of lunches that way. It keeps the place from stinking.

[Omnivore]

I can never get over the outrage and audacity at anyone who would willingly steal the food from another worker in an office. What type of mentality, I wonder, does it take to pilfer someone else's store of food? Would they not then feel inclined to filch your smokes, your drinks, your office supplies, your car, your money or anything they feel like taking? These are people you do not want wandering unsupervised about your home and properties.

[Baker]

Omnivore, on the subject of stealing food,(slight hijack here), my home was once broken into for the second time in a week. Not finding anything they wanted or could steal, I came home to find that the asshole had gone into my fridge, cooked my bacon and eggs, and eaten them off the one good china plate I own. And grease was everywhere! Talk about audacity!!!!!!!

[Rushgeekgirl]

Something similar happened to me just this Friday.
I stopped at the grocery store deli for an eight piece box of fried chicken, intended for dinner for my family.
I left the box in a bag, tied up the top of the bag, and left it in the fridge.
Three hours later I opened the fridge to find my bag had been opened and three pieces of chicken...grrrr all my white meat...had disappeared. All the teachers left earlier than me that day so there was no telling which one snatched and ran.
What pisses me off most is that these teachers make four times what I make as an assistant, and one of them couldn't be bothered to purchase their own lunch!

[Omnivore]

What is it that makes another person feel that they have the right to someone else's food?

[g8rguy]

Ugh. I've never had this problem with food at the office (thank God for not eating lunch!), but drinks are another question entirely! I used to bring in my supply of Dr Pepper for the week every Monday morning, and sure enough, they'd all be gone by, say, Wednesday. Never did figure out who was taking them, but it wasn't any of my coworkers. C'mon, guys, is it that hard to just use one of the 3 vending machines in the building? :mad:

[Pammipoo]

Originally posted by g8rguy
C'mon, guys, is it that hard to just use one of the 3 vending machines in the building? :mad:

Well yeah...you have to actually pay to get a soda if you take one from the machine...

[August West]

I think I've told this story on the boards before, but I'm proud of it so here goes.

I had a frozen calzone stolen from the freezer at work. Fortunately for me, the freezer in question is not accessible to most of the building, so I was able to determine the culprit rather easily. When I confronted the fiend, he admitted his act and offered to repay me.

I said "Fine, 20 bucks"
He said, "No way that thing cost 20 bucks" (he didn't even know what a calzone was!)
I then launched into a tirade about the time it took me to go to the store, pick out the item, drive home, bring it to work, not to mention that I had to buy a different lunch from the damn vending machines to replace the one he stole, yada yada yada.

He paid me the $20 and no one has messed with my food since.

[shrew]

Originally posted by Rushgeekgirl
Something similar happened to me just this Friday.
I stopped at the grocery store deli for an eight piece box of fried chicken, intended for dinner for my family.
I left the box in a bag, tied up the top of the bag, and left it in the fridge.
Three hours later I opened the fridge to find my bag had been opened and three pieces of chicken...grrrr all my white meat...had disappeared. All the teachers left earlier than me that day so there was no telling which one snatched and ran.
What pisses me off most is that these teachers make four times what I make as an assistant, and one of them couldn't be bothered to purchase their own lunch!

I think this one pissed me off the most!! Obviously a great big box of chicken is intended for later, or for some other grander purpose than just lunch - probably dinner for the family. And they not only took, but took the white meat!! ARGH. Damn, somebody messing with my fried chicken better look both ways when crossing the street after work.

And a teacher! The horror!!

[Glory]

I have a pretty funny story from my place of business. To set the stage, minor food pilfering is common. For example, a friend of mine had to resort to nasty notes to keep people from stealing his apples.

One of my other co-workers is a health food/work out fanatic. She plans her meals carefully and is nearly obsessed with food. Breakfast first thing, a little cooked egg whites and fruit at 10, lunch is a perfectly balanced high protein low carb affair with a salad and she has a snack of something like canned tuna and fruit in the afternoon. I'm just relating this so you understand how much food she keeps in our work refrigerator all the time, including a bottle of salad dressing.

So, there she is in our little breakroom, preparing a meal and another coworker comes in and starts complaining about food theft from the refrigerator. My coworker, who has suffered some food loss in the past is eager to commiserate. The newly arrived woman reaches into the refrigerator and pulls out a salad in tupperware and then reaches into the refrigerator and pulls out MY coworker's salad dressing (clearly marked with coworker's name) and proceeds to liberally douse her salad while continuing her rant about stolen food!

[Great Dave]

Originally posted by voguevixen


That's a little too subtle for me. I usually take a red Sharpie, draw a skull and crossbones and write something like: "DANGER! POISON! TOXIC WASTE! DO NOT EAT!!!!!!!!

And, just in case: THIS MEANS YOU!!!!!

When I was lifeguarding and brought in food I especially didn't want taken, or if we all got take out from the same place, I would put "Dave's food- Touch not lest ye be touched". But maybe that carries a little more meaning when a 6'9" 300# person writes it.

[Demise]

Originally posted by Glory
The newly arrived woman reaches into the refrigerator and pulls out a salad in tupperware and then reaches into the refrigerator and pulls out MY coworker's salad dressing (clearly marked with coworker's name) and proceeds to liberally douse her salad while continuing her rant about stolen food!

Maybe she'll die from irony poisoning.