The downside to any kind of alarm is that someone might legitimately need to move your lunch - theirs is behind it in the fridge, they’re trying to reorganize the fridge to fit something oddly shaped in there, and so on.
Ipecac.
This^^, and also the alarm solution sounds a bit Dwight Shrute-ish. If somebody at my office was the motivated kind of crazy I would be building a termination file with HR. Anyone who has the motivation and time to booby trap their lunch bag and spring out from behind a corner when it beeps, isn’t welcome at this office.
You might be on the correct side morally, but going about it a tone deaf way.
I don’t think the cops are going to wait for you to clean out your desk, we’ll just mail you your shit.
And if Martin isn’t available, hire Terry Tate. Your stolen food, along with any other office problems will disappear.
“You kill the joe, you make some mo!”
True, but then how do you stop the thefts? Sometimes you have to sink to their level to fight them :). At least an alarm won’t make them sick like tainted food.
If you use the driveway alarm, it would just beep at the base station. The motion sensor doesn’t beep. And I think the motion sensor actually works based on sensing changes in light rather than it being moved. So your lunch bag should be able to be moved around, but if the bag is opened then the alarm is triggered.
Tell us more! What kind of guy was this? How did he react? How did he try to rationalize it? Like many posters in this thread, I have a really hard time understanding this kind of assholish behavior.
This is the best.
Obviously if the perp is the owner you’ll be looking for a job. But if he’s anywhere between you and the owner (and there’s any justice in your work world, not always a true statement) then the perp will be looking for work.
We had this problem at my work. It turned out to be mostly the security guards. I would often see a round, blue bottom sticking out of the fridge when I passed the canteen area, often with an unsecured handgun sticking out too. Don’t argue with an armed person.
When I complained to the security department they said, and I quote, “How am I supposed to tell all my guards which food is yours?”
Apparently it’s too much to ask that they grasp the concept of which food is not theirs. :dubious:
Buttwads.
I vote for the camera => youtube route. Whether it is with ghost pepper or food dye you only catch them if they take your lunch. The camera will catch them no matter whose lunch they are taking. Put it on Youtube under the account “The Sandwich Avenger” and use a printer (no handwriting to trace) to print out the link and leave copies everywhere.
How about “The 'Wich Witch”?
I suppose anonymizing is a good idea to prevent blowback. I’d further suggest printing the hardcopies off-site so that no electronic record of any kind exists at the office. Also be wary of security cameras that might catch you in the act of distributing the hardcopies (although this would make for a poetic downfall…).
Live by the surreptitious YouTube; die by the surreptitious YouTube. Words for the ages. 
Or when someone moves the bag to make room for their own bag in the fridge the alarm will go off, and you can dash in and wrongly accuse someone of attempted theft. :dubious:
A “Hidden Camera Monitoring” sign might have an impact on transgressors.
Whether or not they are holding your lunch would be a good indication if they stole it.
That was the thing about my alarm plan. The alarm would only go off if someone took the sandwich out of the bag. And having my name on the bag makes it unlikely to be an accident.
Mama Plant used to write my name on mine.
Probably more embarrassing at 25 instead of six, though.
Pay someone to paint their whole body green and then sit on top of the fridge.
Smiling, cross-legged, chillin.
Maybe some pointy ear action, making burpy/frog sounds.
ok that last post was misleading - I didn’t want to suggest the idea of paying someone, and then sitting on something. I meant to say that the paintee is also the sitee.
(new words are ok, though, right?)