Assuming you could even find any nowadays, it would be awfully hard to sneak a sufficient amount into someone’s food to achieve the desired effect.
Not to mention the legal liability issues.
So we’ve got “difficult”, “ineffective”, and “illegal”, AKA the Bad Idea Trifecta.
The food dye idea is stupid. You’d have to make a decoy sandwich every day for who knows how long before you’d catch the culprit.
The book Freakonomics had an entire chapter on this kind of thievery. Well, on bagels thieves, but i think it is the same principle.
Paul Feldman is an entrepreneur who delivers bagels to companies. He decides that, rather than hanging around and waiting for each customer to pay him in turn, he will simply leave behind a cash box and a note asking them to pay what they owe.
Reassuringly, he does pretty well out of this honour system. About 90% of people pay his asking price, which is enough to make a profit.
And, more interestingly, his accounts unearth some fascinating trends: for instance, people are more honest when they work in smaller offices, when the weather is good, and when a holiday is round the corner.
Another trend mirrors the experiences in this thread: higher-ups in an office are less likely to pay. Entitlement perhaps?
He also found that a sign with eyes above his cash box reduced theft considerably. Even more so then a strongly worded message. If people feel watched, even by a cardboard sign, they behave better. So the OP would do well to make a sign with some stern looking eyes.
And, finally, I think the office management would create a win-win if they found a bagel seller willing to deliver bagels to the office. In a similar way to Paul Feldman. Apparently, there are enough people in the office who didn’t bring their own lunch, have no desire or opportunity to go get lunch outside the office, and are hungry enough to steal lunch. Wouldn’t these people jump at the opportunity to pay a little money for a non-stolen lunch? And wouldn’t some employee love the opportunity to make a business venture out of that?
Might just get your sandwich thrown away…
I would slide a note into my sandwich, everyday until it was again stolen! It would say:
Congratulations! Your thieving of lunches has now be captured on film a full 6 times! (That whole, ‘It was just the one time!’, junk ain’t gonna fly, sorry!) And the film of your theiving is all loaded up to be forwarded to everyone in this office with the click of a mouse! EVERYONE! (Oh, AND Huffpost, because they love this kinda shit!)
I was pretty understanding the first couple of times, shit happens, right? I’m way, WAY, past that now. In fact, I’m more than ready to pull the trigger on outing your thieving ways.
This is the ONLY warning you’ll be given. (Oh, and it’s not just my lunch either, if I hear of anyone else’s lunches going missing, click, and you’re done!)
(Hope you choke on my stolen lunch you theiving piece of shit, soon to be ‘former’ coworker!)
Readily identifiable bags, napkins or wraps in the package. You could tell when, or perhaps who swiped your lunch. Holiday decorated zip bags, for example.
You have to be careful with these kinds of traps. One time I did this at work and the guy managed to eat the whole thing without getting it on his face. You know what happened to him? He dyed a little inside.
It is curious that security guards and management feel free to steal lunch. People who, one would think, are conscious of law and rules, and of fairness.
Apparently, they feel that their position elevates them above such things.
I guess kneecapping lunch thieves is going too far.
No, no, not if it is tongue sandwich for example.
Buy some canned dog food and dump it out then wash the cans very good and pack your meal in the cans! I had a friend and her nephew would come over and eat her out the house . My friend liked cottage cheese and knew her nephew
hated it so she kept the empty containers and put all the food her nephew liked into
the empty cottage cheese containers and her nephew stopped eating all her food.
I know it’s so weird; you never hear of cops & politicians acting like they’re above the law.
Good point, but this is so obvious.
We can’t get people at my work to even eat their own lunches—they leave food in the fridge long past its use-by date— let alone someone else’s lunch.
Check the yellow pages. If there’s a security agency willing to provide such a sentry, the owner’s brother-in-law probably works at your place of business and is the culprit.
It’s not that they feel entitled, or ‘above the law’, in my opinion.
It’s more about feeling above suspicion. After all, of all the possible choices, who’s going to suspect the exec or security guard? They are unlikely to be at the top of anyone’s list, I think.
Worse yet, is that they may be more than aware that there is an existing individual which everyone is already suspicious of, for some other unrelated behaviour, and that all suspicion will naturally fall onto them. Because people already know that person has a drinking problem or some other issue.
There are opportunists who are more than willing to pinch your meds from your purse, because they know full well everyone will righteously assume it’s the gal that just got back from rehab, no matter how much she protests her innocence.
I guess it depends on the size of your company, but why not just walk around at lunch and find the idiot eating your sandwich? If they swipe your stuff wouldn’t it be kind of easy to tell it was yours when they’re chowing down on something you wrapped or packaged yourself?
It works for bikes; well worth a try to protect your lunch.