Are you shitting me??? I can understand the CJP – I think everyone office has had one – but the candy is put out there for public consumption, and the CJP is IMO guilty “only” of boorish behavior.
But your boss is a thief! To go through your desk drawers and eat your food . . . I’m completely appalled. Would he spend any money he happened to find? Use your toiletries?
I would give him a case of protein bars, though I’m not sure the sarcastic gift would be understood; the posts above indicate it sometimes isn’t. But I would also ask for clarification as to the status of “my” desk: Someone is going through my desk and taking stuff (and gosh I have no idea who); is that acceptable? If it is, I will make a point to take all my personal things home. If it isn’t acceptalble, maybe you could let people know that I really don’t like people going through my work space without my knowledge or consent. But even that might not work; surely anyone with a brain, Bossman or not, is perfectly well aware how hugely inappropriate it is to (a) go through your drawers without your permission or (b) steal and eat food belonging to you.
If I need a sticky note to put on a document I’m leaving on her desk, or a pen to write the note, I will maybe open the top center drawer of my assistant’s desk. I don’t even feel 100% okay doing that much, and if the work-related item isn’t in plain view, I go find it somewhere else. I wouldn’t dream of going through her desk, much less helping myself to her snacks.
I’d rather there not even be a CCJ. Too hard to resist the temptation, for me.
Our office’s candy and party person went on leave for a week, and two of us brought in multiple bags of candy to make sure her jar wasn’t empty when she got back. The whole office would have felt her wrath!
I used to keep a candy bowl on my desk, but I found it was easy to keep people from raiding it too heavily by keeping it full of really, really weird candy. I’d go to the Asian grocery stores and buy all the strange stuff, much of which even I couldn’t identify, and so only the truly brave would eat from it. My boss was one of the truly brave, but she was also so nice that I’d get special bags of candy she really liked and reward her with them when she’d finally get her timesheets turned in.
I vote for telling the CCJ pigs that they can’t have any more candy until they start contributing regularly. Don’t ask them, tell them. Then enforce it; when you see them coming, move the jar out of reach. Use your best no-nonsense voice: “I am NOT kidding. I am NOT rich and I will NOT buy candy for people who are too selfish to contribute to what is, after all, supposed to be a COMMUNITY effort. No contribution? No candy!”
Either that or lock it up and only pull it out for the nice people.
I think some of these people are just plain jerks and others just have no impulse control. We have one of those at my work, no impulse control whatsoever. Candy, cookies and treats are known to disappear fast in his presence, we even rib him about it. He knows he has a problem with it but he can never seem to stop himself. He’s a sweet guy and we like him but whenever someone brings in treats they try to plan it for his days off or hide a back-up supply. He even admitted to once eating a giant chocolate bar someone gave him for Christmas, he almost ate the whole thing at one sitting - then he felt sick. No one else was going to take his chocolate but he still had to try and eat it all. We tell him that if he were a dog he would be one of those labradors that go to the vet every other week for eating inappropriate things. We sometimes even say that a dog with chocolate toxicity pulled a “co-worker’s name”. It’s hard to get too mad at him because he obviously has an addiction, he gets contrite and vows to stop, so we just try our best to keep temptation away from him.
I agree with this. I see a lot of complaints about office place gluttony and theft in this thread but very few people seem to be willing to just say “Hey, knock it off,” even when someone is pilfering from their desks or stealing their sodas right in front of them. People get away with crap like that only because other people LET them do it and most people are reluctant to be confrontational. I say that if you aren’t willing to tell the boors to stop then you don’t have a right to complain if they don’t.
One way I’ve found that sometimes helps is to stop bringing it in, and when the big perp inevitably asks, say “It’s been costing me a lot of money and I don’t have anymore. I’m asking everyone to chip in a few coins. Then I’d be glad to go pick it up” with a smile.
Doesn’t work 100% of the time but sometimes they will fish out their wallet or drop the subject entirely.
Unfortunately candy jars make everyone suffer because they will inevitably disappear because of selfish pricks like this.
The problem is that if social censor doesn’t work (and it generally doesn’t) where do you go next? It’s not like you can go to the board of directors and say you want them to garnish Smith’s paycheck because he ate all the Snickers out of your candyjar or drank your Pepsi. People like this subconsciously realize that as long as they can ignore their social unpopularity, there’ll be no real consequences because the crimes they commit are too minor for the victims to invoke any real penalties.
The relatively un-annoying pilferers will simply be oblivous to any confrontations. But the truly obnoxious ones will feel triumphant by being confronted in a manner they know they can safely ignore. They will feel they have demonstrated their dominance by their ability to steal candy and sodas with impunity. The reality is that they get away with these things because their actions aren’t important enough to put a stop to. But small people live on small achievements. The only way you can beat these people is by denying them the opportunity to pilfer.
I’m all for the “cut it out this minute” approach, but I don’t think this takes into account office dynamics. The candy jars are usually maintained by support staff: the receptionist or an admin assistant who has a central cube or desk. The Candy Pigs are almost always executive staff: the lawyers, the engineers, the salesmen. It isn’t always that easy for a support person to tell someone above them in the corporate structure, “Hey, knock it off, you cheap pig!” That person might be the Candy Jar Keeper’s boss, or someone else who could make the CJK’s life harder, and who could twist the issue around so it is the CJK who is being petty and small (“Jeez, I guess I took too much of her candy,” said with an eye-roll.)
It’s precisely the power disparity that allows the Pigs to get away with it. You know if they were just another working drone, they sure as hell wouldn’t be doing it, because the Keeper wouldn’t put up with it for one minute. IMO, what makes this behavior so egregious is precisely the fact that it is one person taking advantage of another just because they know they can. And saying, “Confront them and tell them to knock it off” sounds great but doesn’t recognize the underlying imbalance of power that allows the behavior in the first place.
I keep a CCJ on my desk (actually it is a small bowl) which I usually fill with Japanese candy. Most people come over and see candy, puzzle about what the heck it is, and then try it out. Sometimes they love it, sometimes they make a really weird face, and then start looking for somewhere to spit it out. It amuses me, so I keep it filled.
But we definitely have a guy who will come by and pick up six, seven, eight at a time and wander away. The last time he did it it, I said, “Dude!” He looked at me, confused. I said, “Those things are like $3 for 15 pieces. Take one.” He looked at me like I was crazy, but he’s never grabbed a handful again, and he also does not seem to have sworn a vendetta against me.
Standing up to people who are inconsiderate can work wonders.
I think I’ve spotted a Doper at work, based solely on this thread.
I was up front getting some more notebooks – some bastich keeps swiping them from my desk – and that’s where our candy jar is. One of the managers comes through, dips and grabs a handful of candies in one smooth motion (he’s well practiced at this, doesn’t even slow down) and continues on his way. The receptionist and I share a roll-eyes, because he’s well known as the candy pig.
Then he sticks his head back around the corner. “Hey, <receptionist>? Thanks for the candy! I appreciate you keeping it stocked up.” Then he’s off again.
Now, this may not seem like much, but he’s never thanked her for the candy jar before. Ever.
For the rant: I know, it amazes me what nerve some people have. Who raised that person?
For the issue: Despite the fact that I, personally, agree that Steve the Candy Guzzler is a pig and a dipstick, I think that a lot of this comes with the communal candy jar territory (I say this as a person who was formerly the keeper of the CCJ). As long as the CCJ is in a public space and the general gist is that people can help themselves … well, some people take none and some people take some and some people rush the jar with their little trotters pounding madly on the bland institutional carpeting and go to trough as if they had never seen candy before and never would again.
I figured I had a few choices – stop doing the candy jar, or stop caring who was taking what candy. Emotionally, I did better after I resolved to consider my ownership of the candy to have ceased the second the candy went in the jar.
Hello, my name is Todd, and I’m a CCJ pig. OK, not so much any more, but I’ve been known to raid the jar on a daily basis. Finally the woman who maintains it put up a sign that said “If you take from this jar, you must contribute to this jar.” I felt bad, but was assured that I was not the one who was a problem. Nonetheless, I’ve contributed to it mightily since then.
I’m glad you reformed, and you are to be commended for it. But just to enlighten some of us, why did you do that before? What were you thinking when you saw the jar? Something like, “Oh wow cool! Look! Candy just falls out of the sky and lands in jars!”?
Not at all. I knew that people paid for it, but put it out for everyone’s enjoyment. And I figured that someday I’d have to contribute. It was that little sign that gave me the kick in the butt to do so.
And since nobody has contributed to it in months, I’ll make a little stop by CVS tonight.
A related story: We used to have a community refridgerator at the one place I worked. (10 years ago.) We used to stock it with soda and everyone took a turn stocking it. Except one guy. Finally I went out and got the cheapest nastiest no-name brand diet soda I could find. He still drank it. Then I put up a sign: Soda 25 cents. He stopped drinking it. I can’t even imagine ever being that cheap. May I have a ride on that yacht you’re gonna buy with that quarter you saved?
