For one thing, room-mates know each other and may be sharing other expenses as well. You’re my roomie, you eat my leftover pizza, fine, I can get you back or just not care, 'cause I know you. I don’t know all of the 350 people who have access to the fridge in the lunchroom, and I am certainly not sharing living expenses with any of them.
I have to label shit so they’ll know it’s not theirs? No, sorry, this isn’t kindergarten. If you take someone else’s stuff, it’s stealing.
While I always label things at work just to make sure everyone knows it’s mine, I still wouldn’t eat or drink anything unless it was specifically labeled as “For everyone! Dig in!”
So while I think the OP should have been more paranoid, I don’t think he was out-of-line in thinking that the damned coke should have been left alone.
My supervisor took pity on me and loaned me a buck for the soda machine, so my headache went away.
We’re a small office, and anytime there’s community food in the fridge, we simply send an email around saying so. Therefore, logic should dictate that if you weren’t told you can eat it, then you don’t freaking eat it!
The last time some of my soda came up missing was well over a year ago; come to find out the juvenile office down the hall was having some kind of counseling group session thingie in our kitchen for some of its frequent flyers, and the little darlings raided our fridge. The juvenile office was made aware of the problem, and it hasn’t happened since.
So in other words, I have nothing to fear from the Future Felons of America that roam our halls all day, but I have to start labeling my food to protect it from marauding co-workers.
That was your Coke?
Oops! :smack:
A-HA!
The joke’s on you, SnoopyFan, because I BACKWASH!
My work’s fridge has the problem of rotten food left for months! I mean, there were tupperweare obviously was someone’s lunch, but it stayes there untill the emplyee lounge reeks.
Or those extremely stupid/lazy/wouldn’t know common-sense if it bit them in the ass that leave leftovers, empty bottles, used napkins all over the freaken table. We’ve got flies bonanza.
Aren’t they all adults? shit. I hate to see their personal home…must be a swamp!
Reminds me of a bit out of the book ‘Virtual Light’, where the protagonist labels his milk ‘MILK EXPERIMENT’ so his roomates won’t drink it.
Yeah, I know how you feel. I had leftover California Pizza Kitchen pizza stolen right out of the microwave. I was ticked.
My younger brother is also infamous for swiping people’s leftovers - especially our mom’s and especially anything from Olive Garden. They finally worked out a deal where if it wasn’t eaten in 24 hours, he could have it. At least it kept the fridge clean.
Oh, have you heard the UL about the note “To the person who took my milk”?
http://www.snopes.com/pregnant/mommilk.htm
Funny. A bit like troub’s story.
I remove things from the communal fridge sometimes. Mouldy collapsed fruit. Yoghurt 2 months past the use-by date. Lumpy milk.
I actually went so far as to put a permanent hook on the fridge door and attached a sheaf of address labels and a Sharpie marker, with a big sign that says, ‘Please label and date your food.’ If it’s labelled, don’t eat it. If it’s over a week old, toss it.
Works wonders where I work, but then again maybe I work with adults.
Esprix
Our fridge gets cleaned our every Friday. If you want something left longer, you mark it.
Anyone here ever watch The Young Ones?
Rik: Well all my food is marked with sticky labels.
Vivyan: That won’t work on me, I just eat the labels.
OTOH, maybe they’re thinking “I don’t live here, why should I have to clean it?”
To what Lady Eboshi said: First, it’s ipecac, not epicac, which would make a difference when you’re looking on a pharmacy shelf.
Second, that stuff is not to be messed around with. Seriously. While it causes severe vomiting, if it’s NOT vomited up it’s extremely poisonous in its own right. If you wanted to catch a coworker stealing food, this would not be a smart way to go about doing it.
Friday afternoon there was something in the fridge at work that stank so badly the whole room started to smell. But one of my coworkers figured out a great way to get rid of it: She called the office manager and reported a “gas leak” in the pantry. Saved her having to dirty her hands to clean it out, I guess. 
There was a Dilbert Sunday cartoon strip about this very subject a while back.
http://pfft.net/stories/20030509155317.html
I clipped the comic strip from my newspaper. It’s still pinned to the bulletin board in our lunch room.
Last year at my old job, I discovered that my sandwich, WW-friendly and YUMMY, was missing. Well, my co-workers discovered that you do NOT steal my food. Less than an hour later, everyone on the first floor knew it was gone. If it weren’t for the fact that I was trying very hard to stay on my WW program and it was difficult to find a low-point lunch in my area, I wouldn’t have been so angry. But I was.
My boss pulled me into her office later that afternoon and apologized. Turns out the CFO of the company had eaten my sandwich. I didn’t get my sandwich back, but I did get five dollars from her to compensate.
ava
IIRC, poisoning a food item in hopes that some office theif will consume it could open you up to a lawsuit and/or crminal charges.
I understand the sentiment. IMO, if I didn’t buy it and brig it, I ain’t touching it,
To add to what Mama Tiger and spooje said, the mods have already pointed out that spiking food with Unacceptable Additives, such as Ex-Lax, is a violation of the SDMB rules.
So…The Powers That Be Frown On That Sort Of Thing. Just FYI.
d’oh And I previewed and everything.
…the mods have pointed out that recommending spiking food…
Dangit.
Well, probably the spiking is, too, if they find out about it, DogMom.
Trust me, the last thing I want to do is make someone at work sick. I’d be the one they’d call to cover the shift.