Tell me the secret of functioning without a purse! I’ve been lugging this damn bag around shopping centers a lot in the past few days and have developed a new hatred of it.
In my case it would be “make the husband carry his OWN stuff.” 
I rarely carry a purse; one reason is a rash of wallet thefts at work. I teach preschool at a church, and they let street people in occassionally to use the phone and get boxed meals. Sometimes they let them wait in the hallway and they’ll wander a bit. My debit card and some cash was taken from my wallet while we were on the playground, but I realized it soon after I left work and cancelled it right away. I’d left my wallet in my bag on the counter right inside the classroom. My own fault, really; we have a locking cabinet for our purses.
Anyway, I hardly ever carry a purse. I have a small slim wallet that holds just the essentials that I can usually slip in a pocket, I clip my cell phone to my belt, and I have my keys. I even have a little Chapstick Keeper on my keychain. That’s all I need - I don’t carry extra makeup or a huge wallet or lots of that stuff the girly-girls tend to carry. I have a little case in my car with a small brush and ponytail holders and a toothbrush, but I leave it in there. No need to carry it with me all over the place.
I keep mine in my backpack, which in turn sits behind my desk against the wall (in the open, but not visible until you walk into my office). Card keys are required to access our space, and our company has never had a problem with employees stealing from each other – in fact, to my knowledge it’s never happened. I supposed the cleaning crew could be tempted, but it would be pretty stupid of them to screw up their contract with the building. In short, I never worry about my purse here.
I guess I trust the people I work with. I’ve always left it on the floor behind my desk, or on a credenza in plain sight. Never a problem, in 16 years.
Yeah, me too. I even carry an mp3 player in my purse (which is actually more of a messenger-style bag since it can hold a trade paperback). Maybe one of these days I’ll get burned, but I’ll cross that bridge when I come to it.
I’m another of the probably-too-trusting types. Mine’s just sitting out on a corner of my desk with my work bag. I take it when I go to lunch, but otherwise if I’m in a meeting or if I run to the bathroom, it’s just sitting there.
As far as I know we’ve never had a problem with anything getting stolen (~20 person office), but then again, I’d hate to be the first!
I leave mine right out in the open on top of my desk usually. However, I have a private office that I can lock when I leave.
Of course, I rarely do this either and one of the faculty will return my bag to me at a later point in the day after they’ve rescued it. Generally, I haven’t even noticed it’s gone.
Dumb, with a capital D.
I work in a lab, but we have a row of small lockers in which we can put purses or wallets or whatever. I tend to shove my coat in there, too. My purse is pretty big, and so it, my winter coat, and the organic vapour dust mask I have never used are all that fits in there. Why I lock up the dust mask, I don’t know. No one would want it, and they are free anyways where i work!
I don’t know what the office people do, they seem to mostly keep things near/in their desks, but I know that if they wanted to, people in the office area near the lab could get a locker if they bothered to ask.