# Poll: Workplace food theft **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [October 11, 2015, 11:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/poll-workplace-food-theft/734378 "2015-10-11T23:36:04Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 16\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![kopek](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kopek/32/337_2.png) [@kopek](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kopek)\ **Post date:** [October 14, 2015, 2:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/poll-workplace-food-theft/734378/21 "2015-10-14T02:02:54Z")
Where I work, you do NOT want to do it. Management will sit down with security, go over the tapes, and you will be fired. No questions asked, no explanation wanted - you are gone. The sad part is at least 2 or 3 people are fired for this every month in a work force of say 300. Sheesh! ---
**Author:** ![Mudshark](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/f04885/32.png) [@Mudshark](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mudshark)\ **Post date:** [October 15, 2015, 2:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/poll-workplace-food-theft/734378/22 "2015-10-15T02:31:17Z")
Never stolen anyone’s lunches at work. We do get a bunch of lunches stolen every now and then. Usually when this happens there are a few people that make cat food sandwiches, or laxative brownies and the theft stops pretty quickly. ---
**Author:** ![stillownedbysetters](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/41988e/32.png) [@stillownedbysetters](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/stillownedbysetters)\ **Post date:** [October 15, 2015, 2:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/poll-workplace-food-theft/734378/23 "2015-10-15T02:32:55Z")
I recently ate a frozen breakfast burrito that was labeled with the name of an employee who recently left the company. That’s as close as I’ve ever come. ---
**Author:** ![Skywatcher](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/skywatcher/32/254_2.png) [@Skywatcher](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Skywatcher)\ **Post date:** [October 15, 2015, 2:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/poll-workplace-food-theft/734378/24 "2015-10-15T02:44:52Z")
> [@dracoi](#): > > The closest I’ve come is related to items that appear abandoned. This. There was a box of ice cream sandwiches that had been sitting, unopened, in a freezer for at least a month. So I opened it and ate one. The box was gone within the week. ---
**Author:** ![yellowjacketcoder](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/y/4bbf92/32.png) [@yellowjacketcoder](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/yellowjacketcoder)\ **Post date:** [October 15, 2015, 3:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/poll-workplace-food-theft/734378/25 "2015-10-15T03:20:10Z")
Only time I’ve taken something that didn’t belong to me was when I thought it was a communal item (we’d store soda cans in the fridge, and sometimes they’d mix up the flavors. How was I supposed to know the grape was someone in particulars!?). We’ve had the email go around the office a couple of times with the content of “If you brought a \ frozen dinner, I grabbed yours my accident. You can either have my \ or I’ll buy you a new one from the store”. Which is the worst it ever gets here. Speaking of clean fridge, I had one workplace like **ivylass** ’s, except it was at 4:30 on a Friday. The advantage there was that you could come hold your stuff at 4:29 and put it back in at 4:31 if you really wanted to keep it, but damn if that wasn’t the cleanest work fridge I ever saw. NOTHING that was old stayed there. Well worth the occasional unopened salad dressing that got tossed. At my work I’ve been the guy that said “we’re cleaning the fridge, if it’s not an unopened soda can it’s going in the trash at 5:01PM”. Some people thought I didn’t _really_ mean everything, but our fridge was odor-free for the week after that so the bitching was light. Now I just don’t bring my lunch anymore, not worth the hassle. ---
**Author:** ![gnoitall](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/bb73d2/32.png) [@gnoitall](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gnoitall)\ **Post date:** [October 16, 2015, 12:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/poll-workplace-food-theft/734378/26 "2015-10-16T00:02:24Z")
> [@Aangelica](#): > > I worked for a number of years for a really, really large law firm in New York City. One of those gigantic firms that specializes in brokering massive commercial transactions and all the attorneys wear $1,000+ dollar suits every day. In fact, the office itself has been used as the set for several movies that I know of. > > The person on the floor I worked most likely to randomly steal your lunch if you were injudicious enough to leave it in the shared break room fridge? Corner office, senior partner, on the Administrative Committee, with a yearly income well into eight figures. His ass would steal $2.00 frozen Lean Cuisines from the break room fridge. Labelled, unlabelled, notes, emails to the floor, notices on the door - nothing had any effect on his theft. He would do it shamelessly - even when he’d already eaten the deeply expensive, nutritionist-approved gourmet hot lunch he had delivered daily. If confronted, he would pretend - every single time - not to have realized a) that it belonged to someone who was not him and b) taking it was in some fashion incorrect. _Every. Single. Time._ My desk was directly outside his office, and I personally witnessed this conversation at least a dozen times. And those were just the times that someone actually called him out on it. > > One of his favorite office gripes was that the goddamn things tasted like shit - and he would whine if the selection did not include his “favorites”. My hand to God on it. The only ones that were safe were the Salisbury Steak flavored ones and the quasi-Asian flavors. If that’s all there was, he’d just bitch that there weren’t any good ones in the freezer. This guy actually routinely carried well over a grand in his wallet and had at least three (that I know of) credit cards with limits and available credit sufficient to purchase a luxury automobile. But he stole - routinely - crappy frozen dinners brought in by the support staff for lunch. His assistant and I both pointed out that, yanno, people were not bringing them in for his benefit and that stealing them was wrong. He would just give us blank looks. That’s not theft. That’s dominance games. That’s “Yes, actually, I do own you and everything you possess. What do you think you’re going to do about it?” Well, yes, incidentally, it’s theft, but that’s like saying rape is just sex. It’s just power-tripping. Bad human beings being bad because they can. ---
**Author:** ![turtlescanfly](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/65b543/32.png) [@turtlescanfly](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/turtlescanfly)\ **Post date:** [October 20, 2015, 9:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/poll-workplace-food-theft/734378/27 "2015-10-20T21:15:26Z")
I worked at a deli once, and brought in a large pork loin roast that I was going to cut up on our industrial meat slicer. A long, hectic day later I forgot all about it. The next day I went to retrieve it from the fridge where I stashed it, and it was gone. I asked around, finally one of the other employees fessed up. “Oh, I’m sorry, I didn’t know it was yours” was all she could say. To which I replied “Fair enough, but surely you knew it wasn’t YOURS?!?” ---
**Author:** ![GrumpyBunny](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/bc8723/32.png) [@GrumpyBunny](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GrumpyBunny)\ **Post date:** [October 20, 2015, 11:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/poll-workplace-food-theft/734378/28 "2015-10-20T23:26:19Z")
I’d never take someone else’s food on purpose. I did take a coworker’s yogurt by mistake once, though (we buy the same kind – Fage 2% with honey). I realized the mistake and brought one in for her the next day. Since then, we’ve kept a few on rotation in the fridge. I’ve had food stolen before. A coworker had some cupcakes she made for a party stolen. The guilty party reached in, opened the container, and took 3 or 4. We seriously considered some revenge cupcakes, but that coworker is a nice person and wouldn’t do it. ---
**Author:** ![Annie-Xmas](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/ecc23a/32.png) [@Annie-Xmas](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Annie-Xmas)\ **Post date:** [October 21, 2015, 1:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/poll-workplace-food-theft/734378/29 "2015-10-21T13:38:26Z")
We have a policy at my workplace: Any food in a container or bag is off limits. Any food out in the open is okay. ---
**Author:** ![BobLibDem](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/boblibdem/32/3149_2.png) [@BobLibDem](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BobLibDem)\ **Post date:** [October 21, 2015, 2:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/poll-workplace-food-theft/734378/30 "2015-10-21T14:10:05Z")
[Mandatory Dilbert link.](http://dilbert.com/strip/2005-11-23) Never stole from the office fridge, never had anything stolen. ---
**Author:** ![sandra\_nz](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/eada6e/32.png) [@sandra\_nz](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/sandra_nz)\ **Post date:** [October 21, 2015, 2:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/poll-workplace-food-theft/734378/31 "2015-10-21T14:25:56Z")
What happened to the poll? Never have, never would. ---
**Author:** ![orderfire](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/orderfire/32/10908_2.png) [@orderfire](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/orderfire)\ **Post date:** [October 21, 2015, 2:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/poll-workplace-food-theft/734378/32 "2015-10-21T14:59:17Z")
> [@Skywatcher](#): > > This. > > There was a box of ice cream sandwiches that had been sitting, unopened, in a freezer for at least a month. So I opened it and ate one. > > The box was gone within the week. I came in here to bitch about some fuckhead who helped themselves to the 2 boxes of Skinny Cow ice cream sandwiches that I bought to dole out to myself over two weeks or so. Now I know it was you, and I’m coming for you. ---
**Author:** ![Sunny\_Daze](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sunny_daze/32/438_2.png) [@Sunny\_Daze](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sunny_Daze)\ **Post date:** [October 21, 2015, 3:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/poll-workplace-food-theft/734378/33 "2015-10-21T15:03:43Z")
Never stolen food. Had my food stolen, oh yes indeed. Sorry to say at my office, the safest course is keeping it mt food at my desk. Pretty much everything gets stolen. ---
**Author:** ![delphica](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e9a140/32.png) [@delphica](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/delphica)\ **Post date:** [October 21, 2015, 3:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/poll-workplace-food-theft/734378/34 "2015-10-21T15:26:16Z")
> [@Aangelica](#): > > I worked for a number of years for a really, really large law firm in New York City. One of those gigantic firms that specializes in brokering massive commercial transactions and all the attorneys wear $1,000+ dollar suits every day. In fact, the office itself has been used as the set for several movies that I know of. Thank you for sharing this anecdote because getting so vicariously outraged really made my morning (I’m being sincere – it was well-written and I was delighted to be hating that guy, what a JERK). Food theft from individuals isn’t much of an issue in our office (probably in part because we are all lazy sots who don’t bring much food in from home, and there is a very convenient and not-too-expensive cafeteria in our building). For a while we did have an issue with common food – little things that we kept in stock that in theory anyone could take, like crackers and trail mix. These weren’t exactly high end items. Ultimately I figure that if someone is hoarding crackers and trail mix … they probably have some serious food and/or compulsion issues that go beyond workplace etiquette. ---
**Author:** ![chela](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chela/32/21582_2.png) [@chela](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/chela)\ **Post date:** [October 21, 2015, 9:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/poll-workplace-food-theft/734378/35 "2015-10-21T21:26:33Z")
this lady was a cook for a school, everyday she carried in an empty tote bag zippered shut. Inside were empty plastic containers. When she thought no one was looking she would fill the containers with leftovers and take them home. She made extra quantities with the goal of taking extras home. She was a good cook, but she veered off into her own menu and recipes and cooked huge quantities. She’d even cook Thanksgiving turkey breast and all the trimmings that she’d wheel out the door to her car. SOme of that may have been prepaid commodity items, but she even took the pumpkins decorating the cafe. She even took the handiwipes to reuse, such a grinch. Forced her out finally. ---
**Author:** ![stui\_magpie](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/stui_magpie/32/11010_2.png) [@stui\_magpie](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/stui_magpie)\ **Post date:** [October 22, 2015, 2:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/poll-workplace-food-theft/734378/36 "2015-10-22T02:46:11Z")
I’ve never taken someone’s food and I bring my lunch in a lunch box with a freezer brick in it and keep it at my desk rather than use the communal fridge. If I did get stuff pinched from the fridge I’d pretty quickly make up a dodgy lunch and put in there to upset anyone who pinched it. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/poll-workplace-food-theft/734378.md?page=1)