I’m pretty sure that’s exactly the kind of response that Czarcasm was trying to avoid by closing the other thread.
Of course you didn’t intentionally plant any pills in there just for her to swallow. But congrats on getting spanked by a mod. I’ve decided they’re like pink slips in elementary school: a badge of honor, unless you take it too far and get suspended.
I do wish that you could confront her, just because I’m so curious if it is her or not!! But I’m a pretty confrontational character, so I feel this sort of frustration quite often, especially listening to my friend’s stories about this or that conflict. And I certainly understand your desire for a harmonious work atmosphere.
Have you thought about just asking her? Like in a “You’re not in trouble” kind of way. “Just be honest” or “I just want to know” or “The thief is costing me a lot of money” or something that would maybe make her feel not threatened and also maybe make her feel a little guilty. Even if she doesn’t admit it, the humiliation and trial of being asked about it by her “friend” may deter her from stealing any more.
Or put up a webcam, and provide the link. We here at the SDMB are always looking out for each other! Plus we could watch you while you’re at work!
I am with LaurAnge (as usual).
My own experience with a junkie at work (see my “bitca” trilogy) taught me that the best way to go is to get it all out in the open at once.
How you deal with this is up to you, and you have already posited some solutions: the alarm, routinely locking up your pills, talking to her about it. Which one you choose is up to you. Maybe it would help you to sit down and write the pros and cons of each (corny, but it works for my family).
As I said, what you choose to do is your choice, but if I had any advice for you it would be: do not choose to do nothing. This can only get worse.
One thing to keep in mind is that she probably isn’t a “bad” person who is choosing to do this just for kicks. She is almost certainly an addict fully consumed at the moment by her addiction. If you do nothing, that is called “enabling” the addict. I doubt that one confrontation will make her see that she needs help but a series of these over time by different people (I can promise that you aren’t the first) will start to add up.
I obviously feel sorry for you but I have sympathy for her as well, not for what she has done, but that she has ended up in a state where she is willing to go to any length to feed her addiction regardless of who she hurts. I know from personal experiences with opiate addicts just like her that she is going to have a hard fight ahead of her.
I could appreciate this point of view, but the girl has barely been on painkillers, and not nearly enough to actually get addicted. If anything, she has a mental addiction. She was only taking about four Vicodin 5/500 a day when she was getting them prescribed, so if she is “addicted,” it ought to be pretty easy for her to kick.
Shit, I know from personal experience that when you’re used to taking a few at lunch and you suddenly don’t have them anymore that it kinda sucks. It doesn’t mean you’re a junkie, it just means you were on them long enough that you got used to that lunchtime buzz. It might make her uncomfortable for a week or so, but then she’d be over it. I will never believe that a few mild painkillers a day can make someone a serious addict.
But, I guess the fact that she’s stealing from me indicates that she either took more pills than she told me or that she just wants to get a little buzz and knows I get strong pain meds. I know for sure that her doc is no longer prescribing them to her, so she can’t be feeding a monkey on her back.
Indy, IIRC, I was the first poster in the previous thread and will reiterate my comment: you are the victim of a crime. You need to be the one who stops what is occurring. I understand that this is a difficult situation, but you really need to decide what’s more important: you not having to confront her or you continuing to have your stuff stolen. The method you choose to end it is your choice, but it sounds like it’s really making your life miserable.
With the alarm, you can always pretend it’s an alarm clock or something (or maybe not, I’m not sure about the setup).
The problem with the alarm is that she can always claim that she set it off accidentally while she was looking for something else. It will keep her from going into your purse again, but it won’t force her to face up to her problems, nor will it keep her from going after anything you don’t have in that purse.
You need to talk to her.
I think there needs to be a distinction made here between “she stole the wrong pill today, so if it makes her sick, that serves her right,” and “I deliberately replaced my regular pill with something else expressly to make her sick.” It was clear to me that Indygrrl was aggravated at this woman’s thievery but afraid to confront her, and was hoping that her coworker would get her comeuppance by just such an indirect method. In no way did it seem like she set out to harm the thief, who is indiscriminately stealing pills. Frankly, I’d be quite angry because if I run out of my medicine before my insurance will allow me to refill it, I’m screwed. This could actually harm Indygrrl.
Would Indygrrl be liable if the thief got sick from something she stole? It seems wrong that she would be, but I don’t actually know for sure.
In some of the places I used to work at, we’d have similar situations that would turn up from time to time about really specific items (like in this case, your meds) and what usually worked wonders were little signed, displayed prominently around the office, announcing the problem, the serious consequences of both stealing, the possible adverse effects on the person taking them and the cost or harm done to whoever the prescription belongs to. Then, the bottom parts of the signs were typically dedicated to basically forming a ‘neighborhood watch’ program where you co-workers watch out for each other and then rat out the perpetrators.
Or something like that.
Like I said, it seemed to work most of the time. When it didn’t, the responsible party was almost completely brain-dead to begin with, so nothing short of a ton of bricks -and- a clue-by-four would’ve helped. Maybe.
Good luck.
This girl was taking 4 Vicodin a day? For how long? Maybe things have changed a lot since I got sober, but that sounds like a lot of Vicodin to me.
I agree that Czarcasm may have jumped the gun here. I certainly didn’t see that Indygrrl was intentionally poisioning this girl. Sure, she could have been 100% responsible for keeping this girl from stealing by never having her own damn meds with her, but that’s not really fair.
Having said that, this whole thing needs to be addressed right now. Friend or no friend, you need to have a sit-down about this. What if she OD’s on your pills some day, and it’s brought out that you knew she was stealing them but continued to provide access to said pills? Of course you didn’t make her steal them, but if you knew it was happening and did nothing to stop it (and continued to keep your pills in a non-secure location she had access to), you could be found negligent. Anything is possible in this day and age.
You’re not being her friend by ignoring this. I know you’re pissed, I would be too. You shouldn’t have to alter your routine to stop her from taking your pills. But you need to set a boundary here, right away, face to face, in no uncertain terms, because otherwise it won’t ever stop. Be kind, don’t be a bitch, but be firm and don’t back down. This is unacceptable behavior and it needs to stop today.
Shouldn’t this be in the Pit?
Never mind. :smack:
I hate to act like a junior mod and all, but since the original thread is still closed, it might not be the best idea in the world to keep talking about the subject in a different thread.
Well, you don’t kow that for sure. You only know what she is stealing from YOU. She could be stealing from other people in her life, too. Besides, EJ’s Girl is right in that 4 Vicodin a day is definitely enough to get hooked on.
IIRC, you tried to talk to her about this, right? Saying that you thought “someone” was stealing your meds? If so, then I think you’ve given her enough chance to come clean before getting nabbed by a loud alarm.
Also, about the antidepressant. My guess is, she steals the pills quickly, looks at them later to save time. She likely looked at it after stealing it, saw it was something else, and didn’t take it, but had no way of giving it back. Just a WAG, of course, but what I consider a likely scenario.
I wonder if he would have locked the thread had Zabali not gone in shrieking “OMG, Indygrrl, you’re a murderer!”. :dubious:
Nooooo, don’t chicken out!!! This person needs to be caught. You’ll be doing both her and your company a favor. Like others have said, she may just escalate.
Anyway, we’re all DYING to know what happens. Count me as another one who thinks that the mod might have been a smidge quick on the draw. I saw nothing in the original thread indicating that you were intentionally trying to get this thief sick.
I was just wondering the same thing.
Indygrrl you took outrageous action to try to solve your problem, and it wasn’t nice, nor was it moral. (And only likely quasi-legal if legal at all.) Learn from this, think before you act next time of the consequences that will arise. (Also never share your prescription meds again, that alone isn’t wise, though it’s not on the same level as laying the trap you did.) I mean you no harm, and wish you well. I hope you do solve your problem, I do have sympathy for that. It would suck to have someone stealing medicine you needed. (I just don’t agree with how you chose to solve the problem.) I also hope your health gets better. Bright Blessings.
For the rest of you, I used the words “set a trap” and “poisoning” and I stand by them. I did not say “murderer”, nor do I say it now. I doubt that a single dose could kill a person, though it could land the person in the hospital. I also said she “wasn’t thinking at all” when she took the actions she did. She wasn’t thinking, and took action that was really really dumb that could easily have ended up with the theif being harmed. That’s wrong. Think before you act.
There were other suggestions that she could have taken, indeed she ordered an alarm. She was (with the exception of handing out her prescription medicines, which only she could legally swallow) the injured party both legally and morally until she set that trap. If she had caught footage of the theif on a nannycam, she could have gone from there, and resolved this without such risks to human health and well being.
I don’t completly buy her amendments now, I think she was angry and wanted the theif to get “hoist by the petards” but was not thinking straight enough to see that the method she chose could lead to serious harm. Though I do think Indygrrl was hoping the co-worker would puke her guts out from her own words, she didn’t want the theif to get seriously ill. She did lay a trap, she mentioned that the “real” pills were in her pocket, and that she put in anti-inflammatories that “looked similar” into the bottle she kept the pain medicine she brought to work in. Later on, she mentioned that she’d put the “real” pills in her pocket again, and that one of the anti-depressants she’d put into her purse container was missing, and mentioned her hopes that the theif got “sick”.
I made a stand, and spoke my mind on what is right. This is honorable, and I actually don’t mean Indygrrl harm, I hope she learns and grows from this mistake. I stand by my words, and my opinion. Some don’t agree with it, so be it. I respect that, and I ask that you pause a moment, and respect me for standing by what I believe in. I stated my thoughts on this matter respectfully here in this thread, I ask for respect in return.
Can you explain to me what part of “nothing” was outrageous and immoral? Because, if you’ll recall, no drugs were planted for the person to take:
Bolding mine, by the way. About the worst thing Indygrrl did was to hope that the anti-depressant (which she did not plant) made the thief ill. I could be wrong, but I don’t believe there’s any law against wishing ill on people who steal from you.
That is what she claims now, but that is not what was originally claimed in the previous thread. A previous poster mentioned planting laxatives in place of the pain medicine, and I believe she got her inspiration from that. (Didn’t someone get sternly warned by a mod for suggesting spiking something with laxative a while back?) Again, my perception of what happened.
No one but Indygrrl can really know for sure what actually occured, and of course she doesn’t want people to think ill of her either. It’s very handy, that she now just so happens to carry other medicines in her purse regularly. What I’d like to know, if that is the case, why is it that these other pills, which in her own words “looked similar” weren’t mistakenly taken before this? I think it odd, that suddenly other pills are now mentioned, and wonder why she didn’t speak of it sooner as in “She could have taken the wrong pill, and made herself sick.”
It’s not quite so black and white as anyone has posted. She’s human, and very capable of making mistakes based on not thinking before action is taken, and I think the truth is somewhere inbetween what you believe I imply, and what **Indygrrl ** claims. I can also understand and sympathize that she doesn’t want a “black mark” in people’s perceptions. I think she’ll do well just taking more care and thinking before she acts. I believe she can put this behind her, if she is more careful and less reckless in the future.
Whatever the case, she now realizes how dangerous leaving prescription pills where “drug fiends” can steal them is. That’s the important thing. No one seems to have been harmed from this. Indygrrl just got an abrupt wakeup call. I fully sympathize with the idea of having important medicines stolen, and the outrage and frustration of being in such a situation. There are other ways to resolve the problem though. I hope she makes use of them, and takes care of this problem. I hope the theif is caught on camera, and prosecuted.