I once came across a report of an office that was plagued by a food-stealer. Someone brought in pizza that had <ahem> special mushrooms on it as “bait” for the thief.
Sure enough, it was real easy to figure out who was eating other people’s food. Just look for the guy jumping up on the desk screaming that the phone was trying to kill him. Nobody fessed up to the mushrooms, but the guy was canned.
Whether that’s true or not, it is fun to fantasize about.
I agree that it should be treated as stealing, no different than stealing from someone else’s desk or purse.
The communal nature of a workplace fridge does lend itself to the possibility of accidents and mistakes (which only underlines the necessity of proper labelling and making sure you LOOK at what you’re grabbing), so I think a two strike policy might be operable. Everyone gets a chance to make one mistake (as long as it’s a plausible mistake, like drinking the wrong pepsi or grabbing the wrong Lean Cuisine, not grabbing someone else’s leftover stir fry or drinking from someone else’s thermos). Repeated thefts should result in firing.
Castration.
I bring in Lean Pockets, and right now there are a couple in the freezer of flavors I would eat, but I can’t swear I brought them. I am leaving them alone, but I am thinking of posting a flyer and e-mailing out “If I don’t hear from anyone in a week, I will assume they’re mine and begin eating them.”
We had a rash of incidents, from stuff disappearing from the fridge (or in my case, someone took a bite of the sandwich and put it back :rolleyes: ) and then from in people’s desks. E-mails were flying as people began revealing individual cases. They got assembled and sent to Security. It’s been quieter since then, but I don’t use the fridge anymore since my windowsill is plenty cold right now.
There is supposedly a regular lunch thief here, but I’ve never been the victim. Maybe my food looks nasty to other people working here. (I certainly don’t bring in any of the foods they normally bring in for lunch, so there’s no mistaking my food for someone else’s.) Some people label their food while others don’t, but most people bring their lunch in a plastic bag (mostly grocery bags) to contain all their stuff.
Personally, if I caught someone eating my lunch, I’d make a big show of chastising them. The building is set up so that, if you’re loud enough, everyone in the building can hear you talk in the kitchen. Luckily enough, there haven’t been any stolen lunches while I’ve been working here. (I’ve been here since August.)
There’s a terrific commercial I just saw last night. An office food thief goes into the empty lunchroom and hunts through fridge for something good, and finds a tupperware container with a big salad topped with grilled salmon. He starts to eat it, and is instantly and savagely tackled by a petite bookkeeper-type woman who takes back her lunch from him.
The commercial ends with him stirring and moaning from where he’s lying crumpled up against the wall, and she quickly returns and gives him a vicious kick or two.
Hysterical!
Public humiliation at the very least! 
I drink a protein drink that comes in a bottle that looks a lot like the Starbucks Frappuccino bottles. I’ve had at least 3 stolen from the fridge; I only wish I could have been there to watch them spew it out after the first taste. 
VCNJ~
Highly unlikely, since psilocybin mushrooms are rather nasty in taste and it would be damn hard to eat an entire dose worth without realizing something was amiss.
I think firing is too extreme for a first offense UNLESS the rules are worked out in advance and posted on the fridge or distributed in an employee handbook.
“Stealing from the company or your co-workers will result in immediate firing and potential criminal and/or civil charges being filed. This includes taking food from the refrigerator that does not belong to you.”
Then firing is fine for a first offense.
Public humiliation and the requirement that the perpetrator buy everybody’s lunch for a week should be sufficient.
But on a pizza? It could happen. Cover it up with some stronger flavors like green olives, onions. Not sure what the cooking would do to efficacy of the mushrooms, though.
It does depend on the situation; mistaken identity or intentional theft but if it’s outlined to all the employees upon hiring that stealing food from the fridge is the same as nicking someone’s purse then firing should be the first action.
If someone were to dig in to a tub of yoghurt and realise that it isn’t the flavour they brought in, and therefore someone else, they should ask around to find out who owned it, admit what happened and run to the store to replace their lunch.
hijack: teela brown; Is it a commercial for a brand of grilled salmon? [/hijack]
If you could get past the taste, I doubt the cooking would do much. Vegetables on pizza that haven’t been pre-cooked tend to say fairly fresh, and 'shrooms are often had in tea, so they’d withstand a little heat just fine.
You guys are tuff. I work in a small office and we often share what is in the fridge, ie. a bag of bagels.
I once worked in an office with a an open box of chips and chocolat bars placed by a vendor using the honor system. There was a price for each item, and a little cardboard box to put money in. Usually when the vendor came we would have too much money as people had rounded 85 cents to a dollar or such.
One time the vendor came and we were $50 short! Seems a new tenant in our office was running short of money and was supplementing his diet. Upon further investigation he was also living in our office, and hiding his suitcase during the day. Also all his cheques bounced. Good times.
It isn’t. And yet, for some reason I could leave a twenty dollar bill on my desk, and it probably wouldn’t be touched, but if I were to put a pie or a cake in the fridge, it would be gone by the end of the day. People may consider themselves as honest as the day is long, and yet seem to be able to put that integrity aside when grazing from another’s lunch bag. As strange as it sounds, this was a grand awakening for me, to realize the compulsions that make it so hard for some people to lose weight.
We had a lunch thief once who was absolutely brazen. A friend once brought in leftovers in a divided Tupperware container; chicken, rice, vegetables. He opened the fridge at lunch to find that someone had eaten his lunch, washed the container and returned it to the fridge. He sat just around the corner from the kitchen area and microwave, and had no idea that this was going on. I’d pay good money to know which of my trusted colleagues could pull that off.
Olives and onions are no match for cow shit. Trust me, they are vile and potent.
My department is very lucky to have a fridge at all, we are the only department that does. And as such, we are tasked with being very resposible about its use. Everything MUST be labeled with name and date. Management will (and frequently does) throw anything that is not properly labeled or that is even suspected of being old in the trash with no warning.
Where I work, the theft of food would indicate a personality flaw that would make that person unsuitable to work here. You can’t really give a secrurity clearance to a thief. They would be let go.
Presumably this is an agreed-upon system though. Sure, people might bring something communal in and put it on the agreed-upon-communal-food space.
But when I bring in my bottle of Coffemate or half-and-half, I intend to use it all myself and not to have it used communally. Do I need to mark the level on it each time I use it, people???
Well, all I am saying, is that,* hypothetically,*if I had personal experience with aforementioned fungi, that I think on a strongly flavored pizza it could pass. The guy might go, hmm, that wasn’t the greatest, but hypothetically, the flavor when mixed with other things would be tolerable for consumption. If the victim had no experience with fungi before, the quantities could be less, (although I don’t think you really get a tolerance,) just for the sole fact that he was probably unbalanced to begin with.
If the rules were laid out in advance and everyone was told that it was a firable offense, fire away. If not this should be reason enough to update the employee manual. Honestly though if you don’t want your lunch stolen put it in a brown paper bag, label the outside with your name and staple it shut. If they don’t know what is inside they are far less likely to steal it. After all, why chance getting caught because you think that it could be pizza if you know it could just as easily be watercress sandwiches? Failing that bring lunches that don’t need to be kept cool so you can lock them in your desk.
Whatever the policy is should be followed. Severe disciplinary action for a first offense is okay by me. Second offense, firing.
But adding something noxious to food, like Ex-lax? No way. That’s assault and can land the person who added it in jail.
OTOH, something harmless that only temporarily colored the urine sounds good. IANAL, so do at your own risk.
How is it assault? What if I put it in my food because I wanted it there? What if I need Ex-Lax and that is how I choose to take it?
Are banks guilty of assault when the dye pack explodes in the bank robbers’ car?