Heh I ask for painkillers at work all the time- but that’s just because the nurses have the keys to the medicine trolleys, and they’ll give you co-codamol if you ask nicely. I don’t actually ask them for their own personal supply.
Good Greif! If your job requires so many of your staff to have that many “kill the pain” crap on hand, then you are working in the wrong place!
Anyone who either “needs”, borrows or carries just-in-case pain relief to work everyday has “issues”!
Seriously! Your average person (well unless me and most people I know are the minority) take a panadol a couple of times a year!
Your moochy co-worker has bigger issues then being moochy BUT why are you carrying pain killers on a daily basis?
In my workplace, at my desk, I keep ibuprofen & bandaids. If anyone should get a paper cut (or worse), normally they’d have to walk down two long halls & use a secure phone outside the door of HR just to have someone come to the door and ask them what they want. After that, the person will have to stand there in the hall while one bandaid is fetched, accompanied by sighing and just-look-how-you’ve-disturbed-my-work-for-your-petty-problems looks. I’ve had to do it, it was a pain, and now I take pity on my co-workers. Plus, I’m a supervisor, and I prefer to have “my people” not wandering, injured, around the halls. 
I used to have a person who took more than her fair share of painkillers. One day, I went to the dollar store & got her her own bottle and gave it to her. I said, “Now when I run out, I’ll send people over to you.” She didn’t seem best pleased, but oh well.
I carry prescription painkillers every day because I have recurring pain from a neck injury from a car crash several years back and have need of the prescription once a week or so. I carry a supply of non-prescription painkillers for the same reason that I carry a packet of tissues, a pack of gum and a pen and paper; there’s a chance I will need or want one of these items at some point in the day and would prefer to have them on hand.
I keep a bottle of aspirin in my briefcase and pop one every week or two, on average, I guess. My colleagues know I have aspirin and will occasionally ask me for one. No biggie. If they don’t abuse the privilege, and thank me afterwards, it’s all good.
I once worked in a high stress outfit where thirty or more traders worked in one room. One of the lead traders had a large candy jar on his desk filled with Advil and a sign that said “FOR EVERYBODY”.
I didn’t work in the room but thought it was odd that he had such a large jar of medicine.
I once asked him if he really expected to use all of that. He looked at me funny and said,“I fill it once a month”.
I’m going to vote for the view that you and your circle of acquaintances are in the minority here.
Stressful jobs often generate headaches. Especially when the job involves customer service - the stress of swallowing bile and anger does wear on a lot of people.
Some people are also more susceptible to headaches than others. For myself, I’m far more susceptible to high CO[sub]2[/sub] concentrations than most people. If I’m in a closed in room, I’ll often get headaches. In winter, it’s a very common problem for me.
I think you can agree that a severe headache, or even joint pain, can degrade a person’s ability to do their job. If someone experiences either once a week at work, doesn’t it make sense to carry some OTC pain killers to allow them to be better able to do their job?
I’m not saying that constant use of OTC analgesics isn’t something that people shouldn’t worry about - but AIUI (and the doctors in this thread who have posted will correct me, if I’m wrong) the health risks only really start when a person is taking the maximum allowed daily dose for a chronic period of time, that is over weeks or months.
Occaisional daily use once or twice a week isn’t dangerous nor drug abuse. And if someone experiences situations that leave them with severe headaches or joint ache on a weekly basis, doesn’t it make sense to carry with them the means to ameliorate the pain?
Using pain killers on a daily basis is an issue. Having them in your desk on a daily basis is what smart people do, so that they can actually deal with the occasional workplace headache, instead of whining to everyone around them about it because they didn’t bother to buy any.
I had this same issue several years back and it was annoying to me (and my wife, as I kept refilling my ‘desk’ sized Tylenol bottle from the one in the linen closet). The next time I ran out, I noticed we had some TylenolPM tabs/caplets and I put those in the bottle instead.
Cow-orker/junky did ask why the caplets were ‘green’ the next time she glommed her fix. I told her they were the brand my wife got on sale (true). She saw the ‘Tylenol’ name stamp and scarfed 'em down like Smarties.
I don’t know for certain if she fell asleep at her desk or not, but she stopped asking for them after that. 
I don’t know about this. It could be hazardous to you. Putting a different medicine in a marked medicine bottle, even and over-the-counter one, where you were pretty sure your co-worker would find it comes awfully close to entrapment or something along that line.
I work in a factory, repetitive work injuries are simply a fact of life we deal with. It’s the norm, not the exception, that we’ll be taking pain relief to get thru each day. You couldn’t swing a cat in there without hitting someone with prescription-strength drugs for sale, and nearly everyone has over the counter pills.
Yep, we have issues all right, repetitive work tends to do that to the human body. If we all quit, who’d build your cars and televisions and tennis shoes, etc?
I’d say, “Nope, sorry, I used it all to deal with the pain in the ass that is you.”
Or something like that. The only time I mooch at work is when I’m at the sportsworks building, because the one guy who works the snack bar there gives us all free fountain drinks and free refills.
(And yes, before anyone brings it up, I do mooch off of my folks. Better than mooching off the government, says I.)
Currently our work first aid stash has only Aspirin and Advil. Discrimination against us aspirin allergy people, I say!
Mine too, but then I work in hospital pharmacies. The most I’ve ever seen in a non-medical workplace has been maybe Tylenol and some band-aids.
“Entrapment”? I do not think that word means what you think it means…
Yeah, this was a really bad idea, if serious. Beyond just drowsiness, in high enough doses diphenhydramine (the sleepy stuff in Tylenol PM) can induce hallucinations and psychosis. Probably not something you’d want to help happen, especially in the workplace.
You could be right, but if I know someone takes my OTC medicine and I put some other medicine in the bottle surrupticiously what should I call it?
“Mislabeling”?
I was thinking of substituting Ex-Lax pills for the ibuprofin, if any are similar enough. But I agree that the liability risk is too high. I’d just give her a bottle both to be generous and to get rid of her.
I’d just put some candy-TickTacs or whatever.
And a note-“THEIF!!!”