Malicious Food Tampering vs. Stupid Food Thieves

[Ginger Tea]

The only way to avoid the potential for suspicion is to either not give any impression that you would ever do such a thing (don't make threats, don't rant about your lunch having been stolen, etc) or to put in some effort to protect yourself and your reputation in another manner, such as finding a solution with a lock, or not keeping your food in a communal area.

In which way is ranting about the theft of food intent?
Saying "I'm going to get that fucker." or "... and I hope he chokes on it." are threats, but your phrasing implies that I should do nothing more than open the fridge, see its gone and calmly go about my day, informing my higher ups of the theft.

Bull shit, do you honestly think that no one when confronted with the lack off food doesn't say something out loud?

"Mother fucker!"
"What?"
"Just gone to get my lunch and it's not fucking here."
with optional "Again?" or "It's the third time this month."

That's classed as ranting to some people, yet no threats of retribution implied or obvious, just bitching to a 3rd party that your lunch has gone.

If you say "that's not what I mean." then you should have added that there were threats of retribution in those ravings.

Just saying your lunch has gone to the world in general, in a not so polite manner isn't incriminating, it's just stating a fact. Just as saying "That David Fucking Cameron is the fucking leader of the Conservatives." Unless something has happened and it is no longer true, with or without the swearing he is still in fact the leader of the Conservatives.

It's best to get the eff bombs out of the way in the initial reaction than have them slip out when telling your boss it's been the third time this month and you are not best pleased.



With regards to locked boxes, I have said that that may not be a practical solution due to the physical size of the staff fridge and amount of employees expected to use it. Your fridge/staff size might allow for such things, someone else's might not.

So lets assume that "if I could I would, but I can't" is true, you still have options.
Food that doesn't need to be refrigerated.
One of those half litre ice bottles packed in with your now desk bound lockable lunch box.
The fridge and hope for the best that "My name Warning may contain" is enough even if it never contains anything on the list. We've already established they are taking food with no listed ingredients, so if they are willing to bite into something 'blind' is a May contain label an actual deterrent? Yes it worked for one poster here, but may is just another level of risk, they've won fridge roulette before.

Most people don't worry about the way they do their labelling and would just say "may contain." is enough, after all peanuts say "may contain" and not DOES.

WARNING
this product contains one or more of the following items

This states for a fact that at least one allergen is present but not which, is it yours is it safe who knows? Even if it is a lie.

But when there is a stack of labels in the kitchen for staff to use stating such 'facts', they become less facts and more "if everything contains allergens nothing does" to those who are still on a winning streak.

Yes, it would be fucked up if you brought pb&j without any thought of getting a food thief an allergic reaction but people thought you did it because they'd heard you ranting about how you wanted him or her to choke on the food they'd stolen. But that sort of thing does happen, which is why it baffles me that people are so resistant to doing anything proactive to protect themselves from such perceptions.

I've been deviating away from the whole notion that the food thief is known and also aware of their allergy, it's only due to the OP stating said thief was known that this has stayed, had they said they were 80% sure it was Mr Allergen, they could still be 100% wrong.

I've already posted about 'catching them in the act' I don't monitor what you are taking out of the fridge so long as it doesn't look like mine, if someone asks about a Hello Kitty lunch box, that I might recall or know for future use, but I brown paper bag in a fridge full of them (not widely used in the UK that I am aware of), sorry no can do.

And I doubt a company would start locking the fridge and get us all to queue up with our ID's so we get our correct lunch at a specified time.



There is a whole lot you can say about the company due to their perceived inaction, they may have had them in the office and said that it's a lie. I've had bosses outright tell me that because they didn't see it happen nothing will be done, they tend to only do something after the fact.

Best case scenario if they are not going to single out the guy (or if the suspect is unknown but an on going issue affecting many members of staff who may be at your door every lunch with an unhappy face), is to write up a new lunch policy where it is spelt out that you need to label food with your name and allergens, even if said printed label just says "may contain" and list the top 10.
Failure to comply could result in management throwing unlabelled food out during a random inspection, so we are back to apples with may contain nuts gluten etc as the label is an all in one solution.

[Ginger Tea]

Had this just been about food tampering, we can all agree that it is morally wrong, I have stated enough that if I cant eat it why did I make it.

This thread would have been 1 page long.

Also we can agree that taking peanut oil to a loaf of bread or an apple is wrong, I don't recall ever saying otherwise in this thread.

Adding allergens to a meal because you wanted them is fine.
Adding an allergen so that you wont eat it yourself is wrong. The whole point in bringing in a lunch is to eat it.



I will abide office policy regarding food and where I can store and eat it.

If the company has banned allergens, don't bring them in, if I have to spend time looking at the ingredients compared to almost never like I normally do then so be it, if I buy it and I cant take it to work the next day, I just eat it at home, so long as I have something considered 'safe' I wont go without. If I had to loose out on my hypothetical #82's then so be it.

If I have to label allergens as well as my name, I will.

Hell after this thread even without allergen labels being required I might even do them at home for my first day.

"why does your apple say WARNING this product contains one or more of the following?"
"I printed up a few sheets of name labels and as some people are allergic to stuff I am just covering my arse, but as it's also got my name on it, it's mostly to say 'this apple is mine' so yeah that can of coke is the same. Sandwiches however, no idea what's in em from day to day."

[AccountingDrone]

In all of the places I've worked, anyone who shared the kitchen tended to know eachother, and anytime someone had an allergy or some other issue, they would inform us of it, and we'd take the proper precautions.

All I know is [if I were still working] that if I found out that whomever kept stealing my food has a peanut allergy, my lunch every day would be a peanut butter and jelly sandwich and they can go fuck themselves.

[Hyena Dandy]

While I know there's debate on the forum about the death sentence, I think we can all agree that it's not appropriate for lunch-stealers?

[Ginger Tea]

Darwinism isn't the same as a lethal injection.

We could take every precaution going (aside from the locked lunch boxes as they might not fit in the fridge of your work place) short of banning allergens or food in general forcing the staff to go out at lunch.
We could label food, but if every lunch bag is labelled "Warning may contain ..." then to some its as much of a deterrent as no label at all.

You have a citrus allergy and the salad you took was prepped with lemon juice, its not going to be obvious like a PBJ to a nut allergy co worker. You cant blame Tesco's because someone didn't read the label and had a bad reaction or died, so why should we blame the co worker who bought it to eat?

You would think that someone with an allergy would not do this, but apparently they do.
Then you get the "I'm allergic but not." crowd, I posted about the GF people who then ask where their garlic bread is, a recent post on Not always working would fit this thread.

A customer comes in wanting to return crunchy peanut butter for smooth, has receipt, same brand same price no biggie co worker fetches the right one.

"Just as well I saw it in time, I cant have the crunchy I'm allergic to peanuts."

This left the poster and co worker blinking, should they have stopped the customer and say "You cant eat that if you are allergic to peanuts." or did she mean she just didn't like peanuts in their natural state just like I cant eat prawns whole.

What if she died and it some how trickled back to the store for the staff to find out? Should they be held accountable because someone with a peanut allergy willingly bought peanut butter to eat?

I say no, that's on the same level as cleaning a shot gun barrel with your tongue whilst seeing if you can reach the trigger.

[Jetfire]

Well a lockable lunch bag wouldn't take much more space than a regular lunch bag. I use a hot/cold bag from Sobeys and keep it at my desk. If I needed to 'lock' it, I could sew a loop on one end, and thread a lock through the zipper and the loop. Sure it would be relatively trivial to break open, but that would leave further evidence and (most importantly) be more noticeable in general than someone opening a bag in the fridge. As is usually the case with robbers, you don't usually need absolute protection; you just need to make it non-trivial so they will instead look for easier prey.

[Ginger Tea]

I found one of my old 'lunch boxes' it wasn't bought as one, it came in handy for random tat, but it was sold as such.

I knew it was large and you wouldn't get many to a fridge, it's 9*7*4.5 inches, well technically it's 8 inches as I only measured the case and not the fixed protruding handle.

That's been my go to memory of lunch boxes.

Out side of a fridge with a ice pack or two for the day, yeah left on the desk it's no biggie, providing that you are allowed to store and eat food at your desk, if you have a desk that is.

[siead_lietrathua]

ignoring the locking part* i just don't get why people would need a labeled lunchpail VS a labeled brown sack. one won't deter a thief more than the other, and any person who makes an honest mixup will put the bag back when they realize the stuff inside it is not their own.

and yeah i can vouch for small work fridges. we have one about the sise of a house fridge, minus freezer. and 50+ staff. it fills up fast with just creamers and condiments people leave there, let alone the lunches people leave to finish the next day. lunchpails become unpractical when we have a full crew. (15+ people)


*i mean, really, it's a group of freaking adults. the thief should be written up, not the victims needing to buy locks. hell soon people will be advocating these are mandatory.

[Jetfire]

Well my #1 solution has been to go to HR (or the appropriate higher ups) to get it dealt with. The rest of the solutions are more "OK HR isn't working, what else can be done?"

A lockable lunch bag is another solution. If you have enough room to put it in the fridge in the first place, a lockable bag will fit too; and probably better protect you from the new life forms that tend to develop in Workplace Fridges too.

Option 3 would be to use an insulated bag and some freezer packs and just keep the lunch at my desk or in my locker (or whereever else you are allowed to keep personal gear like jackets and stuff). This is what I actually do, not because of a lunch thief but because I just eat at my desk.

Option 4 would be to eat out.

Option 5 (or maybe Option 4) would be to try other types of lunches, ones that I still enjoy but are harder to steal without being very obvious. I'd probably also consider taping (and otherwise making annoying to remove) the containers my lunches are in, so someone trying to break in would be much more obvious. (Goes along with #2)

Maliciously tampering with my lunches is way down at the bottom of what I would do, if I would even consider it in the first place, in light of the other options.

[Ginger Tea]

Well my #1 solution has been to go to HR (or the appropriate higher ups) to get it dealt with. The rest of the solutions are more "OK HR isn't working, what else can be done?"

BTDT, granted it wasn't enough to be an habitual problem, but it boiled down to "did you see who took it? No, well neither did we."

Maliciously tampering with my lunches is way down at the bottom of what I would do, if I would even consider it in the first place, in light of the other options.

Nor would I, tampering so I can't eat it is stupid, even if I was able to drink hot sauce straight out of the bottle (never tried) I wouldn't go the route of lets make a hot sauce sandwich unless there is such a thing on the market, if I get to it first and can eat it without thinking I'm eating a shit lunch, well its kinda OK, but 99% of the work force would see it as a case of "who brings a hot sauce sandwich in, it's meant to be a trap." unless I'm known to drown virtually anything I bring in whilst sat at a canteen table.

If I can't lock my food away and am following office policy which just entails my name on the bag, that means I don't have to list allergens and if I don't know the thief or their allergens, is labelling them as such a deterrent?

Or if I suspect it's Mr Peanut and label "Warning may contain nut's" that wont stop the true thief who is allergic to citrus, which I didn't bother warning about when a emptied a few tablespoons worth of lemon juice into my salad.

EDIT: that fridge locker, fuckballs that's over kill.
biggest flaw in domestic use, its a combination lock and portable, I go to work or bed I'm not to know someone doesn't take it out to their room and spend however long it takes to go through all combinations.

Knew a guy that said the same about bikes with combination locks and were not chained to a post or railing. What's to stop someone taking it a few yards a way to an alley and 5-10 minutes later (cant recall how long he said it would take to do 0000-9999) you have a bike. If it's connected to a post or you are ballsy enough you can do it there and then. Unlike PIN's the vast majority of combination cycle locks do not lock you out or sound an alarm after X amounts of tries.
Oh you can buy combination locks with alarms built in, but TBH you would be better off buying a Dlock that needs more than a basic hacksaw to get through for way less than the price no doubt.

When my £20 junker bike got too much of a hassle I bought a brand new £150 bike and a fiver lock, the guy said "WTF you spend that much on a bike (granted bikes do cost a heck of a lot more for some people) and that little on the lock." I told him the bike I had 'abandoned' at the cycle rack near by had a £30 lock on it and the fiver one was to replace it until I could come back into town for it.

[Andara Bledin]

*i mean, really, it's a group of freaking adults. the thief should be written up, not the victims needing to buy locks.

Should is a great sentiment. In the meantime, we lock our houses, we lock our cars, we lock our luggage, and we lock our phones. Is it really so unreasonable to extend that to our food when we know someone in our workplace is stealing it?

[Ginger Tea]

Again it all boils down to if you can actually fit a locking lunch box or hell a lunch box in general into the staff fridge.

A lock on the door is a part of the door, it's not something that makes the door 50 times bigger, my lunch box that I posted measurements for could contain a can of coke and one or two sandwiches, the can takes up a fair bit, but the sandwiches alone not much bigger than a double CD case.

If you can buy a lunch box or fridge friendly bag that has a lock and it takes up very little extra space then fine, but not everyone is going to get a slim line box especially if what they eat cant fit into it.

What would your thoughts be if you saw that cage appear in the fridge one day? It's huge for most domestic fridges and TBH that's the size of fridges I've seen in work places. You've told the guy he should lock his food if he's worried about further theft, his response is over kill, but hey, he's acted on your advice and bought a locking 'lunch box'.

EDIT: I've done a google image search of "lockable lunch box" and as plastic clasps count as a locking mechanism, I have found very few that actually have a lock and key. I thought I saw one which was square and is 15cm square and 10cm high, but looking at other images on the product page, there are no key holes, its just a metal clasp that can be opened with ease.

Yes there are some bags with dual zips that take up little space and can have a luggage padlock added, but very few jump out saying "I am an all in one solution you don't have to go to Timpson's for a padlock." Hell I had an old coin box which had a naff lock, but it took up very little extra space compared to my lunch should I have used it as such.

[Jetfire]

If it's a chronic problem and HR isn't helping, find out if others are having a problem and/or might be seeing something.

Get a distinctive lunchbag; instead of just a generic plastic bag from a grocery store, get a reuseable one you can decorate very distinctively. Let others know what's going on (without accusing anyone) so they may notice someone snitching from your lunch bag.

See if a camera can be set up in the lunchroom watching the fridge or where ever brought in lunches are getting stored. (Especially if others are having problems with lunch stealers too).

Labelling lunches with "May contain Peanuts" type labels shouldn't be needed unless the company has a policy about it for some reason. Then follow the company's policy.

Creating a lockable container (bag or box) shouldn't be too difficult really to do cheaply. The idea is you want to make it harder/less friendly to get into if they shouldn't be. If they are damaging your container to get into it, then you have more to go to HR with. My own bag is a 12x10x6 thermos bag with a zipper. It would be trivial to sew on a fabric loop at the far end and use a simple padlock to keep the zipper closed if I felt I needed to do that; and it would take up no more space than it does now, while making the bag harder to get into.

And if your food is still being stolen even after some basic protections, (and especially if you have put a lock that gets visibly damaged), you might be able to start making a case for harassment even if you aren't positive who it is. At that point it would be fairly obvious they are targeting YOU and not just looking for targets of opportunity.

[siead_lietrathua]

Should is a great sentiment. In the meantime, we lock our houses, we lock our cars, we lock our luggage, and we lock our phones. Is it really so unreasonable to extend that to our food when we know someone in our workplace is stealing it?

actually, yes. we lock those other things because of the potential of strangers we don't know taking our shit, in an environment where any sort of control over it (police) cannot help until after the fact. when you have a large number of variables, it makes sense to take preventions to stack the odds in your favor.

whereas a workplace is a controlled environment, known people, with rules and the constant enforcement team known as management. if someone is repeatedly stealing shit, it should be dealt with immediately in the moment by the management on site. especially is we know who the thief is.

hell, if you know who the thief is, they are easy to confront in a workplace and put them (verbally) in their place like any other bully. to compare that to a potential anonymous house robber is apples and oranges.

[EricKei]

*i mean, really, it's a group of freaking adults. the thief should be written up, not the victims needing to buy locks.

You're right. It SHOULD never be needed. In a few, select cases -- meaning, those with a thief who is either persistent or untouchable (read: a manager who should be the one preventing the thefts in the first place), name labels simply let them know whether they're dining at Cafe EricKei or Siead's Pub that particular day. In those cases, the situation needs to be escalated to someone who WILL do something about it (especially if a manager is the thief and it can be proven -- this could be a mild form of Hostile Workplace Environment, or lead to same because of potential retribution by the thief and/or his buddies), and any preventative measures that the victims might have to take (such as a locking lunchbox) will, hopefully, only be temporary.

That fridge-cage thing is a bit ridonkulous, though. If I had roomies/family stealing my crap that often, I'd seriously consider just buying a mini-fridge for my own room, placing the most-frequently-stolen stuff in there, and just locking the room door.