To Catch a (lunch) Thief...
We have a shared lunch area on our floor. Two refrigerators, 120 people on the floor. Add to that, the employees that work on the floor that’s parallel to ours in an adjacent building (people work for the same company) have access to our lunch area. People generally gather/heat their lunch and eat in their cubes or offices.
Things have been disappearing from lunches. Not the whole lunch, but bits and pieces, as well as frozen entrees left in the freezer. One single person is not being singled out, and because of the number of people in different departments with access, it’s impossible to stop it by just sending out a memo.
It’s not that things are being left overnight and they’re being eaten. A lunch is brought in that morning and part of it has disappeared by noon.
What’s your best creative solution to either safeguard a lunch, or catch the thief?
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Alpo dog food looks something like beef stew. Put that in a bowl and see if they steal your “stew”.
I had that happen to me once. Someone – I knew who it was – ate a frozen meal I had brought in. Would having people put their names on their lunches help shame the thief away?
How about that purple coloring they use on money? Can ordinary humans get that?
If you’re a girl, get a big purse, put the usual in it. Then take your lunch and put in in your bag. You don’t have to try and stuff a lunch box in there, but just put a water bottle, or gatorade or whatever you drink in there. Get one of those little plastic lunch boxes and put that container in your bag, pack some napkins or pack a thermostat for soups, and keep your lunch (which is in your purse) near buy. If you need to heat something up then heat it up tat the office, but stand by the microwave. For the guys, you can get a backpack or duffle bag, or whatever you want to carry your lunch in and do the same, or you can go out, or, like @robmandu said, get a wireless webcam and put it in the lunch area. Hope this helps solve the “very hungry person” situation.
You can buy bags with a cooling feature to it so you could keep your lunch at your desk. In the hospital, it was the honour system.
From time to time we have this problem at my company, but not often. Nevertheless, I keep a mini-fridge in my office, mainly because it’s so convenient. Personally, I wouldn’t want to know who’s stealing my food—I just don’t give them the opportunity.
When my dad was younger he had a guy stealing his lunch. Dad mixed up some Alpo with some mayonaise and relish and made some real nice sandwhiches. Later he told the suspected lunch thief he hoped he enjoyed the dog food. Lunches quit disappearing.
We were talking about lunch theft in the breakroom one day in the breakroom. One gentleman said at his other job he used to keep a package of Oreos at his station. Someone kept stealing his cookies so he took a few out of the front of the package and scraped out the filling. He then replaced it with some white caulking. He never found out if anyone broke a tooth but they quit eating his cookies.
There’s a product called Bitter Apple that’s used to prevent pets from licking bandages. It’s beyond bad tasting. Set out a decoy with something that’s been sprayed with the product – you might even get lucky enough to find out who it is by the salivating and gagging.
Make a sandwich and put cayenne pepper or hot sauce mixed with mayo on the inside. One bite will make them rethink about stealing a lunch ever again.
Or you could also label your lunches with the poison symbol and say eat at your own risk.
Urine. In the apple juice bottle. :D
You could make chocolate chip cookies w/chopped up ex-lax.
If you really want to put an end to it, you have to catch the thief (or thieves) in the act, and then send out a company-wide memo naming them, or better yet a photo of them in the act. Nothing is a better deterrent than shame.
If you are really committed to this endeavor, I’d set up a spy cam that transmits to your computer so you can watch the lunchroom action from your desk, and record the video which will eventually become the priceless evidence.
A simpler approach would be to create trap. Plant a food item in the fridge where the thief will be sure to find it. Make sure its something the thief likes to eat. Coat the package with an invisible marker. When the item goes missing, walk around with a portable black light and scan everyone’s hands. Take a photo to capture the guilty moment, and email it to the office. The only problem w/ this plan is that if someone has to move your item out of the way to get theirs, they might inadvertently get marked, too. You’d have to cleverly place the bait. This plan would be even better if you combine it w/ the food swapping suggestions from other people. Then, in your email you can say not only did this guy steal, but he also ate my dog poo sandwich.
Oooh, great ideas! I like the alpo lunch. Perhaps a few carrots and potatoes, and it’s beef stew! The hot sandwich sounds easy to do. The invisible marker sounds like it could be interesting, or some sort of dye.
Someone at work put a note in their lunch bag that said “I spit in all my food.”
@PandoraBoxx When I worked the ward in Cherry point I loaded a banana with ipecac syrup, but I had access to the syrup and 18 gauge angiocaths and syringes. I also bought a pack of two cookies, ate one and very blatantly licked the other, then put it back. Of course, we all knew who the thief was. He never did it again. Our boss didn’t let him go home to puke.
I like the web cam idea. But beware. Idiocy in this country more often than not gets rewarded, lots of times that reward is monetary. I wouldn’t be a bit surprised to see this on TV as a lawsuit initiated by the perp against the company for “Shame and humiliation” And he could WIN! That’s the worst part. He’s not too ashamed to steal in the first place. You get to have a ride in a police car if you do that in the store. So like I said, beware and be careful.
In one of those threads I linked, notice the part about the illegality of setting booby traps.
No worries, Jeruba. It’s more fun to think about doing and discussing the options than actually doing it.
@Jeruba Hello! I went back and looked at the threads. I didn’t see anything about the legality of a web cam or other surveillance. But I can CLEARLY remember many years ago a woman peed in a public pool that had a chemical in it designed to turn blue if mixed with urine. There were signs everywhere warning people. Plus the thought that really one shouldn’t have to tell an adult not to pee in a public pool. Why would anyone think that other people want to swim in her urine? Well, she sued and won for her “humiliation and suffering”. It’s a shame, because she sure wasn’t too ashamed to pee in the first place when she thought nobody would know. I suspect the thief feels the same way. Or there may be some “entitlement” issues.
Get some ExLax and conceal it as a candy bar. The culprit will end up in the bathroom.
i would either bring my lunch in a little “lunchbox” cooler or fix up some stuff that has expired and ruined. hahaha!
I have seen the Anti-theft sandwich bag, a sandwich bag that has paint spots on the outside that look like mold spots.
nobody wants to eat something that looks moldy.
Just be sure to eat it when nobody is looking.
Also, people may throw out your lunch because it looks as if it has gone bad.
Post a note on the shared refrigerator that says:
“In response to thefts of food items from lunches:
some lunches in this fridge have unsanitary items included or
have items unsuitable for human consumption substituted for real lunch items.
If you are not eating from your own lunch, do you know what you are eating?*”
I’d just stick a note on my lunch with no name saying DON’T TOUCH, I’ve had whooping cough.
This reminds me of a guy I work with who is an introvert, his tupperware lid disappeared from the kitchen so he went home on stress leave for 3 days, in the meantime after a “Lost Lid” email was sent to 100 people the lid was found in “the lost lid drawer”. I quietly laughed to myself upon seeing the general manager and his assistant who had also joined in on the hunt, find the lid and place it on the guys desk while he was still on leave. After they were out of sight my co-workers and I all roared with laughter (I know this is juvenile but not much drama happens where I work, lol)
@ekans, those bags are great! Obviously this is a pretty common problem, and someone sees an opportunity in it.
@Dr_Lawrence, that sounds like the best solution.
@Dr_Lawrence takes a bow to his friends with great appreciation!
@robmandu I saw that on Ellen yesterday. Too cute!
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