Food Theivery at the Office

At my previous job, my boss used to take my coworker's jelly bellys. One day I brought in a pack of BeanDoozled (https://jellybelly.com/nav/cat1/beanboozledjellybeans/0). One can only imagine the fun when he ate it!

I remember having a similar issue with housemates when I used to share. I never knew who was stealing my food until I decided to try and catch them out. I used to work at pizza hut at the time, so I brought home some "specialty" pizzas from work. Wrote my name on the box, wrote do not touch, extremely spicy etc; enough to warn anybody that it was mine and very spicy. I had made the pizzas myself by layering the bottom of the pizza with all the hot and spicy food and spices I could find and covering the top with normal "safe" toppings. I knew who ever ate it would suffer, no matter how high a tolerance they had. Next day I came home from work to one of my housemates all red faced, sweating and looking like they had been through an ordeal. I asked them did they touch my pizza? He couldn't lie, it was all over his face! Needless to say, my food was never touched again.

I've gotten my revenge. Working in maintenance for a time, guys were always taking whatever was in the fridge.

A little spoiled milk here, a bit of laxative there... people learned to leave my food alone.

I've had it happen a few times. It made me mad at first, but then I figured maybe they needed it more than I did. How bad would it suck to be hungry at work all day because you couldn't afford lunch? So it doesn't make me mad anymore, although sometimes it makes me sad, for whoever took it and sometimes for me, if I was really looking forward to whatever I brought.

this may be so, however when it started happening at my office the resolution came quickly. Our no-nonsense boss gathered everyone together and basically pointed out that this was stealing, and it wouldn't be tolerated. If and when they were caught, they would be fired. Plain and simple. Then stuff started being left in the fridge for forever. There is now a Friday 4PM rule. If you still want your food, hurry before it ends up in the garbage at 4:05.

I had a friend who kept having people use up her coffee creamer. so the new bottle she bought she took a selfie of herself spitting in it and sent it to the whole office. No more problems.

Back in the 80's I had someone on Swing Shift going through people's food in the lunchroom. Sometimes taking it, sometimes eating half and leaving the other half in the fridge.

I tried a couple different things.

Made a chicken salad sandwich with chopped up habaneros in it. They took a couple bites and left the rest.

Most effective was putting Syrup of ipecac in some chowder. I not only stopped the person, but found out the next day who it was, because they were violently sick and sent home. I then confronted the person when they returned to work. I got wrote up for that, but it was worth it.

Good man!

That used to happen to me until I made a nice soup made of laxatives and dog poop, I put my name on it, and "Don't touch", I left it in the fridge and someone took it...the next day I put a note stating I hope you enjoyed the dog poop and laxative soup you ate yesterday....I've never had that happen again...lol

Yah, I don't believe this.

Opening the container alone would smell, let alone it would probably smell through the container.

Calling BS.

i don't believe any of the stories about people "spiking" their food. not only could it lead to them getting fired if caught, but it may even be illegal. anyone who would do that over stolen food is probably a sociopath. it's just food. a stolen tub of yogurt is not grounds to go around poisoning people or making them ingest harmful ingredients -- even if the victim is a food thief.

That used to happen to me until I made a nice soup made of laxatives and dog poop, I put my name on it, and "Don't touch", I left it in the fridge and someone took it...the next day I put a note stating I hope you enjoyed the dog poop and laxative soup you ate yesterday....I've never had that happen again...lol

Yah, I don't believe this.

Opening the container alone would smell, let alone it would probably smell through the container.

Calling BS.

i don't believe any of the stories about people "spiking" their food. not only could it lead to them getting fired if caught, but it may even be illegal. anyone who would do that over stolen food is probably a sociopath. it's just food. a stolen tub of yogurt is not grounds to go around poisoning people or making them ingest harmful ingredients -- even if the victim is a food thief.

Believe it.

laxative cookies/brownies/cake/crumble

will do the trick every time never done it at the office only in college student flat fridges

also labelling milk as expressed breast milk tends to mean it's there for you when you want it
or add green food colouring ...

I've always wanted to do something along these lines:
http://www.defensedevices.com/thief-detection-powder-visible.html

This would only work if no one would touch your stuff for innocent reasons such as moving it to get to their food. There is also powder that only shows up under UV which might be cool so that they don't just say they were looking when the notice the color. Going around with a UV light would be pretty weird though.

No one has stolen my food so far. I do have a tempting chobani yogurt in there today though, so I might be back later with a retraction. Usually I cover "extra tempting" items, such as starbucks caramel frappecinno bottles, in a bag so that they people don't see it. It wouldn't stop a dedicated thief but it would stop the crime of opportunity.