A coworker stole my spicy food, got sick, and is blaming me (2016)
askamanager.org
askamanager.org
There are more unlikely stories on the same site, like this one: http://www.askamanager.org/2017/05/im-in-a-dominantsubmissiv...
...The dozens of comments taking it at face value?
I don't even see why it's relevant whether it's true or not.
If it isn’t true how is it relevant to anything?
Just because you're discussing it seriously doesn't mean you take it at face value. Just look at discussions about fictional works, particularly SF.
If it isn’t true how is it relevant to anything?
It's just food for thought and discussion. Is it relevant whether Schrödinger actually put a cat in a box?
It's clearly being presented as a true story by the original source. If it's not true it's not food for any kind of thought it's just a really badly written and stupid short story. Stop trying to justify lying.
I'm feeling like Brian: https://youtu.be/9czBBKof7Yo?t=1m30s
If it's real you can wonder ok what motivated actual people to behave in this way, what actually happened?
If it is made up (which it almost certainly is because it's so far fetched and ridiculous) then it has zero value. There's nothing worth thinking about here or discussing if it didn't actually happen. Like I said it's just a really poorly written short story.
You don't discuss literature the same way you discuss journalism. I can't believe you don't already know that?
http://www.askamanager.org/2016/10/update-a-coworker-stole-m...
What I fear for is that the termination will be in his records and he will have to explain this extremely bizzare story to whoever asks or is interested. I'm glad it all worked out so well for him. Hopefully that silly detail will not affect his future.
Just an FYI, there is no such thing. There isn't going to be a record that he was fired.
The alternative is having whatever you had on your resume before + 2 month gap, which if anybody asks about you I guess lie. It's not a nothingburger though.
Internal company records don't matter for shits.
I'd hope the owner of the company would be willing to provide a reference explaining that he was the victim of misconduct.
That explains why it sounded like HR had an ulterior motive by appearing to side with the thief without seeming interested in the spice-fan's side of the story.
For doubling your pay? Insane!
It's definitely marginal and indicates a kind of thoughtlessness. Firing? Maybe not. But it's not easily forgotten.
It's conceivable that someone could have a visually identical container (brown paper bag) and a visually identical lunch (sandwich and apple), in which case yes - that would be a mistake.
I'd bet that that is the case for much less than 5% of the lunches misappropriated.
Calling deliberate theft a "mistake" is fundamentally dishonest - it pollutes the meaning of the word mistake.
Want to give us some examples?
Honest mixups happen and when they are followed up with an apology then it's fine. Let common sense prevail.
I never got reprimanded, but I did have to sheepishly explain to a coworker that I drank his soda thinking it was one of the community ones since it was in the door of the fridge and unmarked.
I now work at a company with an extensive free kitchen and you have to do an extremely good job of marking your personal food since the default assumption will now be that the food is everyones.
That said, I really can't imagine any situation where it is reasonable if you are talking about people's homemade lunches, in a well labeled lunch box - as is the case in this story.
- Someone tells another coworker they can have their lunch, but they grab the wrong one (because the tag fell off or they didn't see the label)
- Someone says there is leftover food available in the kitchen after some catered meal, and the person didn't realize that container wasn't part of it.
- A new employee got confused about which refrigerator is the 'office stocked one' and which one is the 'personal items one'
- It was fridge cleaning day, and the person thought the food was getting tossed out anyway, so they ate it. Turns out the person was going to eat it that day (this one is borderline, not only because it is kinda gross but also kinda not cool)
- Two people had similar lunches and they just grabbed the wrong one without paying a ton of attention (much more common when a group of people go out to lunch together and come back with leftovers)
- A loose, packaged food item got knocked over and fell into someone else's food container.
Some of these are probably pretty rare, but I have seen many of them happen.
I've caught myself once or twice where I grabbed the wrong thing. But sometimes in a rush, in sleep addled daze, or just not paying attention, it could happen. I would hate to be fired for a mistake like that.
- Grab-and-go sandwich from local vendor was eaten by wrong person. They had a similarly wrapped sandwich in the same refrigerator.
- Identical brands of yogurt, milk, cream, etc. were used by a non-owner with a similar bottle.
- Similar fruit was taken.
- Identical brand peanut butter was used by the non-owner.
None of these other than maybe the sandwich are like the original post, but these mistakes do happen.
In these cases, it was always resolved with an “oops, sorry” and a replacement item (sometimes waved off)... and usually more deliberate bespoke labeling or containering of common items.
Also, especially in tech workplaces, never underestimate absentmindedness.
You come back to a missing lunch and become incensed, but start to cool off when given an explanation.
It would be easy for someone to think some food was leftover from the day before, or that an apple or yogurt was meant for anyone.
And that’s not a hypothetical. He hasn’t confused our lunches but we do use the same style Pyrex containers. Mine is usually in a bag with fruit and such, but occasionally I put it in the fridge by itself.
Oh! and another: We have a certain corner table in our lunch room where we traditionally put free food. Someone set their lunch item there while doing something else. I grabbed it and ate it. When we realized I apologized profusely(while other co-workers said "oops, she shouldn't have put it there"), then bought her a replacement.
Usually if one is a self-centered jerk who just grabs the first thing that barely looks like their lunch from the fridge and doesn't care much about others.
Or if people just buy similar lunches from the same place and keep all of them on the fridge, confusing similar names/packaging, but yeah, it's usually the 1st case.
Someone who has to be confronted is just hoping you’ll believe their excuse because that’s worked in the past.
And, while I agree that eating other people's lunch is unethical, we should be very wary of the "broken window" attitude towards lashing out severe punishment for minor things.
Very often it goes together with leniency towards CEOs "giving themselves" huge exit bonuses & so on.
The issue is that the last employee has to have the moral integrity to fire himself.
He apologized and bought me lunch the next day so it was absolutely fine in the end but there was a moment of confusion and some colleagues mocking me.
I have never "accidentally" eaten an entire lunch that wasn't mine. I'm actually offended that people are defending this. It's stealing. It's petty, childish, dishonest behavior. I think I would just be dumbstruck speechless if a coworker actually was brazen enough to just take my food and eat it. It's comically absurd.
I have fired an employee for stealing lunches (with plenty of evidence, of course). I would have fired the person in this story immediately if it were within my power.
Similarly, I have also fired people for other obvious character failures, such lying about bereavement leave to take time off. (It happened so often at one job that I ceased to be amazed when I caught it.) For example, one guy brought me an obituary for his dad that was obviously altered (fonts on dates didn't match, etc.). Google immediately informed me that his dad had died three years earlier. That was a fun conversation.
For those who think such behavior should be considered a mere mistake and that firing is too extreme, please tell me how such poor character can be corrected by actions taken by management at their workplace. If the job requires good character, then the only correct response to such behavior is to separate them from the company, as happened in this case.
Six-year-old primary school children who haven't been disciplined yet steal lunches. Not supposedly functional members of society.
That sort of thing gets old, though, so I don't manage anyone now. Life is much less stressful that way.
I agree, most companies don't offer enough PTO.
Steal my _chair_, though, and may all the laws of Gods and Men come down upon you in their most unmitigated rigor! That has happened to me _way_ too often.
It's a bit over the top to have that in place to enforce the policy unless it was a known issue in that workplace. So the statement the GP made seems a bit extreme without context.
Sure, they are all technically "stealing" stuff, but lighten up.
I've had managers ask me things such as "When will the rebuild of the website be done" and I answer "In two months" and they say "You have two weeks" and I say "Maybe 6 weeks, but not 2" and then they repeat "You've got two weeks." I wonder if they realize they sound crazy? I can imagine a few possibilities:
1.) Possibly they feel that they won a concession by getting me to shift from "two months" to "maybe 6 weeks" and they think they will get more concessions from me if they just keep pretending that two weeks is the only allowed answered?
2.) Is it a threat? What are they are going to do when we miss the obviously impossible deadline?
3.) Are they pretending to be serious about two weeks, or do they really think it is possible? Perhaps they are paranoid and they think that every worker is lying to them all the time?
I run into deeply irrational behavior at work all the time. I find the amount of it to be surprising. I was thinking about this when I wrote "The accusation that you are irrational -- is it the truth, or a manipulative power play" but there I focused on personal situations, and I mostly leave is as an exercise to the reader to imagine how it extends to work situations.
http://www.smashcompany.com/philosophy/the-accusation-that-y...
I wouldn't work at a place where the person tasked with supervising and organizing my work is clearly incapable of doing so and also rude.
Edit: Unless you have recourse with higher ups - in that case try talking to his superiors.
You still get the irrational answers back though unfortunately, but it is a more balanced position.
It happens in movies and it always works.
A dog is very friendly to everyone. But some street dogs are dangerous. It is not their fault. They have been abused and exposed to harassment when they were young. They think all humans are dangerous, so they'll bite anyone that approaches them.
The same is happening for your boss. He had a bad relation with developers (or employees) and then his subconscious is generalizing it over every other person.
So he thinks that any employee is a lying prick piece of shit. And that the only way to get you to work is to dominate you. Because that's how things work in his mind.
Needless to say, the best course of action is to leave to a saner workplace.
Its also helpful to get an answer to why they need it in 2 weeks, so you can say "I can get Y done in 2 weeks, which is the part you need for demo Z".
In order to maintain a feeling of control, or of providing value, the manager falls into the mindset that the one input they have into the process is that they nominally get to set deadlines (for each task of a given scope and level of quality), even if those deadlines are repeatedly missed. The temptation is that they think that the shorter the deadline, the faster the development and the better the result.
It was decades ago, at the start of my IT career, and I was contracted to fly out to a remote Aboriginal community (I am in Australia) to do some IT work. It was a full day thing, as there was only one commuter flight out to the community in the early morning, and one return flight in the evening. So I packed a big lunch with snacks to see me through the day.
When I arrived at the community, I went to the main council office, found a fridge in the kitchen, put my lunch in it and went about my work.
At lunch time, I went back to fridge, starving, and opened it to find that all my lunch had gone. Every last speck and extra snack! I was fuming, and sought out the council manager to complain about this. He just gave me a strange look during my hypoglycaemic meltdown, which kind of stopped me in my tracks, then said "Look, this is an Aboriginal community, and all their cultural rules apply. Traditionally, the men would go hunting and bring the spoils of their hunt back to the community. Whatever was brought back belongs to all, as per tribal rules. Any food that is left in the shared fridge is traditionally there for everyone to share in".
That completely shook me to my core to look at the situation in a completely different light. And true to the spirit of their tribal culture, the manager offered me some of his lunch to keep me going that day.
The mind boggles.
Its so shameful.
It can be mind-boggling, but it definitely happens.
I don't know what it is about office spaces that causes latent kleptomania to surface with such regularity.
I'm not sure that the original advice given was ideal. I'd recommend consulting with a lawyer first before giving any information to HR given that OPs job was at risk. But I'm happy for OP that it all worked out in the end.
I was just about to start typing about potential legal action -- the thief basically admitted the theft (despite HR stating" there's no evidence of theft"...)
Totally agree with the other poster that lunch theft should be a firing offense, as, if they're not honest about that, they're not honest.
There was a recent "poisoning" case where instead the OP was the victim (https://www.reddit.com/r/legaladvice/comments/89wgwm/tricked...), commenters found out the perpetrator posted in the subreddit before (https://www.reddit.com/r/legaladvice/comments/8825e8/threw_a...), and the outcome is just as satisfying (https://www.reddit.com/r/legaladvice/comments/8d0z1u/tricked...).
This link makes them show up again: https://www.removeddit.com/r/legaladvice/comments/8825e8/thr...
It's dumb in this case because the "booby trap" likely isn't one at all, but at a very cursory glance I could buy that someone would make their lunch exceptionally spicy to thwart a would-be thief - in the same vein that people might suggest laxatives, etc.
Anyway, I'm surprised people don't just have locked lunchboxes or something like that.
The laws vary by state, some allow you to use traps as long as they don't cause serious harm, while others don't let you use them at all. No state allows you to set a lethal booby trap.
Here is the California law about them: https://law.justia.com/codes/california/2005/pen/12355.html
Except it wasn't a booby trap. It's like a thief complaining because they crashed the car they stole from you.
Another more similar example is if the thief had a food allergy, say peanuts, and they stole a meal containing peanuts and got sick. I don't think most judges would argue that people need to ensure their meals can be eaten by anyone.
Though some schools do ban all peanut products for lunch. I am not a lawyer, obviously.
To take this further: It's a bit like they crashed the stolen car because you cut the brake lines in anticipation of someone stealing it (a bit extreme obviously, but just bear with me).
Which is interesting: I actually wonder whether you would be found at least civilly liable in that instance.
It's more like you have a manual transmission, and your thief crashed because they only know an automatic.
Changing your job in response to someone stealing your lunch seems a little extreme.
One suspects this could be written on every occasion.
That's not the case here though. They're just terrible.
Looks like the situation worked out fairly well in the end.
As a result I found out who was stealing my lunch. The kid spent the entire afternoon in the bathroom. We never exchanged words but he told his friends that I wasn't someone to be messed with at all.
Today his parents probably would have sued and tried to get me kicked out of school but this was a much more innocent time.
apparently someone actually punched in my phone number and redeemed my loyalty points for a free meal.
I wish I were kidding.
I've had co-workers steal my and my desk-mates' gum before, too, at the same job.
Tissues cost what, $0.01 each anyway?
I don't know if this was a good idea. You've signaled to your company that you're willing and able to take legal action against them. How long will your employment last when your neck is sticking out 2x farther than your coworkers and there's a layoff coming around?
TLDR: Guy gets his job back and a generous raise (almost double his paycheck) after getting fired and threatening legal action.
If current trends hold, enjoy this while it lasts.
It seems a lot more likely this site made this insane story up to drive traffic.
And it’s from 2016.
But how do you prove that. And even if you prove it, would it hold in court since the food was stolen?
Even if that were the case (which I doubt), why is that wrong? On what planet is it OK to defend the actions of the thief?
edit: If he would have poisoned the food and the thief died, would that be ok?
I guess the point I'm trying to make is that if he did purposely contaminate the food in order to get back at the thief, instead of just talking to him about it, the talk with HR seems justified.
But more directly relevant, does the thief have no agency?
In the US the law allows for you to make the case of self defense, it is a defense for violations of the law. I.E. it is always illegal to kill someone, but it is a defense if you kill someone who was trying to kill you..
Things like bobby traps, or poisoning your food against a thief would not be legal under American law. For example I can not setup a series of Automated Gun Turrents in my home to kill anyone that breaks in, but I could (in some states) shoot someone myself if they break in.
In a food theft case as an individual could in fact assault someone possibly even commit battery against someone in order to prevent the from stealing my lunch but I could not say put bobby trap that could cause physical harm to them on the lunch
My use of "we" was merely meant to indicate that our society, through the apparatus of our legislators, has decided that our society is justified in doing harm to certain classes of people and has set up mechanisms for doing this. I was not using "we" in the "me and my immediate peers" sense.
No, self defense is one reason.
And as someone that also loves super spicy foods to the point that I eat whole peppers raw, anyone that is brave enough to eat my food is welcome to try.
If your body can't take the heat, you shouldn't be eating my food.
This is no different than if a celiac food thief started eating someone elses food that contained gluten. Its not up to the person that brought food to make sure their food never contained things allergic to everyone in the office. The thief should keep their mitts off something they don't know might hurt them.
This person sounds like they had an allegic reaction to capsacin. They also hopefully learnt that stealing food might mean they'll trip up their reaction. And in the end, they learnt that filing complaints with the HR person you're sleeping with might end up with both of you being fired.
Unless their plan for revenge started years back when they started slowly building up their tolerance and taste for spicy food, I really don't see how that's even close to the most plausible explanation.
And more importantly: does it matter? If you come down to it, we don't even know if the writer exists at all. It's just an hypothetical event that serves as fodder for discussion.