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Comment by ggm | Hacker News Reader

My partner and I donated cutlery to our Apt complex multipurpose media room. It's where people who live there can watch movies on a projector or have meetings or birthdays.

We bought over 50 teaspoons. I think we're down to 5. We got 10-15 each of knives forks and spoons and they were predated, but not as much.

The body corporate tut-tutted and said they wouldn't do it, I think it's ok to accept some people just wind up pilfering these things, and you deal with it. If you need flatware that badly, I don't mind.

Its 4-5 years in, we probably need to recommit. I don't know I'd go to the bother of etching or stamping anything.

My sister and I fought over who got the NAAFI (british army PX) fork with a hole in the handle. The hole was for a chain, which clearly somebody broke, to steal the fork, which wound up in our cutlery drawer at home in the 50s/60s.

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If you care (which it sounds like, quite reasonably to me, you don't really), use pliers to bend over just the very end of the handle or put 180 twist in the handle. Very obvious and maybe unappealing to the sticky-fingered, without too much degradation to the immediate function of the object. And for teaspoons bought by the score, which i assume are stamped metal, the handle is probably thin enough to make it easy.

Though at attrition rates of under 10 per year, it could also be partly careless disposal leading to spoons in the bin rather than only deliberate pocketings of 30p teaspoons!

Your idea is good. Marking them in a non-intrusive (to function) way would serve to make it clear this is communal property.

But, in essence we don't care, and I also think its not always wonton theft, I know I've shed spoons into the waste bin being uncareful.

It hasn't worked for banks and all the various ways they've tried to keep pens from walking off, nor gas station bathroom keys. In effort you expend is ultimately wasted, as someone that wants to take will take and someone that is unawares they accidentally disposed of the utensil will not be stopped by any of the attempts. However if it makes you feel good and you enjoy the time spend over a weekend doing it, by all means have at. Just know what's to know going in. Which it sounds like you do.

thankfully, locks can now be digital, so the key is now your phone or a code, which has other problems, but can't walk off in the same way

I proudly leave my “This pen stolen from the Sloop Tavern” pen on my desk.

With that kind of marking it’s like they want me to take it!

I've always thought people stealing pens is just a form of advertising which is why any company offering pens puts logos on them.

All this post makes me think of is what other commonly-stolen objects one could put advertising on.

No, there are effective methods. One is to attach a giant fake flower into it.

Or make the pen a T-shaped or something. It does write on things but who wants an annoying pen that doesn't fit properly in a drawer and it difficult to do anything other than scribble a signature?

Some people also sloppily spray bikes with pink spray paint because then it's pretty much unsaleable. So all you have to worry about are the vandals who just want to ruin someone's day.

But you don't even need silverware to eat wontons.

Dim sum wise words, mon.

I'm in the Philippines now, and one thing I've noticed is that when you go out to a fast food joint (Jollibee, Chow King, Mang Inasal, &c.) they don't even have any plastic fork/knife/spoon dispensers, napkin dispensers, or condiment dispensers anywhere at all in the dining area. I'm told it's because people here take them home. Sometimes they steal all the napkins.

If you don't get these things after paying at the counter, you are out of luck. You can try to approach the counter to get them, but most people don't bother because these places are always so crowded.

I'm not judging, but how exactly does that happen? Does the spoon fall into the trash while you're discarding something and you don't want to pick it up? Or do you throw out a container and miss that it had a spoon inside?

I've definitely been tempted to throw away a nasty container that might have gotten forgotten in the car or at the back of the fridge and someone left cutlery inside.

The really nice stuff is only brought out at Christmas. As long as there are enough forks/spoons/etc for 8 people in the drawer for day to day use, then I don't care that much.

In a common area, drunk people and children sloppily doing a chore they don't want to, I should think. And depending on how grotty users of the space are, people leaving cutlery in dirty piles of crap for others to clear up, and the others don't see the hiding cutlery. The cleaners in my old university accommodation would remove dirty dishes to a box outside called the Stank Tank as it wasn't their job to do student washing up. After a month, it was binned or scavenged and a lot fancier stuff than a teaspoon was in there!

I can't say I've thrown away a spoon knowingly myself, but I have dropped cutlery in the bin once or twice. I haven't ever abandoned it but you can imagine people might if they don't value it. And based on the university, some people would happily lose a £30 pan rather than reach into the Stank Tank, so I can believe it.

Is there a chance these are being accidentally thrown away, rather than stolen?

I'm sure I've thrown a non-reusable utensil in the garbage more than once in my life by accident. While I of course would feel bad, I'm also not going to dig it out of a 50gal trash can in nice clothes.

Surely that happens many times over 5 years when you have dozens or hundreds of employees.

> I'm sure I've thrown a non-reusable utensil in the garbage more than once in my life by accident.

My partner and I somehow ran out of butter knives in our first apartment in under a year. We discovered that we'd leave a knife in a desert tin in the fridge (to cut a slice) but then someone would inevitably throw out the whole tin and the knife with it.

For the next set, buy something noticeable (i.e. bight yellow handles). I'd bet accidental theft will go down and folks will take time to return if they do accidentally take.

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