Office drama is more common than you would imagine because people get up to all kinds of hijinks, especially if they think they’ll never get caught. One of the most common things workplace troublemakers do is to swipe a coworker’s lunch or snacks.
This is what happened to one woman who brought imported tea to have at work. She put a label on it that clearly stated it was off-limits, but a sneaky colleague still pilfered from her stock. Eventually, she had had enough and came up with a genius plan to ‘out’ the thief.
More info: Reddit
People who steal or eat other people’s lunches in the office are just asking for trouble because they clearly don’t respect the rules
Image credits: Leah Newhouse / Freepik (not the actual photo)
The poster mentioned that her office has a ‘take one, leave one’ food policy, except for items that are labelled
Image credits: Anna Pou / Freepik (not the actual photo)
The author mentioned that she is a tea snob and brought her own imported stock from the United Kingdom, which she labelled as off-limits
Image credits: Polina Zimmerman / Freepik (not the actual photo)
Despite the poster’s label, someone had been taking a lot of her tea, so she decided to catch them red-handed by dipping some in fish sauce
Image credits: Realistic_Durian9988
The tea thief was soon caught, but got angry at the poster for her “malicious prank,” and some other colleagues felt that the author had taken things too far
The poster shared that her office is extremely easy-going when it comes to their food system. They have a take one, leave one policy where people can trade snacks for items that they want to eat. It’s only labelled stuff that folks have to keep away from, because that means it’s someone’s property.
It is a common workplace policy to label food items in the pantry so that people know which are theirs and others don’t take them. Some office thieves aren’t deterred even by such signs and they sneakily take snacks and food that don’t belong to them. This might end up causing problems for the other workers who may miss out on their lunch or meals as a result.
The poster was dealing with such a problem because she had spent a lot of money on imported tea and didn’t want anyone to use it. Unfortunately, a tea thief was in her workplace and used half of her box within a week. She was annoyed because she had clearly mentioned that nobody should take her tea.
If someone is pilfering your food in the workplace, there are a couple things you can do. If labelling the items doesn’t work, then the next best course of action is to keep the food in a locked area. Some employees even invest in a mini refrigerator so that they can keep their meals safe. If that also doesn’t work, it’s important to speak to the Human Resources team or to management about it.
Image credits: Andrea Piacquadio / Freepik (not the actual photo)
The poster didn’t think of speaking to her boss about the tea swiping incidents; instead, she decided upon a revenge plan. She soaked a few tea bags in fish sauce, dried them, and then resealed the wrappers. Her plan was so catch the thief red-handed in the grossest way and get them to out themselves.
Although this might seem like the best way to get back at a thief, it might also lead to a lot of trouble. Contaminating food as a prank may turn out badly if a person has allergies or other food-related sensitivities. If they get sick or have a bad reaction to the food, then it might become a bigger issue.
All in all, the OP’s plan was extremely successful. Her sly coworker got huffy about how the tea tasted fishy and was immediately outed as a food thief. She was so embarrassed that she tried to shame the poster by playing the victim and calling it a “malicious prank.”
Stealing people’s food in the office is more common than you’d imagine with around 18% of people admitting to having done it at least once. These workplace thieves definitely need to be put in their place in a way that will deter them from ever doing such things again.
If you have any creative ideas for stopping an office food thief, then drop those suggestions below.
Most folks sided with the poster and loved her idea to keep the tea stealer at bay
