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A coworker stole my spicy food, got sick, and is blaming me (2016)

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Re: A coworker stole my spicy food, got sick, and is blaming me (2016)

#61

Post by dpeck »

cortesoft wrote: post #40
seattle_spring wrote: post #14

Kind of orthogonal to the story, but anyone who steals lunch or food from a co-worker should be fired immediately. There's a 0% chance that someone who steals others' stuff is a good, honest person in other parts of their life.

Mistakes happen. There are all sorts of ways you could accidentally eat someone else's lunch, and having a 'zero tolerance' policy is a good way to end up firing an innocent person.

| There are all sorts of ways you could accidentally eat someone else's lunch

Want to give us some examples?

Re: A coworker stole my spicy food, got sick, and is blaming me (2016)

#62

Post by parliament32 »

lpa22 wrote: post #55
seattle_spring wrote: post #14

Kind of orthogonal to the story, but anyone who steals lunch or food from a co-worker should be fired immediately. There's a 0% chance that someone who steals others' stuff is a good, honest person in other parts of their life.

Most companies would quickly have 0 employees if this was a universal policy

...most companies really don't have employees eating each others' lunches, that's ridiculous. Where do you work where this is considered normal?

Re: A coworker stole my spicy food, got sick, and is blaming me (2016)

#65

Post by ZetaTwo »

seattle_spring wrote: post #14

Kind of orthogonal to the story, but anyone who steals lunch or food from a co-worker should be fired immediately. There's a 0% chance that someone who steals others' stuff is a good, honest person in other parts of their life.

I actually had a boss who stole my lunch. His wife cooks for him so he didn't know/remember what food he was bringing to work and he had the same kind of (IKEA) lunch box as me.

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.

Re: A coworker stole my spicy food, got sick, and is blaming me (2016)

#66

Post by seattle_spring »

lpa22 wrote: post #55
seattle_spring wrote: post #14

Kind of orthogonal to the story, but anyone who steals lunch or food from a co-worker should be fired immediately. There's a 0% chance that someone who steals others' stuff is a good, honest person in other parts of their life.

Most companies would quickly have 0 employees if this was a universal policy

Really? You think that 100% of employees steal from their co-workers at some point? I guess I must be crazy because I've never done that, nor considered it.

Re: A coworker stole my spicy food, got sick, and is blaming me (2016)

#67

Post by fasj82 »

lbeltrame wrote: post #57
mathieuh wrote: post #22

Who steals other people's food? This is completely bizarre to me. Do these people do it every day and just never bring their own lunch? Do they just see something that takes their fancy and decide to nick it? The mind boggles.

Back during my Ph.D. days people stole coffee capsules from others. I remember having a few in my drawer, only to find none the following morning. It can be mind-boggling, but it definitely happens.

Can't compare coffee capsules to food you cooked yourself.

Re: A coworker stole my spicy food, got sick, and is blaming me (2016)

#68

Post by rjp0008 »

lpa22 wrote: post #55
seattle_spring wrote: post #14

Kind of orthogonal to the story, but anyone who steals lunch or food from a co-worker should be fired immediately. There's a 0% chance that someone who steals others' stuff is a good, honest person in other parts of their life.

Most companies would quickly have 0 employees if this was a universal policy

Well... at least one... You can't steal your own lunch.

Re: A coworker stole my spicy food, got sick, and is blaming me (2016)

#69

Post by namank »

pm90 wrote: post #21
jobowoo wrote: post #4

There's an update to the original post. What a lovely ending to the story. http://www.askamanager.org/2016/10/update-a-coworker-stole-m...

It is a lovely ending! 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.

The gap in the callback was only a week. The HR person might not have filed it with the government.

Internal company records don't matter for shits.

Re: A coworker stole my spicy food, got sick, and is blaming me (2016)

#70

Post by netsharc »

lkrubner wrote: post #46

One mystery that continues to fascinate me is when people at work say things to me that are obviously irrational -- are they sincere or is it some kind of manipulative power play? 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…

Since I have no fears of getting fired I would respond "2 weeks? Then you'll get a very broken website.". If they ask "Are you being sarcastic?" I would respond "Are you?".
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