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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)

#161

Post by jdtang13 »

codingdave wrote: post #28
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.

Firing someone for a mistake is a fairly extreme response, and should be reserved for extreme mistakes. This sounds like a correctable habit, with some mentoring and coaching.

If you're a white-collar worker who is making a decent paycheck, you should definitely be accountable for the action of taking clearly-labeled food that doesn't belong to you. We should be merciful and try to help them, but that person is also committing a small form of thievery.

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

#162

Post by GordonS »

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.

Disagree. Anyone who steals someone else's lunch is a total arsehole, but I wouldn't class it as a firing offence.

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

#163

Post by [deleted] »

colemickens wrote: post #77
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'm sorry, but how are the other replies to you defending this behavior...? 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.

[deleted]

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

#164

Post by nathanaldensr »

A couple of jobs ago, I had just come back from some time off. I was sitting in my cube working when a co-worker I had never met came into my cube, reached past me, and grabbed a tissue from my tissue box without asking. If you think that's bad, it's nothing compared to what he said: "Thanks, I've been stealing these!"

I wish I were kidding.

I've had co-workers steal my and my desk-mates' gum before, too, at the same job.

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

#165

Post by bdcravens »

icebraining wrote: post #103
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…

By answering "Maybe 6 weeks", you just validated their belief that the full project deadline is negotiable, and so now they're just bargaining from a position of power.

Indeed. 8 weeks that in an informal conversation was cut by 25% communicates that you really didn't know how long it would take. 8 could mean 6, or 10, or 2.

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

#166

Post by GordonS »

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.

Yeah... no. I just don't see how this is possible, other than a 1 in a million case of a coworker happening to use exactly the same container which contains a meal that had the same appearance as your own. It's just not plausible.

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

#167

Post by chipperyman573 »

jlebrech wrote: post #85
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…

do it in 14 business days.

That's still less than 3 weeks, and also doesn't make any sense (there's 5 business days in a week, and unless specified it doesn't make sense to change units)

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

#168

Post by [deleted] »

jdtang13 wrote: post #155
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 generally agree with what you're saying. It's kind of hilarious to me that so many people here don't know what "stealing" means. Have they not read the article at all? News flash: the act of stealing requires intention. Accidentally swiping someone's ambiguously-labeled lunch is very different!!

[deleted]

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

#169

Post by c22 »

LandR wrote: post #107
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.

I work in a shared working space, it's just me using my stuff yet the amount of milk, tea bags and sugar I get through and have to keep buying... Even tried labelling it yet people just to go to fridge or cupboard and help themselves... It's so annoying.

At the coworking space I frequent there is a small bucket and a sign, when people take some sugar or a teabag or whatever they drop a quarter or a dime in the bucket. Whenever the space is out of teabags someone empties the bucket and buys some.

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

#170

Post by SubiculumCode »

FPGAhacker wrote: post #93
cortesoft wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Accidentally take, sure. Accidentally consume? Maybe one bite. Unless there were some odd circumstances, like mental deficiency, or nearly identical meals, beyond one bite is very difficult to believe.

Depends if you have an oldschool wife who packs you a lunch, and you didn't bother to ask if it was bologna or tuna.
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