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

askamanager.org

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

#171
post #68
post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

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

The last two employees would eat eachother's lunch.

The issue is that the last employee has to have the moral integrity to fire himself.

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

#172

Reddit's /r/legaladvice subreddit has had a lot of interesting corporate mismanagement stories lately (with the typical take-with-a-grain-of-salt caveat). 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/t…

So the perpetrator's thread has a lot of deleted posts which are invisible now.

This link makes them show up again: https://www.removeddit.com/r/legaladvice/comments/8825e8/thr...

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

#173

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…

I imagine that such managers feel helpless, placed between the people "below" them actually doing the work and the people "above" them that are the ones imposing the broader but equally impossible deadlines for the business. (To be slightly less sympathetic, a manager might feel that their own pay/prospects will improve if they can produce results faster than rationally expected).

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.

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

#174
post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I would certainly quit a company with a culture of dispensing harsh and summary justice.

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.

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

#175
post #45
post #16

My guess is this falls under the same purview as booby-trapping your house: Yeah, they're committing a felony by breaking into your house, but you're not allowed to setup a "Home Alone" defense system (if nothing else because first responders might need to get into your home). 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 thei…

Exactly how I read it. Except it wasn't a booby trap. It's like a thief complaining because they crashed the car they stole from you.

> It's like a thief complaining because they crashed the car they stole from you.

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.

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

#176
post #87

This feels like a made-up story designed to attract clicks. Even more with the happy ending update. There are more unlikely stories on the same site, like this one: http://www.askamanager.org/2017/05/im-in-a-dominantsubmissiv...

It’s the equivalent of a Penthouse “you’ll never believe what happened next” letter for office drones. I can’t believe so many people are taking it at face value!

How do you know people are taking it at face value? I don't even see why it's relevant whether it's true or not.

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

#177

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…

I think it's safe to assume power play in most such instances, though the perpetrators may have little more self-awareness than a dog does when it pee-claims things. People who grow up in authoritarian households tend to just repeat that behavior, as obedience is valued more highly than correctness. They care about you doing what they say, full stop.

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

#179
post #16

My guess is this falls under the same purview as booby-trapping your house: Yeah, they're committing a felony by breaking into your house, but you're not allowed to setup a "Home Alone" defense system (if nothing else because first responders might need to get into your home). 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 thei…

If you think you need a locked lunchbox, then what you really need is a job with better coworkers.

Eh, there are plenty of excellent workplaces with just a few bad actors who do stuff like steal lunches.

Changing your job in response to someone stealing your lunch seems a little extreme.

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

#180
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...

Even just reading the original article, it was painfully obvious that there had to be some sort of emotional entanglement between the offending party and someone in HR, either romantic or (less likely) blackmail.
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