Heroic IT Dept Less Likely to Steal... Lunches?

An anonymous reader writes "According to an article in the Houston Chronicle concerning lunch theft, people from IT are least likely to steal lunches because they are a "hero department." The most likely? Accounting and Customer-Support... "

Comments

muffins

[legoburner]

In the book 'Freakonomics' there is a study about a man who used to drop off muffin baskets with a box to put a dollar in for each muffin that was taken. He kept very precise statistics for years in different white-collar offices about where he put the basket, how much money went in and so forth. The results are basically that the lower down in the office rank someone is, the less likely they are to steal and the higher up, the more theft occurs with CEOs and other top-floor executives being by far the worst. They put it down to a sense of entitlement in the execs and the invisibility of the crime relative to stealing from a muffin shop amongst other reasons.

Re:muffins

[Anonymous Coward]

I believe it was bagels rather than muffins. One of the interesting things was whether the higher-ups steal because they're high up or whether the higher-ups became high-up because they steal. It was also found that people in all departments are more likely to steal around holidays than other times of the year.

Re:muffins

[Anonymous Coward]

It was actually Bagels, but yeah. I don't think top floor executives and CEOs even eat muffins, which is why they are where they are.

Re:muffins

[Anonymous Coward]

I think it's because low level people are afraid they'll get caught and fired.

Top execs know they aren't going to get fired for something stupid like that.

Re:muffins

[arth1]

I know from running an IT department that there's a correlation between how much someone gets paid and how unlikely he is to return work items like phones, laptops and calculators upon quitting or retirement. (Note that I said correlation and not reverse correlation.)

My theory is that scruples will hinder people's career advancement, and the more unscrupulous you are, the higher you'll go. Being able to steal a hungry baby's food without any remorse would probably be considered a useful trait for a CFO.

Regards,
--
*Art

Re:muffins

[Anonymous Coward]

Heh.

Mr Burns from the Simpsons likes to steal childrens' candy :)

Now we know why.

Re:muffins

[perkr]

How about if you are high up in the food chain you perceive the "crime" as something completely insignificant in comparison to the high-impact decisions you are paid to make. Something like people don't care if they steal a pen from the office, if you're high up, not returning a laptop kinda falls into the same category.

Re:muffins

[foniksonik]

That's cause a hungry baby has lots of supporters waiting nearby to feed it with their own portion rather than see it go hungry, whereas the CFO has little or no supporters and must fend for himself or die.

Re:muffins

[TCQuad]

You might be over-extrapolating. Work items are a set cost, but to each person, the value is variable.

Let's say you give two people $2,000 in equipment (laptop, phone, accessories, whatever). Someone making $20,000 could never afford all that stuff on their own, so they're likely to view it as valuable. Someone making $200,000 could afford it and is probably less likely to consider its intrinsic value. Someone making $2,000,000 probably scoffs at anyone ever being able to use such low-end tools.

Price is fixed; value is not. As such, the appearance of scruples might vary. To account for this, it would be required to compare items of equal relative value to each person. Are the odds of someone making high six-figures not returning a laptop equal to the odds of interns making low-five figures not returning office supplies?

Re:muffins

[Reality Master 101]

All the envious "higher ups get there because they steal ha ha ha" comments aside, I think there's a simpler explanation. The more money you make, the smaller the theft seems. A buck to someone making a million a year is not the same as someone who has to watch every dollar and appreciates it.

Or to put it another way, a more interesting experiment would be to put a penny candy jar out. A penny is nothing to everyone, so I would expect the rates of theft to much closer to the same.

Re:muffins

[Anonymous Coward]

As someone who doesn't like to return phones or laptops or whatnot when I leave a company, I'd like to offer a better reason:

Life's too short.

It's that simple. When I was younger (and consequently less paid), I used to try to keep my home and work stuff separate. But when I'd get to a new company, I'd be given a new phone that didn't do what I wanted, a laptop that wasn't setup the way I liked, and I could spend months before I was finally using a setup that I was comfortable with and happy with.

Then somewhere along the way, I realised that this was a stupid waste of time. Noone's going to want my dirty old cellphone with my earwax and phone numbers in it. Noone's going to want the laptop that I used while working through lunch for a year or two. They're almost certainly going to get sold off at some employee auction where the funds go to united way after they sit on a shelf for a year or two waiting to finally depreciate off of the books.

Now when I get hired, I make sure that it's included in my contract that I have the right to purchase any equipment assigned to me at book value when I leave. That way I'm happy when I go that I still have the tools that I need, and the company doesn't need to hang on to some asset.

Re:muffins

[ScrewMaster]

No, it's because that CFO is a sociopath who is incapable of empathy, or feeling remorse or guilt. Most organizational hierarchies (whether they be corporate, military, governmental, academic, you name it) tend to select for the most unscrupulous, because those are the people that focus on moving up the pay scale rather than doing their jobs. They are also very hard to spot, because an experienced sociopath learns the behaviors that will get it what it wants (they're exceptional actors for the most part.) The only reason that such organizations function well is if there are efficient mechanisms in place to discourage bad behavior: sociopaths can do a good job if they know that they'll get bitch-slapped for screwing up. What's been happening to corporate America over the past few decades is the removal of penalties for failure. Except in extreme cases like Worldcom and Enron, there is simply no real punishment for a CEO/CFO, C-anything that raids the company coffers for personal profit or simply runs the company into the ground.

Another part of the problem is that the laws and systems that provide corporate governance were put in place a long time ago. The country and its people had a very different view of ethics and morality in those times. I mean, where do CEO's and the like come from? Who are the people that invest money in their companies? Well, they come from us, and our own moral fiber (or lack of it) is being reflected in the nature and behavior of the corporations we invest in.

It's like the old joke about corporations being like septic tanks ... the really big chunks rise to the top.

Re:muffins

[Stopher2475]

So are you saying the more you make, the more likely you are to steal something like a laptop or a phone because to your income it really isn't that big of a deal?
I guess in a way that makes sense b/c to someone making 30 million a year a 2000 dollar laptop is equivalent to the mints at the counter of the chinese food restuarunt.

Re:muffins

[Anonymous Coward]

As someone who does the IT for a small real estate group, these well-paid real estate agents around me are constantly stealing staple pullers, pens, calculators, phone books...you name it. There is ALWAYS a frustrating shortage of pens. If I leave pens or sticky notes out on my desk, chances are they'll be gone by the end of the week.

Re:muffins

[NevarMore]

" Are the odds of someone making high six-figures not returning a laptop equal to the odds of interns making low-five figures not returning office supplies?"

Having been a low 5's intern for a year now (3 companies in that time), with interns and part-time college student work (2 jobs in 5 years) it depends on how we're treated.

The owner who laid the entire photo lab staff off the weekend before finals and didn't have the balls to tell us himself (making our favorite manager/office mom cry when she told us) lost at least $800 x 3 people on that deal plus some ahh intangibles hidden throughout the building.

Current job, 3.000 EUR of computer gear and software gets delivered and stored right behind my desk. I leave the city tomorrow and the country on Tuesday and I know at least 3 shops + ebay that won't ask questions. I didn't even fondle the packaging.

Re:muffins

[capiCrimm]

I'd expect them to vary more. How many top execs walk around the office with change clinging around in their pockets?

Re:muffins

[fferreres]

Yes, and also probably the opposite: someone making $2,000,000 would see a cell phone's value as the janitor thinks of 4 candies. He can obviously buy 1,000 without making a dent on his income. So the meaning may be different. "Stealing" a cell phone for CEO is similar to the janitor "stealing" some candies, they are not really stealing. When a CEO steas $100,000 or the janitor steals a notebook. Are CEOs as likely to steal say $100,000 than janitors notebooks?

Re:muffins

[The-Ixian]

Yeah, but who ever has a penny on them?

Re:muffins

[postmortem]

That theory is very well elaborated in "Crime and Ponishment".

Re:muffins

[Anonymous Coward]

"My theory is that scruples will hinder people's career advancement, and the more unscrupulous you are, the higher you'll go. Being able to steal a hungry baby's food without any remorse would probably be considered a useful trait for a CFO."

Until you rip off the company for billions of dollars in an accounting scam...

It isn't about scruples; it's about understanding why they are there and dealing with the feelings arising from them. A lot of scruples are not based in logic or fact, and at some level, you need to be able to require forgiveness to act in the proper manner. Generals, when sending men into combat, have to be unscrupulous; they know men will die, and they choose the path of least death in doing so. As a CFO, I can see the numbers aren't adding up and report my findings to the CEO, who may order job cuts. I have to find a way, therefor, to work past that feeling of guilt. Where does that guilt arise from? Not being able to pay a lot of good men.

Sure, I could steal a hungy babies food, and not feel bad about it whatsoever, but why would I want to? The issue with corporate america is that they have defined morality is that conscious feeling which hinders them from doing which it is they need to do. And instead of trying to understand morality, they bludgeon it with a sledgehammer until it no longer annoys them and then do as they please or are told. They cling to a rigid corporate structure to help offset that psychopathic tendancy, but really, they will never be able to do so until they understand the reason for morality.

Re:muffins

[Shivani1141]

Reread his post before you start to flame. He said in his first example, his boss screwed him, so a number of his coworkers and himself screwed back. that's understandable, trollish or childish as it is. In his SECOND example, he says that although it would be too easy to take this stuff that lies behind his desk, He "Didnt even fondle the packaging". Meaning while he's aware the possibility exists, he would not consider doing it to his current boss. I don't have a problem with users flaming, but get your facts straight first, please.

Re:muffins

[cptgrudge]

Current job, 3.000 EUR of computer gear and software gets delivered and stored right behind my desk. I leave the city tomorrow and the country on Tuesday and I know at least 3 shops + ebay that won't ask questions. I didn't even fondle the packaging.

I think your wording of that last sentence is a little confusing in this context, at least possibly for some USA English speakers. If someone doesn't entirely understand the meaning of that last sentence, it seems like you will be stealing all that stuff. I think you mean that while it would be laughably easy to do so, you will not be taking the stuff, and have in fact not even gone digging through the gear to see what is in there in more detail. Correct?

Re:muffins

[Anonymous Coward]

My theory is that scruples will hinder people's career advancement, and the more unscrupulous you are, the higher you'll go. Being able to steal a hungry baby's food without any remorse would probably be considered a useful trait for a CFO.

Absolutely true. A small percentage (no more than 10%) of scrupulous people will rise to be first-level VPs at a large corporation, but only the completely unscrupulous will rise any higher than that.

Re:muffins

[Cylix]

I've never seen anyone scoff at the tools regardless of income.

In essence, people are different in many respects and it doesn't precisely matter how much pocket change they have. While I cannot speak for every individual that possess an overly moderate income, I can say that I have crossed paths with some wealthy individuals. (Oddly, I have managed to run into a few during online gaming that were quite well off. It's also not something that gets revealed on day one, but it's kinda odd to find out a year later you have become good friends with a trust fund babe.)

I've known people who have plenty and don't care for excessive expenditures. (I like those kind of people)

I've also known people who do have semi-nice toys and it's not that they don't understand the value, but rather it's not such a big deal if it breaks or ages.

However, to this day I have never met anyone who has so much unbelievable wealth or life style that they care not for meager possessions. I'm sure they are out there somewhere, but it all comes back to one of my friends best lines.

"They didn't get rich by wasting their money."

In case anyone is wondering... nope... sadly I am unfortunately not unbeilevable wealthy. Though just friday morning I acquired a second home even larger then my last! (The trick is to hang around the appliance stores when they get new shipments in. If you are lucky you can give the kids in the back a cigarette and they won't break down the refrigerator boxes.)

Re:muffins

[cubicledrone]

I think it's because low level people are fired.

Top execs know they aren't going to get fired

Fixed.

Re:muffins

[Dun Malg]

However, to this day I have never met anyone who has so much unbelievable wealth or life style that they care not for meager possessions. I'm sure they are out there somewhere, but it all comes back to one of my friends best lines. "They didn't get rich by wasting their money."

Having spent most of the last 10 years doing work for people with money, I'd say that line is pretty dead on accurate for most wealthy folks. We have clients who are multi millionaires who complain about the price of a $120 door lock; who stall for three or four months before paying their bills; who say "let's wait until the old crappy one breaks to install a decent [whatever]". This is the narm, unfortunately. Clients with money who say "just do it right and install what you think it needs" are treasured rare jewels we bend over backwards to please. They get quality work at reasonable rates. The cheapskates get half-assed work with substandard materials and complain endlessly about how good workmanship in this country has declined. To them I say "you get what you PAY for, you fucking tightwads!"

Re:muffins

[Dun Malg]

All the envious "higher ups get there because they steal ha ha ha" comments aside, I think there's a simpler explanation. The more money you make, the smaller the theft seems. A buck to someone making a million a year is not the same as someone who has to watch every dollar and appreciates it.

In my experience, the opposite is true. You get rich by being conscious of income and expenditures at all times. Really, you have to work at it. Personaly, I'm not one of those dopes who thinks rich people got that way by inheriting it. There are a few, to be sure, but nearly every wealthy person I've met got that way by working 80+ hours a week, and what they do for most of that time is think about how every little thing affects the bottom line. I'm fairly certain that execs who grab "free" stuff like that aren't doing it because the value is below their cognizance, but because the value is below a certain threshold that they "know won't matter, so why not choose the action that benefits me".

Seriously, this is the biggest problem with being well off I see in observing the lives of the wealthy. It's extremely difficult to get rich without thinking about money all the time. Thinking constantly about money is a thoroughly unsatisfying way to live, because money can't really make you happy-- all it can do is bribe the more direct causes of unhappiness into staying away (ha ha). I'd have to say that the happiest people I have met have been pretty solidly lower-middle class folks who didn't allow the pursuit of money to dominate their lives.

Re:muffins

[netwiz]

The above poster is absolutely, 100% correct. There are no penalties for failure for managers anymore. You can screw up every task of management set before you, and nothing will come of it. It's time for all competent workers (you know who you are) to find the competent worker management, and essentially tattle on the ineffective managers. Note that this requires skill and subtlety, and a willingness to keep at it even when it doesn't look so good for you.

Ultimately, it's high time the incompetent 80% that's had a free ride to date either got with the program, or got cut off from the rest of the productive members of society.

Re:muffins

[BalanceOfJudgement]

As a CFO, I can see the numbers aren't adding up and report my findings to the CEO, who may order job cuts. I have to find a way, therefor, to work past that feeling of guilt. Where does that guilt arise from? Not being able to pay a lot of good men.

If I step on your toes here, I apologize because what I'm about to say is not necessarily directed at you:

That feeling of guilt arises from the knowledge that the company's profit margin will remain intact, while some people's ability to even feed their families will be shot to hell.

I don't even really fault the people who make these decisions (people like you.. you're doing your job and YOU will be fired if you don't - you have as little choice as the people you might end up firing).. I fault an economy that favors profit at all costs and a stock market that is punishingly unforgiving when a company's profit margin falls a mere 0.000000000034%.

I fault a country that has long since forgotten what making a living is all about, and what building a community, and a nation, is all about.

I'm all about profit. Profit can be a good thing.. but profit is not always a good thing, and that is what so many have long since forgotten.

Re:muffins

[Kadin2048]

I think this is probably pretty close to the truth. While there definitely may be an aspect of sociopathology involved in corporate advancement, I think it's also likely that someone who's making $200,000+ a year and brokering million or billion-dollar deals every day, just doesn't value the bagel very much. It's such a trivial amount of money to them, it doesn't seem worth the bother to find change (if they even carry cash) and pay for it.

Obviously there's a sense of "entitlement" there as well, but I think people are jumping on the 'all executives are sociopaths' bandwagon a little quickly. It reeks of sour grapes.

If I was trying to keep people from taking bagels/muffins/coffee in a situation like that, rather than putting out a "coin jar" where people have to put in a piddling amount every time they take an item, which requires that they keep small change hanging around (or cash money in general, which many people don't have), it might be easier to let people pay in advance. E.g., in many government offices the water coolers are paid for by members of the "water club;" if you want to drink water, you pay $10 at the beginning of the quarter and get your name put on a list that's taped to the front of the water cooler (or simply made known to everyone else).

Re:muffins

[BalanceOfJudgement]

A small percentage (no more than 10%) of scrupulous people will rise to be first-level VPs at a large corporation, but only the completely unscrupulous will rise any higher than that.

I'm lucky enough to be in a small company where our CEO is what I would characterize as a 'good person.'

That said, even he has been making some decisions lately that strike my internal "Umm.. not so good" string. I sometimes wonder if it's the nature of the job, that one so far removed from their employees will eventually become that way, without trying, as a consequence of their aloof position rather than their personality.

Re:muffins

[AuMatar]

There's a difference between buying at book value and just taking it. THe first is perfectly fine- you're buying the equipment. The second is theft.

Re:muffins

[Solandri]

Clients with money who say "just do it right and install what you think it needs" are treasured rare jewels we bend over backwards to please. They get quality work at reasonable rates. The cheapskates get half-assed work with substandard materials and complain endlessly about how good workmanship in this country has declined. To them I say "you get what you PAY for, you fucking tightwads!"

You're a seller, and apparently an honest one. You only see half the business interactions: cheap buyers with honest sellers, and generous buyers with honest sellers. You don't see the interactions with dishonest sellers. Any company which says "just do it right and install what you think it needs" to every vendor will be out of business in a year. There are dishonest vendors out there who will rape you if you give them a blank check like that.

The key is to be thrifty with your money when seeking out vendors, then when you find one that you know is honest and does good work, be generous with it. Of course there are always tightwads who will never be anything but tightwads. But if you're seeing a disproportionate share of them, you should probably raise your prices and work harder to convince clients that you're honest and do good work for their money.

Re:muffins

[Fulcrum of Evil]

We have clients who are multi millionaires who complain about the price of a $120 door lock; who stall for three or four months before paying their bills;

So sell to middle class people who can't handle money quite as well - I'll bet they're easier to sell status items and they'll probably do it on credit.

Re:muffins

[DeadChobi]

People haven't forgotten morality, they've forgotten what it means to be profitable, why money exists, and who enables profitability. We've become disconnected from people, because there are so many of them. We've forgotten that the poor bastard working in a cubicle across the hall from us isn't just a service. He's probably got a girlfriend, or a wife, and they would likely lose their house/apartment were they to lose his job. We've become so embroiled in our little technological pissing contest that we're letting ourselves get pulled apart from each other, and we're losing our humanity. Little by little I start to believe that the Amish are right about technological innovation.

Re:muffins

[ozbird]

Why do you expect from a bunch of psychopaths?

Re:muffins

[clifyt]

"making our favorite manager/office mom cry when she told us"

Have you ever thought that it was her job to do so?

I've been in the position before that I had to let someone go, even though it was someone elses decision. It could be said that the one making me let someone go had no balls -- but that person had little in the way of people skills in the first place. Thats why I was there. To act as a buffer between the guy at the top (or at least top on our area) and the grunts. I've known others in this same position that when it came down to it, knew that they were supposed to tell others earlier on and waited because they wanted to delay the process. I know when I had to do it, I gave plenty of notice -- even though that goes against all rules of management (i.e., you let someone go the day you want them out the door, and the minute someone hands a 2 week notice, you escort them to the door because you know nothing good can come from the next two weeks regardless of how good of an employee they are).

As an intern that had been at 3 companies within a single year, you wouldn't have known the office dynamics enough to know who was responsible.

Heck, I've known folks that have been around a year and STILL can't figure out the dynamics enough not to get caught up in the currents (I have one person that works for me now that isn't getting the clue of what to stay away from and may have to leave because they are not taking my 'advice').

But all in all, its not balls -- its a business decision. And sometimes it requires not telling someone until the day they have to leave to preserve other jobs ('the greater good') and sometimes it means letting folks waste two weeks writing up resumes and going out to monster because you know their former actions made it possible for the others that are more than likely going to go down with the ship in a years time. Until you are in management, its hard to know which is the right choice -- and even then how to carry it out.

Re:muffins

[Anonymous Coward]

You're funny.

Are you method acting or just naive?

Re:muffins

[Raging_Bob]

Very well put, imagine picking a car mechanic out of the yellow pages and saying "just do whatever you think you need to do and then tell me how much it costs". I have owned my share of crappy cars and I have never heard a mechanic say "this car isn't worth putting any more money into" they will stand by and let you spend $5,000 on a $1,000 car.

Re:muffins

[Fulcrum of Evil]

98% of members of the Libertarian party have NO CLUE what the party's platform really advocates.

I'd wager that if you dropped that number to 80%, it'd be true for all major parties.

Re:muffins

[Reality Master 101]

I'd wager that if you dropped that number to 80%, it'd be true for all major parties.

You know, I think I'd probably disagree with that. I think most Republicans probably know more-or-less what the platform advocates, and the same with Democrats. It's not that hard to know what they believe. There aren't too many surprises buried in the platforms.

On the other hand, I think a lot of Libertarians have an "anyone but the mainstream" combined with liking the idea of "smaller government". The problem is that most Libertarians don't understand just how radical the party really is -- things like all roads should be private, there should be no public parks (including national parks), private nuke ownership is OK with them, things like that (and that's just for starters).

Re:muffins

[sgt_doom]

I didn't particularly care for that book - but in the same context, a university in Southern California did a study back in the '80s or late '70s during a water shortage emergency declaration there.

They closely monitored a spectrum of home-owners and renters in the shortage region and found that the middle-class and working-class followed the rules of water usage during the emergency, the high-class (only economically speaking, that is) immediately began hoarding water, and continued to do so throughout the emergency period, while the poor went on with their normal water usage.

Re:muffins

[sgt_doom]

Bravo! And by offshoring IT jobs, THEY are making it harder and more difficult for the more scrupulous segment of society (same applies to other job categories, as well).

Re:muffins

[assassinator42]

Won't means will not. I believe the correct word in this case is wouldn't.

re: muffins

[Javaman59]

My theory is that scruples will hinder people's career advancement, and the more unscrupulous you are, the higher you'll go.

You are smearing the winners in life just because you envy their success. Well, I'll let you in on the secret of how things work around here. They got there because they worked hard, and had the vision and the guts to do something with their life.

According to your pinko logic, where the winners are the guys with the least scruples, you could get to the top without ever doing an honest day's work, and that would make the prez the... oh.. wait..

Re:muffins

[shadowbearer]

  It's like the old joke about corporations being like septic tanks ... the really big chunks rise to the top.

  Give it another couple generations and nobody will remember that tru... er, joke anymore. :-(

SB

Re:muffins

[Rix]

To be fair, the higher up on the food chain you are, the more likely you are to get perks like free muffins. Some percentage would simply not notice that they weren't intended to be free.

Re:muffins

[Rix]

It's theft if you refuse to give it to them, but you're not under any particular obligation to deliver it to them or notify them if they don't specifically ask for it.

Re:muffins

[Geminii]

That's weird. I'm not rich, but have vague plans to move in that direction. I figure that the whole *point* of being rich is that you don't have to quibble over the small stuff. Heck, if I was rich I wouldn't even care if I was charged twice what everyone else was (for the small stuff), because I could afford it. Ten bucks for a five-buck sandwich is not going to ruin me, and whoever's selling the sandwich could probably use it more than I could.

Re:muffins

[Javaman59]

"They didn't get rich by wasting their money."

Dead right. It's because they care MORE about every $ than the rest of us that they are rich, and they are stealing the bagels because that $1 is so precious to them, not because it's trivial.

Re:muffins

[TopShelf]

A good example of this came when I was involved in a systems installation that was a major portion of an initiative that ended with the elimination of our local IT department. I negotiated a deal to stay through the implementation (thus helping to ensure project success) and find a new job afterwards, in exchange for some items that were of value to me, but of low cost to the company. I walked away with a nice PC and monitor, fully loaded with productivity apps, Visual Studio and ongoing access to MSDN through the company license. At the time I was looking to build skills in that area, and they weren't going to use that stuff locally anymore anyway. It worked out for both ends of the bargain...

Re:muffins

[Javaman59]

Having been around wealthy people at some stages in my life, I concurr completely with your observations. A wealthy person is more likely to argue with the shop owner over the cost of a 60c apple than a poor person is, and more likely to just steal it.

re: muffins

[Javaman59]

Of course, some people are well aware of the value of office supplies...

Wally the entrepeneur

Re:muffins

[DDLKermit007]

Exactly...at that high end you have the mentality of the laptop being as valuable as someone makeing 20k a year stealing a box of pens.

Re:muffins

[HaMMeReD3]

I'm sick of this, the C?O's of this world just have no soul, it's that simple. They feel no remorse, screw this relative value bullshit, most those rich bastards got where they were by being stingy and holding onto every penny. They probably watch the price is right all day and get it right 99% of the time. You can't tell me the bastards are so rich that they would just walk into a store and steal shit because the price is so low it's negligible to them.

The real reason the bastards didn't pay for the fucken muffins is because anyone with C?0 in there name doesnt have any cash on them. They just carry 30 credit cards and dont even know what change is.

The lesson to be learnt is that if you are gonna go on the honor systems, at least put a card swipe next to the muffin so you can "charge" them after.

Re:muffins

[Wavicle]

Along this vein, I've been dying to share this true story of mine from back in the dot-com days...

I was working for one of the many "we're going to enhance the users internet experience" companies. The VP of development was a woman who had become independently wealthy from the IPO of a previous company and was only working here because being retired was too boring.

One day six of us, including said VP, go out to this new greek restaurant. The food is delicious, the service was warm, we were all happy. We all got the same thing which cost $8 after tax, and we all agreed that $2 each was an appropriate tip. Well the VP was too good to carry cash so she put it on her credit card. She received $50 in cash for a $48 bill.

SHE FILLED OUT THE CREDIT SLIP FOR $51!

I could not believe what I had just seen. Talk about your sense of entitlement. In my opinion she had just robbed the wait staff. Pitching in 1 of her several million dollars for an $8 meal was beyond belief. I'm not sure which pissed me off more: that she had done it, or that there wasn't a damned thing I could do about it.

Re:muffins

[HappyEngineer]

There's no point in learning the platform of the party if you know that they'll never win. It's a protest vote. If you can't stomach Republicans or Democrats and you have a strong belief in smaller government then your only choice is to vote Libertarian even if it doesn't match your beliefs.

In any case, all the major parties have platforms that include extreme positions. Those positions are meaningless because they'll never get put into law, so you might as well ignore them.

The Green party advocates putting a max on the amount of money that people can make (the 10 to 1 rule or something like that). Goodbye economy if that ever happens. People will max out their wealth making power and then will just quit trying. No point in expanding your business if you can't make any more money than you are now.

The Democrat party think social security and Medicare, etc., were swell ideas and should be expanded until they encompass the entire budget (actually, they want them enlarged until poverty and sickness go away, so that means that it'll require an infinite amount of money.

I don't know what the Republican party believes anymore. They're all over the map. They want to reduce taxes on the most useless segment of society (the ones who inherit money) while at the same time they recently pushed through the largest increase in entitlement spending since LBJ. What the hell?

I used to be split between Republicans and Democrats (since I call myself a libertarian) and would vote based on how close to libertarian a candidate was. In a race between equal stupidities I'd just vote Libertarian. Now I'm voting Democrat across the board except for Arnold (a true fiscally conservative Republican and one of the few that seem to still exist). My goal is to see a split party at the top again.

Re:muffins

[Venik]

I always found these "coffee clubs" and "water clubs" a bit degrading. In my opinion, the costs of such trivial and necessary items around the office as coffee and water (and an occassional muffin, perhaps) ought to be covered by the employer. These are all productivity tools that, in the end, benefit the employer the most.

Re:muffins

[zacronos]

I find your ideas interesting and think you should subscribe to my newsletter.

Re:muffins

[Reality Master 101]

I don't know what the Republican party believes anymore. They're all over the map.

Yeah, I'm with you there. Generally speaking, I think economic freedom is the most important freedom, so I generally vote Republican. The problem is that now that the Republicans have power, they're spending like drunken sailors (and not just on Defense, which I generally support). What the hell? This is the party of low taxes and relatively limited government? This is the party that used to complain about the pork spending of the Democrats? I also HATE the religious wing of the Republicans, which drags down the whole party.

I'd love to see a party with the (theoretical) economic pragmatism and strong defense of the Republicans (but without the religious wing), with the "mind your own business" social wing of the Democrats (but without the socialist part) combined into one party, which would be kind of Libertarian, but it would be without the idiotically simplistic philosophy of the Libertarians. (I'd have the party burn the Ayn Rand books first-thing)

Of course, I'm also anti-abortion, which would be a bone of contention in "my" party. :) But then, I think the Libertarian position is logically anti-abortion, since the fetus has an inalienable right to life (and jointly owns the mother's body with the mother). But that's another subject.

Re:muffins

[Shilkanni]

Maybe the Unabomber?

Re:muffins

[Knetzar]

And that is why you will never hold on to your money.

Don't get me wrong, your ideals are great and it's probably a better way to live then by pinching every penny, but very rarely does anyone get rich without pinching every penny. If you don't know the value of a dollar, then you'll lose that dollar to someone else.

Re:muffins

[paraax]

Sounds like a good way to stop getting the courtesy of the two week notice. Fortunately most people don't think so badly of people that getting a two weeks notice means instant termination. Just like in most cases you don't fire the retiree 5 days before they retire. After all, what good will come of those 5 days? In service oriented jobs it matters little which warm body fills the seat, in skill oriented jobs you want loose end tied up. I'd hate to think of the difficulties someone would have trying to transition into my projects without some help, and I'd imagine that would be a good place to focus the energy of those last two weeks.

Re:muffins

[ZorbaTHut]

I'm moderately rich (I could retire at 25 if I wanted to move to Wyoming for the rest of my life, which I don't) and I do exactly this. Life is just so fucking easy that it's hilarious, and when I look at my expenses they're actually not much higher than if I didn't do this. I end up spending well under $100/mo on "convenience fees".

People will tell you "if you want to get rich, you need to learn to pinch every penny". This is massively untrue. If pinching every penny actually gives you a significant amount of cash you're nowhere near being rich. If you want to get rich, you have to have good, useful skills, good money management (get rid of the expensive or recurring things, not the meaningless or quality-decreasing ones), and more than a bit of luck.

Re:muffins

[ZorbaTHut]

I agree nearly entirely. The value of a dollar is, of course, the value of the best thing you could get for that dollar. If you make $50/hour, and you can argue with someone for 15 minutes in order to save $10, you are an idiot if you do.

Pinching every monetary penny is an awful idea. Pinching every value is the way to go, and sometimes that involves spending more money than otherwise.

Re:muffins

[schnitzi]

I think this is probably pretty close to the truth. While there definitely may be an aspect of sociopathology involved in corporate advancement, I think it's also likely that someone who's making $200,000+ a year and brokering million or billion-dollar deals every day, just doesn't value the bagel very much. It's such a trivial amount of money to them, it doesn't seem worth the bother to find change (if they even carry cash) and pay for it. It's a nice theory, but it doesn't wash. If it were true, these execs would do the same thing down at the local convenience store. It's just because they can get away with it at work, and because they think they're entitled, that they do it. But it's stealing just the same.

Re:muffins

[Anonymous Coward]

it is one ore example of why one should be paid for "actual work done" and not for "working hours".

Re:muffins

[crucini]

It's time for all competent workers (you know who you are) to find the competent worker management, and essentially tattle on the ineffective managers.

That is not a wise move. If you think your manager is incompetent, either leave or adapt. By "adapt" I mean, learn to compensate for his weaknesses.

It's quite likely that the manager who looks incompetent to you is simply responding to issues and priorities beyond your knowledge.

In any event, spreading negativity will most likely backfire on you. Upper management will almost always side with the manager versus the employee.

Re:muffins

[crucini]

Read The Millionaire Next Door. The first step to getting rich is plugging the holes in the bucket. That's usually easier than directing new flows into the bucket.

Unfortunately, I find the level of parsimony advocated in that book a bit repellent.

Re:muffins

[NateTech]

There's not consensus about what "every task of management" even is. Never has been. Look at the Business section of a bookstore sometime.

The job itself is poorly defined (on purpose) as a structural way of giving a manager power.

Only their boss knows what they've told them to accomplish and only their boss can evaluate them.

Re:muffins

[VShael]

Ultimately, it's high time the incompetent 80% that's had a free ride to date either got with the program, or got cut off from the rest of the productive members of society. Perhaps some sort of giant space-ark is in order? (with apologies to D. Adams)

Re:muffins

[VShael]

Being able to steal a hungry baby's food without any remorse would probably be considered a useful trait for a CFO.
It's not THEFT, it's COPYRIGHT INFRING-
oh wait, sorry, force of habit.

Re:muffins

[GregWebb]

Many rich people are rich _because_ they've managed to reduce the negotiable costs below everyone else's level, and hold them there.

Re:muffins

[rikkards]

There used to be a strip bar in Kanata, Ontario called Jason's. The local Tech rag Silicon Valley North did "lunch review" to find out how good their lunches were. The interesting thing they found out? Blue collar patrons tipped a lot better than white collar.

Re:muffins

[Anonymous Coward]

I think people are jumping on the 'all executives are sociopaths' bandwagon a little quickly. It reeks of sour grapes.

Took me a second or two to work out what was wrong with this. Sour grapes don't smell bad.

And executives really are all sociopaths. That was the other thing that was wrong. ;)

Re:muffins

[murdocj]

The parent is absolutely true. My previous company was bought out by a dot com that was trying to build a monopoly in our industry. Within two years they went public with an absolutely disasterous IPO (stock dropped from $10 to $1 very quickly). They lost an incredible amount of money, eventually got bought out by another company... and the execs were rewarded with good positions and bonuses in the new company (and continue to be well rewarded).

Any rational person, looking at the results, would have fired these guys. I can only attribute it to the fact that the execs knew the folks buying them out (in fact, had set up the buyout) so they were all buddies, and you don't fire your buddy, do you?

Re:muffins

[CheechWizz]

I sometimes wonder if it's the nature of the job, that one so far removed from their employees will eventually become that way, without trying, as a consequence of their aloof position rather than their personality.

Maybe it's the nature of your job? Employees usually don't have insight to the company and the market (one hopes) a CEO has, therefore he sometimes makes decisions you don't understand or think arent smart.
That's not to say there arent any stupid ceo's out there or smart employees out there tho, but please let's not forget that there's also some very smart ceo's and incredibly stupid employees out there.

Re:muffins

[Anonymous Coward]

OMG!!!1!! PONYS !!@!!11

Re:muffins

[Anonymous Coward]

Frugality is one thing... my wife is a full time volunteer wedding coordinator for a church.

The people who work the hardest to get their service's price cut and *steal* the most... *STEAL* from a CHURCH are the rich folks.
They'll walk off with anything that isn't bloody well nailed down. We've had to hunt down
and retrieve everything from irons, ironing boards, and steamers to furniture.

Re:muffins

[foniksonik]

I'm talking about human nature in my comment... chemical biological imperatives, not right vs wrong or ethical social imperatives. A baby has a mother and father and relatives and other people around who will make sure that baby gets food, as long as there is food to be had. An adult at the stage in life a typical CFO has made it to has a lot of dead relatives and a lot of live dependents but no one is going to pick him up if he falls. He's an adult with means... he's on his own.

Get it?

Glad to have provided a platform for you to rant on thought ;-p

Re:muffins

[ColtCougar]

did u work for shopnow.com??? networkcommerce - Ha

Re:muffins

[MBGMorden]

and the minute someone hands a 2 week notice, you escort them to the door because you know nothing good can come from the next two weeks regardless of how good of an employee they are

I have NEVER seen this happen before, to myself or any other employee. Heck the last job I left I gave 5 weeks of notice before I left and I worked there for that whole time, stopping work work on Friday evening at one job and starting the following Monday at another. I'll agree with you about managers letting people go with no notice, but either I've worked at places that are all exceptions to the rule or the "you're out as soon as you give notice" thing isn't as common as you make it out to be.

Re:muffins

[Apreche]

Hmm. Could it be that CEOs and other high-up executives are just used to having free food around. I've been around executive types quite a bit, and there is always some sort of platter of free food somewhere in their offices. The executives might not have noticed the dollar box, and just grabbed a muffin in passing. Lower end workers, who couldn't imagine free food, would stop and inspect it before taking. Thus, they would noticed the sign asking for a dollar.

Just a possibility to consider.

Re:muffins

[penguin_dance]

Late to the party, but have to chime in anyway.

It's not always about money. It's also about whether people, singular or as a group can get away with something.

Many years ago, I worked a short temp job in the office of a shipping facility where they had a night time shift crew in the warehouse. My first day I brought up a six-pack of soda for the week. The next day it was gone and my supervisor said, apologetically, "Oh I should have told you not to leave anything in the fridge--the night shift guys go in their and take what they want."

Obviously every company has their thief, but never had I seen it on this scale and basically expected and in the open. There was no company "team" here...just two groups where one group thought it was perfectly okay to steal from the other. Did they think that because we were in the office and they weren't that they were entitled to our stuff? And no one in management anywhere that gave a damn either. I was glad it was only a temp job. I would have been tempted to "forget" and leave behind a nice plate of ex-lax laced brownies otherwise.

Being that this was a alcohol distributing point, I wondered how many boxes of booze road home in the back of their car trunks. Because if they were willing to steal from fellow employees, I'm sure they had less qualms stealing from the employer. Ironically, their slogan was [Company Name] People Care.

Re:muffins

[Anonymous Coward]

You're unfunny.

Are you a machine or just dead inside?

Re:muffins

[kabocox]

I fault a country that has long since forgotten what making a living is all about, and what building a community, and a nation, is all about.

I'm all about profit. Profit can be a good thing.. but profit is not always a good thing, and that is what so many have long since forgotten.

Profit is almost always "a good thing." It is the POV of who it is a good thing for though. Is the profit a good thing for the employees, consumers, middle managament, upper managenment, board members, or the government at different levels? I'm very mixed about the idea that profit should always or often be divided from "the rich" and given to "the poor" just because we are poor. I make about $28K and consider myself somewhere between upper poor and lower middle class. I don't believe the profit that folks like Bill Gates makes should be split up so that I could a piece of it. If Bill Gates wants to spend his money to improve his local PD or for cures for third world countries' health problems, that's his business. I and the many other "poor" shouldn't complain and try to get his and other rich folks taxes raised because we are envious of their wealth. (O.K. The greedy SOB part of me wants to say let's slap a 90% income tax on those that make $1 million or more a year so that I can have a car, have my home paid off, and other entertainment toys such as internet, cable and telecommunications paid for to keep me happy. I'm willing to work for my toys/life though rather than try to tax it out of others.)

Re:muffins

[danpsmith]

E.g., in many government offices the water coolers are paid for by members of the "water club;" if you want to drink water, you pay $10 at the beginning of the quarter and get your name put on a list that's taped to the front of the water cooler (or simply made known to everyone else).

There's a club with dues just to get water at government jobs nowadays? What the hell is wrong with these people?

Re:muffins

[spun]

Jointly owns the mother's body? What the hell? What contract did the mother and fetus sign giving the fetus possesion of the body? The mother owns her body, and until the fetus can live on its own, it's not a human being, it's a parasite. Any person has the right to remove parasites from their body.

The Libertarian position is logically pro choice. Saying libertarianism is anti-abortion is tantamount to saying that libertarianism is pro-socialism. You would force a person to support a creature that for all intents and purposes is not a full, independent human being but a parasite incapable of living on its own? That, my friend, is socialism. I'm a socialist and I still wouldn't go that far.

As for the rest of your post, spot on. Personally, I would rather keep some of the socialism, but yours is still a position I can endorse. But you had to go and slip the abortion issue in. Sigh...

Re:muffins

[drinkypoo]

Yeah, you're both right. Our last general manager screwed us up something fierce, and now he's working for a bigger establishment and has even more responsibility. Right now our CFO is acting as our GM, and employee morale is at an all-time low. I'm starting to think that this whole capitalism thing is stupid.

Re:muffins

[Jesus_666]

No way. I learned from the RIAA that theft is when you violate someone's copyright. Physically taking away something from someone, that's... well, that's something different. Someone should really find a name for it. Maybe "Property right infringement". Yeah, that sounds right.

Re:muffins

[Reality Master 101]

What contract did the mother and fetus sign giving the fetus possesion of the body?

They "signed" a natural law contract. The intrinsic design of human beings requires a host in order to grow for the first nine months of life. Therefore, the fetus has an "easement", if you will, on the mother's body. The mother created the life, therefore, she created the easement requirement.

You would force a person to support a creature that for all intents and purposes is not a full, independent human being but a parasite incapable of living on its own? That, my friend, is socialism. I'm a socialist and I still wouldn't go that far.

Yes, I would force that person to support the internal child, just like I would force them to feed, clothe and house their external children. It's not socialism, it's simple human societal requirements. We require parents to care for their offspring. It's exactly the same concept.

A baby is not a "full, independent" human being, but presumably you would not argue that the parents have the "right" to kill the baby. Also note that a newborn baby is NOT sentient. Human babies are born before their brains are fully developed, because the head size would be too big if they were kept full to term.

Re:muffins

[Richy_T]

The majority libertarian position does, from my experience, appear to be pro-choice. However, that is not completely the case and it can be argued that when intercourse was consentual, there is an implied contract of support. If I offer you a ride in my spaceship, I can't morally just suddenly turn off the air because the spaceship is my property.

Personally, I'm not heavily invested in the pro/anti abortion thing so don't care to argue it particularly. I do feel that most opinion (on both sides) on the subject is not rationally based however.

Rich

Re:muffins

[Some_Llama]

"because those are the people that focus on moving up the pay scale rather than doing their jobs. They are also very hard to spot, because an experienced sociopath learns the behaviors that will get it what it wants"

Damn, then my wife should be a CEO by now 'cause she is one crazy bitch....

Re:muffins

[Some_Llama]

I make about 50k a year and don't steal anything...

Re:muffins

[Anonymous Coward]

There are no penalties for failure for managers anymore. You can screw up every task of management set before you, and nothing will come of it.

That's not entirely true.

-the 3-times demoted retail manager

(Change "managers" to "executives" and I'd agree with you...)

Re:muffins

[AuMatar]

FOr that matter- I signed an agreement for voluntary severance last may. I worked until late August, at the request of my employer (for my usual pay of course, plus the severance when I left). I wasn't doing my most efficient work ever (I slacked off a ton twoards the end), but I didn't damage any equipment, screw up any files, and didn't resort to cheap hacks or cutting corners. While my length of time as a lame duck was longer than usual, that seemed to be the norm at my employer.

Re:muffins

[BalanceOfJudgement]

Profit is almost always "a good thing." It is the POV of who it is a good thing for though. Is the profit a good thing for the employees, consumers, middle managament, upper managenment, board members, or the government at different levels? I'm very mixed about the idea that profit should always or often be divided from "the rich" and given to "the poor" just because we are poor.

I should have been more specific, yes - a good thing for whom?

I meant it in a more general sense, though - profit at all costs only benefits the rich - there is no basis for the 'trickle-down' effect or that increased corporate wealth results in increased overall wealth. And all of that completely misses the point of WHY humans spontaneously organize into tribes, villages, cities, nations, in the first place - for the mutual benefit of everyone involved. Humans are very bad at making a living in complete isolation - we depend on the combined work of the group for our survival.

I am not talking about Communism, which is a failed attempt at wealth distribution based on untenable assumptions - I am talking about the very simple fact that humans do better when they work with other humans. When one person is 1,000,000 times more wealthy than others in the group, to the point that others in the group have difficulty making even a basic subsistence, something is terribly wrong in the social equation - someone isn't putting in as much as they're taking out.

Now, I'm with you, I'm very mixed about the idea that profit should be taken from the rich and given to the poor. Inequity is also a basic fact of existence - if you were to somehow theoretically make every human in the world have exactly the same amount of money, the exact same possessions, and exact same access to resources, and then wait one day - you'd already find a massive shift of goods and wealth from one group to another, simply due to people's ability to freely associate and spontaneously organize. Inequity is a fact of existence as a consequence of limited resources. That part, I don't have a problem with. I have neither a problem with people being rich, nor with corporations making hefty profits.

It's the massive, extreme inequalities on the scale of 1,000,000:1 that result in massive-scale poverty that I have a problem with, because society is supposed to be for the benefit of everyone - it's why we build them. We're supposed to make a living together. It's the "profit at all costs" motive that erases that benefit and begins to benefit the few at the great expense of the many.

The solution isn't taxation, because that avoids the whole issue. The issue is that companies should be people first, profit second. If people first means the company goes bankrupt, then logic would dictate you let loose only the people you need to in order to restore balance. Protecting a profit margin while considering people nothing but 'resources' is a wholly irresponsible way to run a business, even if it does make the company and shareholders rich, arguments about growth and reinvestment notwithstanding - growth should not occur at the expense of society, lest we lose what gives society value in the first place.

I really hate sounding like a bleeding heart liberal, because I'm not and I did not come to these conclusions through exposure to liberal propoganda of any kind. I simply decided to stand back and watch people operate all by themselves, and see what happened, and it is the consequence of that observation that leads me to the things I say.

I'm willing to work for my toys/life though rather than try to tax it out of others.

And I am, too. I derive a great deal more satisfaction out of prosperity I have earned, rather than what would be handed to me.

Re:muffins

[AuMatar]

I'd add soda to that list too. Some of us need caffiene but hate coffee. Yet the break room always has coffee and never a damn can of diet pop.

Re:muffins

[VWJedi]

In any event, spreading negativity will most likely backfire on you. Upper management will almost always side with the manager versus the employee.

I definitely agree. If the manager is doing a bad job, it reflects on the people who hired / promoted him / her. They'd rather say "We've got a troublemaking employee" than say "We screwed up when we choose that manager".

And when your "bad manager" finally get noticed by upper management, wouldn't you rather be viewed as "doing a good job inspite of bad management" than "someone who undermines his / her superiors". You might get a say in who your new boss is, or possibly the opportunity to be that new boss.

Re:muffins

[Zevon 2000]

It sounds like you know more about getting rich than staying rich. Best of luck.

Re:muffins

[AuMatar]

The Green party advocates putting a max on the amount of money that people can make (the 10 to 1 rule or something like that). Goodbye economy if that ever happens. People will max out their wealth making power and then will just quit trying. No point in expanding your business if you can't make any more money than you are now.

I do not believe this is a green plank. But it wouldn't be the end of the economy if it was- it would actually help the economy. Since the wealthy wouldn't be pressured to grow into mega-corps, this would leave a market vacuum for additional good/services. This would be filled by other people. The end result would be the same level of goods and services, but the profit spread over a larger percentage of the population. This would mean increased average purchasing power and an overall increase of demand, creating more jobs and a healthier economy. Remember that the times when wealth has been spread out and the middle class has grown have historically been the times of greeatest increase to the economy.

Re:muffins

[Acer500]

You wouldn't believe how hard it is for us 3rd world workers.

I'm responsible for over 20k (dollars) in hardware, have at all times a stock worth a years' salary (with no supervision other than a meager Excel table & I have admin privileges).

I wouldn't dream of touching the stuff.

Still, the risk/reward thing is all screwed up - even more so for policemen for instance, can you expect them to risk their lives for 100 (USD) a month? Yet some do (many go corrupt unfortunately, but who can blame them..) .

Re:muffins

[AK Marc]

He kept very precise statistics for years in different white-collar offices about where he put the basket, how much money went in and so forth. The results are basically that the lower down in the office rank someone is, the less likely they are to steal and the higher up, the more theft occurs with CEOs and other top-floor executives being by far the worst.

I would just go to the exec floor to steal their bagels, they could afford it.

Re:muffins

[Anonymous Coward]

> there wasn't a damned thing I could do about it

Do what I do: take some more money out of your pocket (about $10 in this case), put it on the table, and say something relatively neutral like "I thought the service was really good today". Letting her know that you'll take the ethical high road where she won't is revenge enough.

Re:muffins

[ZorbaTHut]

Considering that I'm quitting my job to try starting a game studio, you are entirely right. :D

On the other hand, this leads right back to up "the value of a dollar" - I've got a lot of dollars, so my paycheck is no longer worth as much to me as a game studio would be. I've always wanted to make games. Maybe, if I go broke, I'll reconsider. With luck I'll never reach that point.

('Course, if I pull it off, I'm likely to multiply my net worth many times over, since that's what almost inevitably happens when you found a successful business.)

Re:muffins

[Steavis]

Everything. Gov't orgs don't run on logic, they run on politics. I work for a govt. IT org (University) and we have to pay for our water cooler. There are about 10 of us in the pool, we rotate the monthly bill between us.

About 8 years ago they took away pretty much everything 'somebody' deemed 'frivolous': Kleenex, keyboard/phone cleaner, etc. However, I can walk into the stores closet and grab all the batteries, mechanical pencils, dry-erase markers, wall clocks, and Advil one could ever want. No auditing, no accountability.

Most of us think it's because a dean saw someone they didn't like blowing their nose on 'company Kleenex' and took it away as political revenge. There is far more waste / loss in other areas than the $25/month they'd have to cough up for the water cooler, but it's much easier to ignore I guess.

Re:muffins

[Anonymous Coward]

Not true, there are laws and standards in place. My father has been the CFO of many corporations. Pre-Enron, what you said might have been right on the money. Not anymore.

If a CFO is interested in taking a company public, they must sign all their assets down on the dotted line. Note that I said THEIR assets, not the company's. If you, as in slash dotters, are working for a company and you do a bad job, you get fired. If you are a CFO and do a bad job for a company, they can LEGALLY take your home, retirement, and anything else they can get their hands on, even if it was acquired before their employment. It's too much liability so many CFO's are getting out of the business ASAP. That is almost as bad for business as paying them their rediculous salaries.

Unfortunately the people who write the checks and move the money will always move the largest portion over to their side unless employees stand up for themselves, ie unionize

Re:muffins

[Anonymous Coward]

Jeeze. So you believe that rich people, because they're rich, should be allowed to steal millions, while poor people, because they have nothing, should be jailed for stealing a donut?

    Pardon me if I speak for myself, but your attitude makes me puke.

Re:muffins

[HappyEngineer]

I could have sworn that I saw it on the list of 10 on the green party's page some years back. But, it's not there now. Nevertheless, see M aximum_wage</a>. It talks about how it was on the Green Party's platform in 2000.

If there was a fair and systematic way to prevent mega corps then I might be in favor of that. Startups are a huge source of innovation that drives change in the economy. However, I don't see how a maximum wage would cause that to happen.

Working at a startup is hard work. You need to do a lot of work that you wouldn't do at a larger corp. The reason people go through that difficulty is so that they can strike it rich. That's not their only motivation, but there are plenty of outlets for creativity that do not involve 100 hour weeks where programmers also have to do janitorial work and sales work and paperwork in addition to their normal duties.

An alternative formulation that I might find interesting would be to put a cap on the maximum amount of money that a person can make based on the number of people at the company. The larger the company, the lower the max is. If the corporation is small enough then there wouldn't be a max. That might possibly work. All the best people who think they can make more would leave the big corps to start new startups. That seems risky to me, but it at least has the right sort of goals in mind. It's not about social justice, it's about lubricating the wheels of the economic machine. Trying to legislate social justice does not work. Trying to optimize the machine can work (although that usually fails too, which is why hands off is often the best policy).

Re:muffins

[HappyEngineer]

Why do so many people think the abortion argument is complex? It's an axiomatic debate. You either believe that the fetus is a full fledged human with full rights or you believe that the fetus doesn't acquire those rights until it's old enough to survive on its own.

There is no philosophical argumentation involved. There is only endless debate decade after decade. The debate will never end because one side thinks it's horrible mass murder while the other side thinks it's an acceptable medical procedure.

As a practical person, I think that pro-lifers would make better use of their time if they did their best to massively subsidize all sorts of contraception options. I don't know why they don't do that. If they believe that preventing an abortion is saving a life then they should give out birth control pills at every street corner. They should provide for free vasectomies for anyone who wants them. And so on. I'll bet they could put a huge dent in the number of abortions performed if they tried that sort of reasonable approach rather than just railing against windmills for decade after decade.

Re:muffins

[fferreres]

It's more like psychology. You probably wouldn't give a damn if you finish 100% your lunch some day, the extra food is worth little (maybe you always, everytime, finish 100% of your served food). Some people would see that a sacrilege, in areas where people really suffer famine.

Now, there are CXOs that are mad, there are the good ones also, working for their company, people, etc. The reason they pay them so much, I don't know, but have several ideas. It doesn't matter that much (few people are in these positions, and lowering his salary say to 10% wouldn't even increase average salaries even 0.1%)...

Re:muffins

[Anonymous Coward]

It's quite likely that the manager who looks incompetent to you is simply responding to issues and priorities beyond your knowledge.
It's equally likely (in my experience, anyway) that the manager is simply psychotic/lazy/incompetent.

In any event, spreading negativity will most likely backfire on you. Upper management will almost always side with the manager versus the employee.
Unfortunately quite correct. That's why you document their cockups objectively, via email, in a manner that elicits confessions, statements & decisions which you can later use to back yourself up, especially if upper management get involved. (Of course, upper management are probably bastards anyway -- at least, most that I've met).

Re:muffins

[kabocox]

It's the massive, extreme inequalities on the scale of 1,000,000:1 that result in massive-scale poverty that I have a problem with, because society is supposed to be for the benefit of everyone - it's why we build them. We're supposed to make a living together. It's the "profit at all costs" motive that erases that benefit and begins to benefit the few at the great expense of the many.

I've always had the idea that I'd like to personally say where my tax money goes. Well I don't pay the government enough for me to personally divide up my money myself. I think that those like Bill Gates or anyone that pays more than $100K a year in taxes should be able to directly spend their "tax money" on the public projects that they want their money spent on. It makes sense at an individual level. I doubt the same idea would work for companies or industries for them to directly funnel their tax money into government programs that their company sees as needing funding. I wonder what kinda of results that would have. Most industries would spend their tax money on public government projects that made us of their industry or company. I wonder if it could work.

Steal?

[Quasar1999]

Why the hell would we steal brown bag lunches? Now if it was some sort of fast food... we'd be all over it...

Re:Steal?

[bensafrickingenius]

We're supposed to pay $0.25 per cup for coffee at work. I only pay for maybe 1 cup in 20. Of course, I guess I can be hero, because I'm stealing from The Man and not my coworkers, right?

Re:Steal?

[despisethesun]

At least your company provides coffee, even if you have to pay for it. The company I work for is so cheap I had to bring in my own coffee pot, grounds, and filters.

Re:Steal?

[Anonymous Coward]

My employer provides coffee with one of these machines. Well, actually, we have 12 of them spread across the floors to service about 400 people.

The machines are awesome and they have a decent selection of choices.

Re:Steal?

[Peyna]

So you're the bastard that hasn't been paying for coffee. By the way, you ARE stealing from your co-workers, because we're the ones who buy the coffee.

Re:Steal?

[Millenniumman]

Oh yeah? I have to grow the coffee myself, then pick it. Then I grind it with a stone, put it in a bowl (hewn from stone) with water (reclaimed from the air and heated on servers) and I filter it with old AC filters. Then coworkers usually steal the coffee.

Re:Steal?

[cyber-dragon.net]

Show your employer the numerous studies on the cost savings and good will generated by providing free drinks.

Re:Steal?

[Anonymous Coward]

Your suffering is what makes it taste so sweet.

Re:Steal?

[Takumi2501]

Every morning where I work someone makes a coffee run. Sometimes I'm not at my desk so I just leave a small box there with some cash. They know what to get me and just take the money from the box. Nobody's ever stolen from that box.

...but then again, I work for a small company where everybody knows everybody. That's probably a factor.

Re:Steal?

[Erectile Dysfunction]

On the side of the road is a vegetable stand. No one is there to attend to it, but there is a box and a sign with prices for the merchandise. In the box there will typically be at least thirty dollars and the stand itself is full of vegetables. No one has ever taken the box or the vegetables. All it would take is one unscrupulous person to stop and take the money and/or vegetables, yet it never happens. The stand earns a good sum and everyone has a convenient place to stop and purchase fresh local produce. An interesting question is whether this would change if instead of a local person this was conducted by Walmart. If Walmart left stands on the side of the road with produce, would people pay for what they took, or would they loot the stands?

Re:Steal?

[Tolkien]

Oh yeah? I have to grow the coffee myself, then pick it. Then I grind it with a stone, put it in a bowl (hewn from stone) with water (reclaimed from the air and heated on servers) and I filter it with old AC filters. Then coworkers usually steal the coffee.

If your servers are hot enough to boil water, you may want to consider alternatives. :)

Re:Steal?

[ihavnoid]

You forgot to roast your coffee beans before grinding it.

Re:Steal?

[Anonymous Coward]

Sure, that's rough. But what about people making Kopi Luwak coffee themselves, hmmmm?

Re:Steal?

[lactose99]

You have old AC filters? My company has one big fan attached to an exercise bike, and every one of us 8 in IT have to take 4-hour "cooling metrics" to keep the data center cool at "a reduced cost". They don't even have an iPod for us to listen to-- we have an old 8-track with a Barry Manilow best-of stuck in it.

Re:Steal?

[phasm42]

The neighborhood may play a role in that as well. It wouldn't be hard to find an area where the whole stand would disappear the same day.

And I do think that Walmart would be more likely to be looted because it's a corporation, not an individual.

Re:Steal?

[Millenniumman]

Oh, WE don't have AC. I steal those filters from the air conditioning system for the CEO. Your bike system sounds pretty nice, we have to blow on the servers. And an 8-track player? After one of us collapses from trying to cool the servers, he'll generally tap on the floor to entertain us.

Re:Steal?

[Anonymous Coward]

I'd say a number of people would continue business as usual. However, a large number of people would be looting every chance they could get.

When you're stealing from Farmer Bob, even though you don't know Farmer Bob, you can imagine he has a wife, kids to feed, et cetera. He's a hardworking old-fashioned American, complete with dirt under his finger nails.

Who the hell is Wal-mart? Do we want that fucking yellow smiley face to starve? God damned right we do. Nobody cares about that smarmy bastard.

Re:Steal?

[eric76]

Back in the 60s, the television store in my hometown in the Texas Panhandle was the top television store for that brand (I think it was RCA) in the nation in terms of market penetration. Nearly everyone around who had a television had that one brand.

One of the big stores in Chicago was impressed and sent an executive down to see if they could learn something they could use in Chicago. So he flew into Amarillo, met the district sales representative for that brand, and they got in the sales reps car and drove to the store a couple of hours away.

When they walked into the store about 11 am, they didn't see anyone at all. They figured that maybe the employees were drinking coffee or something and so they waited.

Then they noticed a sign that said "If you see a tv you like, take it home and try it out". Another sign instructed people bringing in a tv for repair to write down what was wrong with it and put the paper on the tv. Another sign said "If you brought your tv in for repair and you see it here, it is fixed. The repair cost is on the tag. Leave the money in the cigar box on the counter or sign the tag and leave it in the cigar box and we'll bill you for it."

About an hour after they arrived, one of the town's more idle citizens walked into the store and they asked him where the owners were. He replied, "Oh, they're out harvesting wheat. They should be back by 8 or 9 tonight to close the store for the night."

The visitors figured that nothing that we did here would work at all in their Chicago stores.

Re:Steal?

[jrockway]

> keep the data center cool at "a reduced cost" /me mentions something about how fans increase the energy in the system (room), and therefore heat the room, not cool it.

Re:Steal?

[Anonymous Coward]

No one has ever taken the box or the vegetables

How do you know? I ask because we have something like that here and the person who makes that offer says that people steal like mad, but it's still worthwhile because putting a person there to look over it would cost more. So just because the vegetable stand is still there doesn't mean that people don't steal.

Re:Steal?

[Anonymous Coward]

Thats a silly question that even the cops in N.O. have answered for us.

Re:Steal?

[Anonymous Coward]

This is a good question, and it boils down to the difference between possessions and property. Possessions are a natural concept that is supported by community, property is an artifical construct on top of possessions, which is supported by the threat of external force. (Usually governmental, sometimes private.)
  The answer is a question: does Mr. Wal-mart (who is a "person" after all) have any ties to people in the area? Do they think of Wal-mart as a neighbor, or just a faceless, unfeeling entity far away?
  The facts that big box stores were the favorite targets of looting in New Orleans, and that mom-and-pop stores run by locals with ties to the neighborhood were hardly looted at all, supports this distinction.

  A related question is this: Suppose you're going away on a vacation for three months. Your house will be empty the whole time. What stops some random guy from moving in and touching all your stuff? The government would like you to say "laws" or "police", but when was the last time the police came around to your house to check if you were really supposed to be living there?

  What prevents your house from being occupied by a stranger is your community. Your neighbors will notice, and do something. In a governed area, where people are taught to feel helpless, they will farm the task out to the police. In an area with a strong do-it-yourself (i.e. anarchist) bent, they'll cut out the middleman and just go over and knock on the door themselves. In both cases though, it's the community and not the 'law' that says your house is your possession, and should not be taken away.
  - mantar

Re:Steal?

[Erectile Dysfunction]

I know because the person is a neighbor of mine. If people "stole like mad" she would simply cease selling the vegetables on the side of the road, because she has a job and cannot sit around and watch the stand. A stand that makes no money due to theft isn't useful. As far as she claims, no one has stolen anything from the stand, though she's found the occassional Canadian penny. I walk over a couple of times a week to pick up some vegetables and I've never seen the box empty, so I have no particular reason to doubt her.

Re:Steal?

[TClevenger]

Depends. If the vegetable stand was connected to a mansion, with lots of nice cars parked out front, then yes, probably. When the CEO is driving a company-provided Mercedes (all personal use, contrary to tax law), and the employees have to buy their own coffee, you can expect a higher rate of pilferage.

People don't steal from vegetable stands because they know that the people who own the stand need the money a lot more than the potential thieves do.

Re:Steal?

[1310nm]

You're lucky for having to bring your own. Ever have ULTRA ROAST Folgers from a vacuum pack that's been sitting in a drawer from a year? You have to put enough non-dairy value cream and sugar in it to create paper mache, and chug.

Re:Steal?

[John Pfeiffer]

If Walmart left stands on the side of the road with produce, would people pay for what they took, or would they loot the stands?

I guess that depends on if the stands are in the New Orleans area.

(Hate me. I have it coming.)

Slow news day?

[wed128]

This article... it's pretty useless.

Re:Slow news day?

[Atzanteol]

Just like your comment...

Re:Slow news day?

[Anonymous Coward]

Enron was in Houston, so maybe it's just another indicator of the mentality of the accounting types that live and work there.

Re:Slow news day?

[cdcarter]

You must be new here

What kind of lunch?

[PhrostyMcByte]

If you want the IT guys to steal lunch, you've got to bait them with something caffeinated and something sugary. Try some Bawls, Mt. Dew, and Skittles.

Re:What kind of lunch?

[DaveM753]

> ...Try some Bawls, Mt. Dew, and Skittles.

Put all of the above into a blender....MMMmmmmmmmmm!

Re:What kind of lunch?

[Mad_Rain]

Of course, you're overlooking an obvious IT worker beverage bait:
Homer: "I'm feelin' low, Apu. You got any of that beer that has candy floating in it, you know, Skittlebrau?"
Apu: "Such a product does not exist, sir! You must have dreamed it."
Homer: "Oh. Well then just gimme a six-pack and a couple of bags of Skittles."

See also the slashdot story here.

Re:What kind of lunch?

[geminidomino]

I tried that. My pancreas leapt out through my belly button, kicked me in the balls, and called a lawyer.

Thanks a lot!

/.ed

[Anonymous Coward]

Try the cache:

http://www.chron.com.nyud.net:8090/disp/story.mpl/ business/sixel/4137785.html

Re:/.ed

[Anonymous Coward]

The Houston Chronicle is a major newspaper. A Slashdotting is weak compared to the traffic they get every day.

The article loads almost instantaneously for me.

Unfortunately....

[arth1]

Unfortunately, I'm certain that if I made a special lunch sandwich with razorblades, and some bastard stole it and hurt himself, the police would come after me.

What I really want to know is who the fucker is who deliberately pees all over the toilet seat and floor at work. I know people might hate their job and feel frustration, but is there any reason to take it out on everybody else?

Regards,
--
*Art

Re:Unfortunately....

[Anonymous Coward]

Maybe they hate their job because of their co-workers?

Seriously though the fucking up your own bathroom thing is pretty lame, especially at a white collar level.

This ain't the boys bathroom in highschool. Vandalizing it just makes work suck more.

Re:Unfortunately....

[LiquidCoooled]

But if you had a bad stomach and added laxatives to your lunch *for your own consumption* it wouldn't be your problem.

Re:Unfortunately....

[Anonymous Coward]

His name is Jerry. He's a sales guy.

(I'm serious, we have, sadly enough, witnesses.)

Re:Unfortunately....

[Anonymous Coward]

I used to work for a certain large insurance agency (Hint: Good Hands) and we had some guy that would literally fill the toilet in the handicap stall (the big one that everyone wanted to use) with a mound of toilet paper. It was a least a whole roll of TP wadded into a mini mountain. We started taking notice of who went to the bathroom and if they used that stall so we could go back and check after they left to see who it was. We never caught him though, slick bastard.

Re:Unfortunately....

[Shadow99_1]

When I worked retail customers often purposefully pissed on toilet seats, or worse spread crap on the walls... Why someone would want to I never could understand... We were one of the nicest stores within a good 50 miles with some of the best customer service... Why (literally) piss on us...?

Re:Unfortunately....

[John Courtland]

Somehow, we have a mystery pisser where I work that manages to pee on top of the urinal. Then someone else (or perhaps the same guy, I can't say) wipes their nose gold on the walls above that. Why?

Re:Unfortunately....

[bad-badtz-maru]

It's fat people... they can't see past their gut in order to aim (I am not joking).

Re:Unfortunately....

[genooma]

Because people are morons, plain and simple
A friend of mine used to have a quite big video store and allowed anyone to use the bathrooms, even if they werent buying anything, only to see the same thing happen (piss on the floor, shit on the walls), of course, it all stopped once he closed the bathrooms doors, and only gave the keys to customers.

Re:Unfortunately....

[MoeDrippins]

> Unfortunately, I'm certain that if I made a special lunch sandwich with razorblades, and some bastard stole it and hurt himself, the police would come after me.

Yeah, our law enforcement has gone totally insane to prosecute you for something like that.

Re:Unfortunately....

[UncleFluffy]

Unfortunately, I'm certain that if I made a special lunch sandwich with razorblades, and some bastard stole it and hurt himself, the police would come after me.

However, in my experience, an extremely over-salted sandwich together with an orange-juice carton full of dirty dishwater works extremely well.

Re:Unfortunately....

[Anonymous Coward]

Why do you think it was intentional? Some of us have to race to get our fly open to avoid wet pants. Its the guy that walk's very quickly to the bathroom...

Re:Unfortunately....

[db32]

And some people honestly believe that we are some super high and mighty form of life. Civilized and all that. When you really look at the lowest common denominator of human society it really is quite a pathetic mess. We call ourselves advanced because we can fling our poo with shovels instead of our hands...and we wear clothes to protect from other human shovel flung poo.

Re:Unfortunately....

[Belial6]

I always liked the ploy of fillig burritos with wasabi. Wasabi is a regular food, even served in restaurants, but one good bite of a wasabi fille burrito, and you will identify the theif right on. He will be the guy rolling around on the floor crying.

Of course I still don't understand why businesses don't fire people who steal. An employee who steals for other employees certainly won't have a problem stealing from the company. So, even if the business doesn't care about the moral problem being stolen from causes, they should be worried about their own bottom line.

Re:Unfortunately....

[Frightening]

Because we don't like rebates.

-F

Re:Unfortunately....

[Anonymous Coward]

Two reasons. The first is the there are a large number of people with undiagnosed mental illness that manage to make their way in society, but do things like this.

The other is that it was probably women. Men who have a problem with a store tend to be directly aggressive (ie, confronting staff etc.). Women tend to be indirectly aggressive. This includes such passive agressive acts as soiling merchandise or lavatories.
(Women bullying also tends to be indirect - via verbal abuse to others, organising shunning amongst groups etc. Many psychologists now consider this form of bullying to be more harmful than male-directed bullying which tends to be direct and shortlived in comparison).

Re:Unfortunately....

[The Man]

Really? It's not illegal to put razor blades in your own lunch. It's stupid, but it's not illegal unless you serve it to someone else or otherwise sell it as food. After all, it could be artwork never intended to be consumed by anyone. If someone steals from you, he or she is committing a crime and is entirely responsible for the consequences of that action. Consuming something stolen seems like a pretty bad idea regardless, since you never know what someone else might have put in a refrigerator; it might be spoiled, it might be something you're allergic to. The GP is probably right that you'd find yourself in trouble, but that's only because, as you sarcastically pointed out, our "justice" system is anything but and is completely out of control. Justice would be "Use your head; if you steal something and then eat it, that's your problem. Don't steal then, and while you're at it, don't eat anything that hasn't been given to you expressly for that purpose. Dumbass."

Re:Unfortunately....

[nathanh]

Really? It's not illegal to put razor blades in your own lunch.

Yes, it is illegal, because the intent is obviously to cause somebody (the thief) harm. It's the same reason that it's illegal to put boobytraps in your own home. If a burglar is hurt you WILL be prosecuted.

If someone steals from you, he or she is committing a crime and is entirely responsible for the consequences of that action.

Right, but you don't get to dictate those consequences. That's for a judge (or magistrate) to decide. You inflicting punishment is called vigilantism and it's extremely illegal. You can potentially go to prison for putting razor blades in a sandwich.

This is all first-year legal studies stuff. I didn't even do law but the single law class that I did take spent a week on this very topic. You can't boobytrap, poison or bait something with the expectation of harming a criminal.

Re:Unfortunately....

[The Man]

You can't boobytrap, poison or bait something with the expectation of harming a criminal.

You didn't read my post. I contend that this is a grievous BUG in the law. Simple as that.

Re:Unfortunately....

[nathanh]

You didn't read my post.

I read this bit of your post.

It's not illegal to put razor blades in your own lunch.

And commented on your mistake.

Re:Unfortunately....

[Repton]

Are you sure it's urine?

One of the toilets at work has a very "vigorous" flushing action. If you don't lift the seat up before flushing, you will end up with water on the toilet seat. It's easy to forget..

Re:Unfortunately....

[rk]

"What I really want to know is who the fucker is who deliberately pees all over the toilet seat and floor at work. I know people might hate their job and feel frustration, but is there any reason to take it out on everybody else?"

I think I'll trade you for the fucker at my office that picks his nose and wipes the boogers all over the tiles above the urinal... Yecch.

Re:Unfortunately....

[arth1]

You inflicting punishment is called vigilantism and it's extremely illegal. You can potentially go to prison for putting razor blades in a sandwich.

But it isn't you who inflict the punishment, it's the thief who does it.
Vigilantism implies active actions against identified persons.

It's the same reason that it's illegal to put boobytraps in your own home. If a burglar is hurt you WILL be prosecuted.

That scenario actually has a valid reason - your home can at times be legally visited without your consent, like when there's a potentially life threatening situation, or something on your property is causing damage to other people's property (like a sprung water line).

Someone eating other people's sandwiches at work isn't one of those situations. I fail to envision how it can be legally eaten without your consent. Not even preempting an insulin shock would be a valid reason, as there's surely faster remedies available (like soda or sugar).

Re:Unfortunately....

[19thNervousBreakdown]

Unfortunately, I'm certain that if I made a special lunch sandwich with razorblades, and some bastard stole it and hurt himself, the police would come after me.

That's 'cause you're fucking psycho, psycho.

Re:Unfortunately....

[Anonymous Coward]

When I worked retail customers often purposefully pissed on toilet seats, or worse spread crap on the walls... Why someone would want to I never could understand... We were one of the nicest stores within a good 50 miles with some of the best customer service... Why (literally) piss on us...?

Either the employees/management of a competing retail store, or unhappy ex-employees.

In our society, unscrupulous people greatly outnumber spread-feces-on-the-walls sickos.

Re:Unfortunately....

[Anonymous Coward]

Only on slashdot would that be considered trolling and not truth.... Coming from an ex-fatty, btw.

Re:Unfortunately....

[Dravik]

The real question is why is it illegal and should it be illegal. Vigilantism is normally thought of a determining guilt on your own and punishing somebody after the fact. Usually because some fault in the legal system has let them off. Causing injury during the commision of a crime instead of after the fact may be thought of as vigilantism by some. But that definition has some serious flaws, mainly the implication that a victim(say a woman being raped) is unqualified to determin that they are actually a victim. Most actions taken during the commision of a crime really should be thought of as self defense. Vigilantism should only come into play after, not during, the crime. For the example here, putting razors in your own food is just stupid, but should be considered an act of defense of ones own property. Putting razor blades in someone elses food because you think they are the thief is vigilantism.

Heard stories at work

[mgkimsal2]

I've heard some stories at work of people having their lunches/food taken from the communal fridges. Personally, I find it very bizarre. I think I used someone's mustard by mistake once. Some people have their names on condiments, and I only noticed half the name left after I used some, as the name had been partially smudged off already. I felt bad enough about that. But just coming in and taking someone else's food? Really, I just can't imagine ever doing that. Perhaps there's some sort of boundary gene that certain people have which leads them in to paths like IT which can partially account for the groupings this article laid out? But maybe I'm just a picky eater! Honestly, it takes me forever to make a decision at a restaurant, usually where I can see pictures of the food ahead of time. To just somewhat randomly grab something and eat it has no appeal. To spend time rummaging around 10 different bags/boxes to find what I wanted seems even more intrusive and wrong than I could fathom...

Re:Heard stories at work

[shayne321]

I was a victim of this, I find it just as bizarre as you. A couple of years back I met a friend at california pizza kitchen for lunch.. That day I only ate half my pizza, and brought the leftovers back to the office, thinking I'd stash them in the fridge and have lunch the following day. So the following day I arrive to work about 11:30am, and I walk in the break room and it smells of recently reheated pizza. I think "nah, no way" and head to my desk. About 2pm I head in for lunch, and sure enough 2 of the 3 slices that were in the CPK box are gone. I'm furious. Really mad. My name was plastered all over the box, it's not like it could have happened accidentally. So I figured the culprit would eventually return for the last slice since they enjoyed the first two so much. Time was limited, so I did the best thing I could come up with on short notice. I took the pizza to my desk, and looked in the janitor's closet for the nastiest industrial degreaser I could find. I took it back to my desk and REALLY soaked the pizza.. Sprayed it several times on the top and bottom over a period of half an hour so it'd REALLY get soaked in. My hope was the person wouldn't notice it until they took the first bite. So I stash the whole thing back in the fridge.. Sure enough, the following morning I find the CPK box in the trash, and sitting on top of it the last slice with a single bite taken out of it. Revenge never felt so sweet, and I never had anything else stolen from the kitchen. :) The bastard ruined my lunch, I felt pretty vindicated in ruining their snack.

Re:Heard stories at work

[jackbird]

Actually, they'd probably be dead, the kid would be in a foster home, and the parents would be in jail.

Re:Heard stories at work

[mqj]

I remember reading an anecdote about how ice cream was left in the communal fridge and that someone would always eat it. The solution was to wrap the ice cream container in a plain brown paper bag and label it "TOFU" and stick it in the back of the fridge. Nobody touched it.

Re:Heard stories at work

[mattyc9]

Someone kept eating my leftover Thai food over the weekend. So the next time I bought it, I let it sit out overnight on Wednesday, then put it in the fridge with a sticky note labled for Friday. It was gone on Monday, so my hope is that someone got violently ill and renounced their evil lunch-eating ways. Time will tell...

Re:Heard stories at work

[Blkdeath]

I've heard some stories at work of people having their lunches/food taken from the communal fridges. Personally, I find it very bizarre.

It happened to me once. I'm in sales, so I can't always sit for 30 minutes when my lunch arrives. This time I had Jerk chicken and rice waiting for me while I finished with a client. When I returned to the lunch room it was gone.

I was furious! I mean, it's not about the $6.00 lunch so much as now I have to try to make another hole in my schedule to go get more for myself but also to find time to eat it.

If the person had come to me and said they were broke and needed food I'd have given them the six bucks.

Re:Heard stories at work

[Anonymous Coward]

Dangerous, if not bordering on illegal. Worse, you're left with 0 edible pieces of pizza intead of 1. You need to think of something truly harmless and that doesn't ruin your pizza.

If it were me, I'd take a nice, stiff paper index card -- the kind of thing you couldn't easily eat even if you tried, but that wouldn't hurt you if you did -- cut it into a shape that would easily fit inside the border of a pizza slice, write the message "You owe me $X for eating my pizza, asshole!", hide the card in under the cheese layer (usually easy for cold pizza, especially after being in the fridge), and wait for the reaction. If nobody touches it before you want to eat it, lift up the cheese layer, toss the card, heat it up the slice, and enjoy.

Re:Heard stories at work

[sjames]

Interestingly, chiliheads can easily enjoy food so hot it will potentially provoke a medical crisis in others. The best part is once they recover from the initial effects, they can only wait in horror for the 'morning after'.

Re:Heard stories at work

[eric76]

In the early 60s, my sister was upset that some girls in her dorm would eat candy that she put in the dorm refrigerator. So she made some candy using goat droppings and put them in the refrigerator.

She nearly got kicked out of college for that, but she really didn't care because she was getting ready to be married in a few months and wouldn't be back the next semester anyway.

We had some kind of dinner at a local restraunt following the wedding rehersel. Our waitress at the restraunt was one of the girls who ate the goat dropping candy from the dorm refrigerator.

Re:Heard stories at work

[eric76]

Where I work, we have a nearly normal kitchen in the office. I usually cook my own meals from scratch and keep a variety of things in one of the refrigerators and one of the freezers.

A local high school kid would raid the freezer regularly. He'd come in, grab something out of the freezer, and leave before anyone could see what he had. For example, one time his sister wanted some fish, so he came in and stole a package of rainbow trout that I had in the freezer.

I don't have to worry about him for a while. He's just turned 19, will never graduate from high school, and is now in a Texas prison. Prior to being transferred to prison, he was in the county jail for about three months with nothing to eat but tv dinners.

Now if only they'd take his twin brother, too.

Re:Heard stories at work

[Guido von Guido]

Our waitress at the restraunt was one of the girls who ate the goat dropping candy from the dorm refrigerator.

I suspect the waitress has a good story to tell about what your sister and your family ate after the rehearsal dinner.

Re:Heard stories at work

[MichaelSmith]

The other day I woman I work with brought in a birthday cake to share with her co-workers (because it was her birthday) and the whole lot disapeared from the fridge. Hard to think of anything lower than that.

Re:Heard stories at work

[Fulcrum of Evil]

It only burns for a little while - that's the price you pay for good Curry.

Re:Heard stories at work

[Just Some Guy]

cut it into a shape that would easily fit inside the border of a pizza slice, write the message "You owe me $X for eating my pizza, asshole!"

Or better, "I found this on the sidewalk", or "how does my pee taste"? If they're dishonest enough to steal your food, why bother telling them the truth? What are they gonna do - get a manager involved?

Also...

[Poromenos1]

Also because the higher-ups are used to stealing!

Thank you, I'll be here for a bit.

Re:Also...

[Anonymous Coward]

Thank you, I'll be here for a bit.

For two bits, would you go away and never come back?

Re:Also...

[Bimo_Dude]

Thank you, I'll be here for a bit.

Don't you mean that you'll be here for a byte?

Re:Also...

[Marxist Hacker 42]

Well, that and us lower peons rarely have time for lunches and muffins. ESPECIALLY in IT- to relate back TFA- where there's no lunch left to steal at 4:00pm when we finally tear away long enough for a break.

Re:Also...

[Drooling Iguana]

It's 1986 all over again!

Wait a minute...

[RealGrouchy]

...are you saying that IT workers are allowed to eat lunches?

That changes everything...

- RG>

Re:Wait a minute...

[genooma]

It would be funny if I wasn't called to fix something in the middle of my sandwich.

Re:Wait a minute...

[TheRaven64]

Lunch? Who gets up in time for Lunch?

I love working with people five time zones west of me; finally I get up at the same time as my colleagues.

please, less science, more fluff

[MolecularBear]

I am getting sick of all these incomprehensibly esoteric articles. I like science, but sometimes the posts on slashdot are just too technical for me. This article on stealing lunches is a case in point. The pages and pages of analyses, the incredibly detailed social models that they used to arrive at their conclusions, the dogs eating lunches... it's a bit much for the layperson to grasp in one sitting. Editors: could we please get something a little lighter next time?

Re:please, less science, more fluff

[AsmCoder8088]

Try digg if you want a watered-down version.

Re:please, less science, more fluff

[lee1026]

I was under the impression that we are supposed to be nerds around here. We pride ourselves on our abilitys to do this sort of stuff, remember?

Re:please, less science, more fluff

[Lord_Dweomer]

Relax, its the weekend, I know you were sarcastically hinting how um...fluffy this article was but its Sunday...in-depth scientific articles should be reserved for the work week, when I can pursue them and their related materials/research and waste copious amounts of work time.

Re:please, less science, more fluff

[MyLongNickName]

We also pride ourselves on detecting sarcasm. Please cease logging on.

Re:please, less science, more fluff

[vga_init]

Insightful? I think not. This is a well written humor article (and not very long, I might add). If this article is too "technical" for you, why don't you mosey on over to the BBC instead of sit here and complain?

Re:please, less science, more fluff

[Anonymous Coward]

Insightful? I think not. This is a well written humor article (and not very long, I might add). If this article is too "technical" for you, why don't you mosey on over to the BBC instead of sit here and complain?

Joke.











Your head.

Re:please, less science, more fluff

[Anonymous Coward]

That's why I love digg. The articles there always link to insightful blog posts that fully explain complicated articles such as this one.

Steal my lunch

[MajorDick]

I had someone stealing my lunch for quite some time, SO I took the advice of my boss, he was ex military his suggesion was cook a pack of exlax in brownies and put the brownie in my lunch.

I did

It was stolen

All I can do is assume it was eaten since my lunch was never stolen again.

NOW Before all the goddam whiners start barking about liablity, and poisioning and the like remmeber theis was MY lunch meant to be eaten or discarded my ME, and it was STOLEN.

Its sad I have to add that but it seems the kind of world we are in where all the know it alls have to bark up and say something they fell makes them look like they know something

THE ONLY THING thats important to know is that if you STEAL MY LUNCH YOU WILL SUFFER.

Re:Steal my lunch

[c0d3m4n]

That makes you a hero in my book!

Re:Steal my lunch

[Anonymous Coward]

Damn that makes you a MajorDick.

Re:Steal my lunch

[mikemcc]

Kudos to you! To turn the shit who's stealing your food into an incontinent shit is excellent behavior modification.

Re:Steal my lunch

[Xugumad]

> NOW Before all the goddam whiners start barking about liablity, and poisioning and the like remmeber theis was MY lunch meant to be eaten or discarded my ME, and it was STOLEN.

The answer, of course, is to make everyone (except lunch stealer) happy by sticking a label on it that says:

's lunch, DO NOT EAT

Re:Steal my lunch

[malkavian]

Had the same thing as a student. So I set up a pack of chocolate digestives (replaced the choccie ones with standard digestives coated with ex lax). Morning after, I came down to find the biscuits gone.
On the walk in to Uni, I discovered who it was that had been stealing the biscuits. And no, he didn't make it to a lavatory in time.
My food was pretty much left alone after that.
The bit I found perplexing was that this chap was a hard core Christian (born again, I think). He was the last one I expected it to be..

Re:Steal my lunch

[Xugumad]

That should be 's lunch, DO NOT EAT

Re:Steal my lunch

[Cadallin]

Um, you find that suprising? Christians are generally the most self important fuckers on the planet. Much more likely to steal than anybody else.

Re:Steal my lunch

[Anonymous Coward]

Hah! You're one of the brown bag lifters, aren't you?

Re:Steal my lunch

[Dun Malg]

The bit I found perplexing was that this chap was a hard core Christian (born again, I think). He was the last one I expected it to be..

A friend of mine works as a teacher at a private college and his observation is that the worst thieves (everything from simply stealing food to swiping scanners, computers, etc) are all kinda weirdo born-agains. His theory is that the greater someone's propensity towards immoral behavior, the greater likelihood that they'll seek some sort of organized system that in theory "forces" them to act morally. Just as one finds people with a hard-core capacity for drinking at an Alcoholics Anonymous meeting (which is all about NOT drinking), it's not at all illogical to expect to find people with a tendency towards immoral behavior attracted to a very strict religious organization.

Re:Steal my lunch

[symbolic]

The bit I found perplexing was that this chap was a hard core Christian

I wonder if he still is....

And no, he didn't make it to a lavatory in time.

I mean, wouldn't you be praying for a miracle in a situation like that?

Re:Steal my lunch

[Anonymous Coward]

Of all the people I've shared a house with, I've found professed Christians least likely to do the washing up.

Re:Steal my lunch

[Silicon_Knight]

I used to have a bowl of gumballs and dutch mints on my desk at college to help with late night studying. They'd disappear much quicker than anticipated - it was my roomie's friends, so it wasn't like I could just have a nice talk with my roommate about it.

One day I decided to fix the problem by replacing the bowl of mints with paintballs, before leaving for the weekend.

Came back Sunday night to find a chewed paintball split into a kleenix in my trash can. Never had a problem with candy theft after that!

- SK

Re:Steal my lunch

[giorgiofr]

Ayup. They also beat children, the ones they do not eat that is, and also they like to FLAME LIKE MORONS. Oh no wait, that would be you.

Re:Steal my lunch

[evilviper]

NOW Before all the goddam whiners start barking about liablity, and poisioning and the like remmeber theis was MY lunch meant to be eaten or discarded my ME, and it was STOLEN.

Just recently heard the story of a guy who rigged up a shotgun to his door, so it would fire if anyone broke-in while he was sleeping inside.

Now, of course, it was HIS house, meant to be entered by HIM.

When a burglar broke in, and was shot (not seriously) the guy who rigged it up was arrested, and charged with assault.

Just because you're upset, and you think punishing someone is justified, doesn't mean it's not going to result in you spending years in jail. You should be damn happy the person thought it was accidental, and you got away with it.

BTW, your nickname is quite apt.

Re:Steal my lunch

[Anonymous Coward]

You could just use the scarecrow technique. Just put the brownies -- no exlax, no poison, just plain brownies -- in there and attach a sticker to them: "WARNING: one of this brownies contains cianide." I guess nobody would have the guts to try and guess if the warning was true.

Unfortunately, there is a countermeasure to it. Someone else could attach another label to your snack: "WARNING: there are now TWO brownies with cianide."

Re:Steal my lunch

[AVryhof]

That is a different case.

Most states have specific laws in place for when you can defend your home with lethal force (shooting with a deadly weapon) whereas adding laxitive (not a poison, etc) to your food is not covered and would be a simple civil case...which probably wouldn't amount to much in the end anyway.

If it came down to it he could have simply said he'd been blocked up lately and it was for his own health reasons.

Re:Steal my lunch

[badfish99]

Another explanation may be that this sort of Christianity makes people think that they are morally superior to other people who are not "born again", and therefore they begin to feel (perhaps subconsciously) that other people do not matter. This would fit in with the observation that highly-paid managers are also more likely to steal, as they also regard themselves as superior.

Re:Steal my lunch

[Ash-Fox]

On the walk in to Uni, I discovered who it was that had been stealing the biscuits. And no, he didn't make it to a lavatory in time.
My food was pretty much left alone after that.
The bit I found perplexing was that this chap was a hard core Christian (born again, I think). He was the last one I expected it to be..

Those biscuits were dark-sided!

Re:Steal my lunch

[Eli Gottlieb]

I know, and they use the blood of poor Jewish babies to make their awful Communion wafers...

Re:Steal my lunch

[wik]

> If it came down to it he could have simply said he'd been blocked up lately and it was for his own health reasons.

Instructing someone to deliberately lie? Great plan.

Re:Steal my lunch

[Secrity]

I have found that so-called "Christians" believe that if there is no penalty for doing something that it is OK to do it. They must perceive that taking somebody else's food does not come with a penalty, so it's OK. Must have something to do with the "thou shall -- or else" mentality that they are taught. Non-theists and other people who do not believe in heaven/hell tend to do the right thing simply because it's the right thing, not because there is an "or else".

A born again "Christian" co-worker was once asked why he kept parking his car in a marked motorcycle parking area, he responded that he didn't have a problem parking there because there was no penalty for violating the parking regulations. There was plenty of automobile parking available and the motorcycle parking area is heavily used.

Re:Steal my lunch

[BasilBrush]

BTW, your nickname is quite apt.

So's your's for a lunch thief.

Re:Steal my lunch

[dduck]

I used to live in a house I shared with a bunch of people from the humanities. They always always always nibbled at my leftovers without asking permission... until the day I made a truly toxic chicken vindaloo...

Problem solved!

Still had to get a padlock for my door to keep them from my computer tho :(

Re:Steal my lunch

[Blkdeath]

Instructing someone to deliberately lie? Great plan.

In a day in age where court systems reward theives and other criminals with massive liability settlements against those they mercilessly victimize, what's the bigger problem here?

Re:Steal my lunch

[Xiaran]

Ive worked many years in the security industry and this is whats called a deadly mantrap. These are illegal in most countries in the world under tort law. There are non lethal mantraps used(usually a variation on a airlock that gets sealed under certain circumstances... but you have to be quite careful that even those are very safe.

Re:Steal my lunch

[Faylone]

Perhaps it is that thieves are attracted to high paying management positions, you know, like politicians?

Re:Steal my lunch

[colmore]

Friends of mine who work for tips in restaurants and coffee shops tell me that the Sunday afternoon crowd is invariable the stingiest.

Re:Steal my lunch

[WilliamSChips]

Actually, the extremist Christians like Fred Phelps have been found to beat their wives and kids. I have absolutely zero respect for Fred Phelps.

Re:Steal my lunch

[Nexzus]

whereas adding laxitive (not a poison, etc) to your food is not covered and would be a simple civil case...which probably wouldn't amount to much in the end anyway.

See, that's where you're wrong. There'd be alot in the end.

Oy, I can't believe I just did that. What am I, seven years old? Meh, it's Sunday.

Re:Steal my lunch

[Impotent_Emperor]

'Course they are, they just made large donations to the church! The waiters are probably heathens who were working instead of going to church.

Re:Steal my lunch

[MajorDick]

My Name is approprate I will make people suffer who cross me and go out of my way to do it, even the Mayor is scared shitless of me after I berated him at a council meeting and told him he ever fucks with me again and well see what people in my neighbordhood think of proerty values, I told him I would paint my house "BRIGHT PINK AND FLOURESCENT GREEN" and on top of it he was going to pay for the paint, when he exclaimed I couldnt do that I said NO ?, Well our town had a housepainting incentive, they City would re-imbursue you for the cost of the paint and it made no mention of color.

He looked over at the police chief who I know well on a freindly basic, at which point the Chief was visibly laughing, the Mayor red and flustered just sat down and let me continute. 2 Councli memebrs were removed because of that nights tirade as they should have been.

Its one thing to be a DICK, its ENTIRLEY Another to be and EFFECTIVE ONE

BUT unfortunatley YOU were just the type of person I added that disclaimer for, and low and BEHOLD , you JUST COULD NOT RESIST.....

ZZZZZZZZZSnag !

Re:Steal my lunch

[KillerCow]

The bit I found perplexing was that this chap was a hard core Christian (born again, I think). He was the last one I expected it to be.

Reaction Formation

Re:Steal my lunch

[topham]

Thats because they left the 30%+ tips with the watress at the bar the night before and don't have any money now.

Or maybe it's because half the time the waiters and waitresses are so obviously hung over from being out partying the night before that their service sucks.

na, can't be that.

(I generally tip well, but don't screw up my meal. It isn't complicated. I expect to be served promptly; I expect you to delivery the bill in a timely manner and I expect you to handle any problems that do crop up in an appropriate manner. You fail any of those and your tip will diminish.).

Re:Steal my lunch

[Sycraft-fu]

"The bit I found perplexing was that this chap was a hard core Christian (born again, I think). He was the last one I expected it to be."

That's not really that surprising. You've probably heard the joke "Always bring two Mormons fishing, if your bring just one he'll drink all your beer!" An overreaching stereotype to be sure, but not one without some genuine merit.

The thing is, regardless of the religion you follow, people are still people. We like doing the same stuff. We like getting drunk, we like getting laid, we like getting things for free, etc. Having your church tell you "It's wrong to do that," doesn't change that you like it.

So when you have a community that forces you to repress this kind of stuff in the public eye, often you are more likely to act out when nobody is looking, if for nothing else the psychological thrill of feeling like you are getting away with something.

Re:Steal my lunch

[Tim C]

Completely offtopic, but it reminds me of an old joke - a guy goes to a pub on his own and has a couple of drinks. Part way through a pint, he really needs to go to the toilet, but is afraid that if he leaves his pint undefended, someone will drink it. Thinking quickly, he writes "I've spat in this pint" on a piece of paper and leaves it next to the glass, and goes off to the toilet. When he gets back, sure enough, his drink is still there - but someone has written "So have I" on the paper.

Re:Steal my lunch

[Tim C]

Exlax is probably ok - if someone complained, you could argue that you needed it (for the obvious reason) and that that was the way you prefered to take it.

Its sad I have to add that but it seems the kind of world we are in where all the know it alls have to bark up and say something they fell makes them look like they know something

Actually, what I find sad is that we live in the kind of world where a lunch thief who was poisoned by what he ate probably could sue the rightful owner. He might not win, but that's not the point; you shouldn't have to defend yourself at all. Mind you, you shouldn't have to defend your lunch, either...

Re:Steal my lunch

[dargaud]

If you don't want anyone touching your food in the communal fridge, just wrap it in a condom...

Now if we could just figure out who's been stealing the cofee money out of the box, it would be an improvement. I tought about putting a webcam with motion sensor there.

Re:Steal my lunch

[grammar fascist]

Just as one finds people with a hard-core capacity for drinking at an Alcoholics Anonymous meeting (which is all about NOT drinking), it's not at all illogical to expect to find people with a tendency towards immoral behavior attracted to a very strict religious organization.

Oh, those poor, broken people who need such a crutch. That's a great theory, except that born-again organizations are some of the least strict of all Christian religions.

Gah! Another popular anti-religious theory falls flat on its face!

Re:Steal my lunch

[Dun Malg]

You could just use the scarecrow technique. Just put the brownies -- no exlax, no poison, just plain brownies -- in there and attach a sticker to them: "WARNING: one of this brownies contains cianide." I guess nobody would have the guts to try and guess if the warning was true.

Nah, nobody would believe anyone would be stupid enough to keep poison food next to their non poisoned food. Better would be "WARNING: one of these brownies is mad with ex-lax instead of chocolate. I know which one. Do you?"

Re:Steal my lunch

[Anonymous Coward]

But aren't they just SO GOOD?

Re:Steal my lunch

[Plaid Phantom]

Well, we wouldn't be working if all those holier-than-thous wouldn't keep us in business on Sundays and leave me stuck working. (I say this as one who does go to church as often as work lets me.)

Re:Steal my lunch

[asuffield]

The bit I found perplexing was that this chap was a hard core Christian (born again, I think). He was the last one I expected it to be..

This quote sums it up quite nicely:

Remember: you can spell "Christian" without H-Y-P-O-C-R-I-T-E, but you probably shouldn't bother.

It's so very right on so many levels.

Re:Steal my lunch

[Fulcrum of Evil]

If I had a crappy, scuffed Ninja 250, it might fall over into their car. Oops.

Re:Steal my lunch

[Cadallin]

There's flaming like a moron, and then there's calling people on their bullshit. As the other people who replied to you pointed out: yes, christians are likely to beat children, and their wives. What group of people is most likely to engage in dangerous sexual behavior? Oh yeah that's right, youth group christians who take "wait until I'm married" vows.

Re:Steal my lunch

[Eccles]

I used to live in a house I shared with a bunch of people from the humanities. They always always always nibbled at my leftovers without asking permission.../I.

Humanities majors? They were probably just preparing for their life of poverty...

Re:Steal my lunch

[mabhatter654]

no, indicating a poison would get the cops called for a "bomb threat" situation.

Re:Steal my lunch

[Achromatic1978]

What group of people is most likely to engage in dangerous sexual behavior? Oh yeah that's right, youth group christians who take "wait until I'm married" vows.

Yup, they tend to be the ones who engage in "Well, if I let him stick it in my pooper it's okay, `cause I won't get pregnant. And the Church says 'Condoms Are Bad!', so he shouldn't use one of them...", etc, etc.

Re:Steal my lunch

[Fujisawa Sensei]

The bit I found perplexing was that this chap was a hard core Christian (born again, I think). He was the last one I expected it to be.

Its not as uncommon as think, I worked with a former preacher who we caught stealing lunches as well.

Re:Steal my lunch

[Kadmos]

His theory is that the greater someone's propensity towards immoral behavior, the greater likelihood that they'll seek some sort of organized system that in theory "forces" them to act morally.

Is this a good time to mention priests and alter-boys?

Re:Steal my lunch

[giorgiofr]

Care to come up with a serious study pointing out that, I dunno, maybe 10% of Christians beat wife & kids somewhat regularly? *That* qualifies for "likely to beat children and their wives". 0.001% of your hated-group-of-the-day doing something you dislike does not justify mindlessly bashing them.
As a matter of fact I am from a country where pretty much everyone is or declares to be a Christian, yet I still have to see any way their likelihood to beat anyone is different than mine (obviously I am not one). Which is, in both cases, 0% anyway. Maybe you failed to notice that normal people in normal countries are quite, you see, normal: non violent and disapproving of violence.

Re:Steal my lunch

[Eivind Eklund]

Look into influence theory and "reactance". It's sort of reverse psychology, only more formalized and correct. Basically, we have a built-in wish to break rules that are forced upon us.

Eivind.

Re:Steal my lunch

[dargaud]

Not to forget this quote from bash.org:

I put a note on our fridge saying "find what I peed in and win $1", roomates though it was funny, but a couple friends of ours refused to have some applejuice.

Re:Steal my lunch

[Cadallin]

Hmmm, It's difficult to find hard data on-line about domestic abuse statistics. The best I can do is point out strong correlation between the religiosity of a region and its domestic homicide rate (I'm assuming that domestic homicide and abuse correlate strongly, which seems reasonable to me, and it has been shown in numerous studies that men who abuse their wives are very likely to also abuse their children. Check wikipedia on domestic abuse as a starting point). Check out:

http://www.silentwitness.net/states/us_map.htm

It's a map showing domestic homicide rates for the last few available years based on FBI data. Note where almost all of the worst states are? Oh right, the Bible Belt. Of course that's not conclusive, but it correlates very well with my anecdotal experience.

Re:Steal my lunch

[Anonymous Coward]

Strange. The traditional penalty for fucking with a biker is typically extrajudicial - parking a cage in motorcycle parking is usually tire deflation. Nice bikers use a valve stem remover, 1%ers use a blade to the sidewall.

First offence is one tire. Second is two tires. Third is either three tires,one with a blade for the nice guys, or call your buddy who has a chop shop for the 1%ers.

Re:Steal my lunch

[giorgiofr]

The problem with this kind of issues is precisely what you point out: it's hard to find conclusive evidence. This is one of those debates that can go on endlessly with both parts coming up with examples to prove their point, like the one about the effect of widely available weapons on crime rate, where people will come up with different sets of data to skew opinions in their favour (eg: lots of crime in California, where most people have guns; but close to no crime in Norway, where 1 in 3 family has a frigging automatic rifle at home...).
You point out that a lot of domestic abuse takes place in the Bible Belt, yet I could say that in my mostly christian country there is very little domestic abuse. How about this: rednecks tend to be more violent so they indulge in domestic abuse. Religion does not even come into play here. Yes, it IS simplistic and yes, it is wrong: just like your analysis.
There are TONS of other factors that should be taken into consideration when arguing about the way society is affected by religion, set of laws, and generally socioeconomic elements. Blanket statements such as "lol christians r t3h suX0r" are certainly NOT an appropriate way to conduct such studies.

Re:Steal my lunch

[Anonymous Coward]

Uh huh, sure. Give us the recipe and method that you used to "coat" the plain digestives.

Hero department

[Anonymous Coward]

What is a "Hero Department"?

Re:Hero department

[Anonymous Coward]

The department most likely to eat hero sandwiches.

Re:Hero department

[RobertLTux]

that would be the department that
1 seems to have the most wasteful buget
2 but can by quick action save the company big bucks
3 is also the most likely to be regularly "bribed" by the other departments since not doing so is a good way to get a visit by the BOFH hisself
(and at that point you might survive if you are lucky you will still have a job but....)

good practice for a company is to
Pay the "producers"
Pay your IT, security and accounting
pay the rest of the "staff"
pay the CxO types

in that order

Re:Hero department

[pimpimpim]

you forgot "sales", which is where the money actually comes in.

Re:Hero department

[Anonymous Coward]

seems to have the most wasteful buget

I don't know about anyone else, but I have not been in an organisation with a wasteful IT budget since the dotcom days and even then, "wasteful" wouldn't be the best description. The budgets were designed to ensure that the IT infrastructure was on the cutting edge as much as possible, which was actually a good thing back then as during that time performance was creeping up, and new services were hitting the market that organisations wanted.

Nowadays it's a different story. IT services have reached a standard grouping, so you can deploy at once and have 99 percent of the services that your organisation is likely to need for the next 3-5 years. There is no internet hype and most organisations have a good feel for what they want to do with regards to the internet, so there are, compared to back then, few requests for new services.

Maybe this has just been my experience, but for me, the days of IT budgets that you could reasonably call "wasteful" haven't been around since 2000.

And before someone jumps in with the story about how their organisation is still requesting new services, I'm speaking relative to back then. It HAS slowed down, as growth in the Tech sector clearly demonstrates. You're individual experience may be different, and yes, I still get requests for new services, but I don't have the managers of every department hitting me up every few weeks for some gee whiz new capability that my poor pentium servers could barely handle on their own, let alone as an add on to the existing services. It's just a tottally different paradigm(hahahaha) today.

And despite jokes about "bribing" IT, I don't give a shit what non-IT department workers think of us. Their asses go home at 5, get in at 8-9, and only come in on the weekends if they forgot their Ipod at the office. I routinely stay late to help departments reach target goals and that I'm rewarded with Subway and other things for my extra effort is hardly "bribery", given that I don't get any extra pay for over time. Not saying I'm a hero, but don't make it sound like I only do my job if someone give me gifts. I don't ask anyone for anything, they just give it to me in appreciation for my effort. You might want to try giving extra effort some time, then you too can be "bribed".

Try working among civil-servants

[kingsqueak]

I worked in the public sector for a number of years.

You could bring in food in a Tupperware bowl, leftovers prepared by who knows who and handled in who knows what manner and people would actually eat it! The thought of eating anything left in a fridge by a stranger just makes me shudder.

The habits of civil-servants never ceased to amuse, a herd of animals is the best way I can describe it. Filthy, filthy people. Shameless.

They used to have to pay housekeeping extra so that the restrooms would be cleaned three or four times in an eight hour shift and they were still dirtier than the restrooms in Penn Station.

There has to be some sort of psychology that attracts people to government jobs. It would be an amazing study to do.

Re:Try working among civil-servants

[legojenn]

That really must be a different government than the one I work in. Then again, you're probably just making stuff up. If anything, I find the communal fridges a cesspool because people put things in them and forget to take them out creating a primordial soup of half-finished lunches and leftovers from meetings. The washrooms, however, are clean.

Re:Try working among civil-servants

[BasilBrush]

"The habits of civil-servants never ceased to amuse, a herd of animals is the best way I can describe it. Filthy, filthy people. Shameless.
There has to be some sort of psychology that attracts people to government jobs."
Preceeded by...
"I worked in the public sector for a number of years."

Hoist on your own petard.

Re:Try working among civil-servants

[lucky13pjn]

I can attest to that. My previous job had a communal fridge that I used every day. Near the time I left, it started to smell really bad of mold. It eventually got so bad that I would gag every time I opened it.

I think the reason it got so bad (and the washroom didn't, natch) is because there was no designated person or time for a person to clean it, so it would just collect half/not eaten lunches or dinners.

Re:Try working among civil-servants

[gid]

I used to work for the Parks Dept for the local city here during summers after high school. I learned there real quick that the fridge was the last place I wanted to keep my food--it was nasty. So I started bringing my own mini-cooler with my lunch in it. There everyone was very friendly and never heard of anyone getting their lunch stolen--besides, every there ate at the same time and in the same room. It's kinda obvious when you see the guy two seats down eating your meatloaf sandwich.

When I got a job in IT I just did the same thing. There, people had problems with their lunch being stolen, but not me, since it really never left my sight. Sure I got up to use the restroom and got up to fix machines or whatever, but it looks rather suspicious if you go into someone's cube, sneaking around when they're not there. It's much less risky to reach in the fridge and grab one paper bag when there's 6 others in the fridge that look just like it--who's gonna know that wasn't your lunch?

Re:Try working among civil-servants

[chris_eineke]

There has to be some sort of psychology that attracts people to government jobs.

a. Once you're in, you're in and it's very hard for them to get you again.
b. The government doesn't need to compete.

Re:Try working among civil-servants

[eskayp]

Our crew works operations rather than IT, but your refrigerator and restrooms mirror our own.
Kingsqueak may have spent time ('tho probably never 'worked') a government job.
It can be as good or bad as each employee tries to make it.
Whether the comments were from bitter memories or a vivid imagination remains to be seen.

Re:Try working among civil-servants

[Geminii]

When I was working in the public service, I carried my pens with me, because you literally could not put one down on any desk (including your own) and expect it to be there ten seconds later.

When it came to the break room, I simply refused to use the supplied tools. The fridge, the microwave, the sandwich griller - no. It also meant that when the regular cleaning staff refused to touch our manky equipment, and we were drafted into cleaning it ourselves, I could tell the self-appointed drill sergeant very politely to go to hell, as I had never touched those festing mechanical fungus incubators and wasn't about to start now.

Although I did offer to open the break room window and toss them three stories into the dumpster. I mean, it wasn't as though I was going to miss them. Oddly enough, I was never approached for cleaning duty after that.

Of course, it probably didn't hurt that I'd also offered to send the more irritating managers by the same route if they kept whining to me about it.

Screw 'em. I was hired to be a tech, not a janitor. Cleaning up my own messes is good manners, but unless the problem could be fixed over the phone or by remote login, other people's messes were Not My Problem. Especially as other departments in the building didn't have their own break room and used to use ours instead. I didn't see any of *them* being approached for cleaning duty.

Re:Try working among civil-servants

[NoMaster]

A counter to this: I worked for many years in a public-sector-being-privatised company. When I started we had cleaners on-staff at each site, and toilets were cleaned daily.

By the time I left, toilets were being cleaned 3-monthly, or 6-monthly if the poor bloody subcontracted cleaners were running behind in their impossible-to-maintain schedule. And management had the hide to berate us for the fact the toilets were filthy...

Re:Try working among civil-servants

[Achromatic1978]

That's what it got like at the current place I'm at. The counter was this: on the staff fridge was placed this sign:

"ALL contents of this fridge will be thrown out on Friday at 7pm by the cleaners. NO attempt will be made to identify owners of Tupperware containers, etc, nor will they be saved. Want to keep it? Make sure it's out of the fridge. Think you're going to be sick on Friday? Take it home beforehand."

People were skeptical the first weekend. But it happened. A few irate emails on Monday morning about missing dishes etc were referred to the big red sign. Fridge has been "tolerably" clean since, though I still don't chance it.

Re:Try working among civil-servants

[kingsqueak]

I was a consultant, never directly a .gov employee.

Most of us would show up wearing dress shoes the first days of a contract....only to learn that workboots with a 3/4" thick sole were more apropriate if you wanted to wade into the mensroom.

It was all my fault that I stayed in that sector for so long, it was madness. I've finally escaped.

I could truly write a book about what I saw, but as you can see, people in the government don't see the cesspool for the turds and most normal people don't even believe it's going on.

I'd have to get Fabio for the cover and sell it under novels.

Re:Try working among civil-servants

[Anonymous Coward]

WONDERFUL stereotype! Try replacing "civil servants" with "black people" and re-read your post. Still feel like it's something you want to say?

Fishing for IT guys

[Chasa]

Ah yes, with the right bait you can get a bite as soon as you cast your line. Just be carefull when reeling them in or else their break your line with their usb drives.

Makes sense - extra burden of trust

[ishmalius]

An IT guy is always skulking around the office (as far as non-techies are concerned), and messing with other people's desks and computers. So he has the burden of being not just scrupulous and honest, but obviously so. He can't risk all of the goodwill and trust he so badly needs, merely for a single bite of a stale and badly made sandwich. Now, corned beef on a bagel is another matter. ^^

Re:Makes sense - extra burden of trust

[TClevenger]

Exactly. The IT folks usually have the best physical access (master keys, access cards with 24x7x365 ability), so they will maintain the best appearance of honesty if they know what's good for them.

On my second day of a previous job, I arranged to work on a machine of a user while she was at lunch. I had a visit from my boss the next day. Apparently the user left her purse under her desk while she was at lunch, and $200 was missing. I didn't even notice a purse under there; I just installed some software and left, so either she was lying, or somebody else saw what was happening and took advantage of the new unknown IT guy without an alibi.

I strenuously maintained my innocence, and all was eventually forgotten, and I even eventually became friends with the user. (I worked there for 5 years.) But I'm much more aware of situations I can get myself into. I always ask before touching a computer (except in emergency, such as virus situation), make sure they stick around if there's personal effects in easy reach, and make sure there's a witness if I'm working on any 'known problem users.' I don't take old equipment home or put it on eBay without written permission from the financial higher-ups, and I never put it in my car when users are watching. (It's an appearance thing, remember.) I'm also aware when I work late and there's a lone female employee in the building; you never know when somebody's looking for the 'sexual harrassment jackpot.'

Re:Makes sense - extra burden of trust

[pete-classic]

I always ask before touching a computer (except in emergency, such as virus situation)

Dude, just kill the Ethernet port at the switch and wait for 'em to come to you.

-Peter

Re:Makes sense - extra burden of trust

[kramulous]

[Insert sniff here] Makes me a little sad that it all has come to this.
Good to see your firewalls are erect (pun in "sexual harrassment jackpot" not originally intended). Shame about the good-will factor.

It's worse than we feared

[Demona]

/. is stealing headlines from Lew Rockwell.

Re:It's worse than we feared

[t35t0r]

what proof?

Accounting lunch theft...

[Anonymous Coward]

This reminds me of 1988 at Liberty Mutual, where we had a big problem with lunch theft. Of course, it was in an accounting department (go figure).

I was tempted to make Ex-Lax brownies and stick them in there, to make it worth their while!

I don't get the psychology of this - but then, some of those accountant types are strange.

Size matters

[imaginaryelf]

The size of the company matters. I've been in very small and very large companies. In the smaller companies, there's a feeling of camaraderie - like we're all in this together - so there's almost no stealing. In a large company, things disappear if you don't lock it down.

Re:Size matters

[zlogic]

Conclusion: don't work for Microsoft because you lunch will be always stolen :-)

Re:Size matters

[titzandkunt]

"...The size of the company matters...."

Not so sure about that. I work for a pretty big company, 65,000 people worldwide, 500+ people on the site I work.

The big deal is that we're a (fairly) major defence contractor. This means that anyone working on site has gone through at least a basic background check. One of the real "hot spots" during the check is any criminal record regarding crimes of dishonesty - theft, fraud suchlike. Your speeding ticket is no big deal, but a conviction for shoplifting is, presumably on the basis that someone who'll steal is more likely to throw a shopping bag full of burnt dvd's of data over the back wall of the Chinese embassy for a payoff.

I can leave my lunch in the fridge without even thinking about it. I can leave my wallet on my desk (and have done) without ever worrying about it. I can leave my GB£1200 in the bike sheds without locking it up. There are regular emails to say that some dude's found some money and would the owner like to pick it up? I guess that if you get to a working age without committing crimes, you probably never will: Crime is a young person's game...

Re:Size matters

[Talinth]

Would YOU trust microsoft with securing your lunch?

Re:Size matters

[Anonymous Coward]

Mod parent up please! :D

Re:Size matters

[Jesus_666]

Microsoft doesn't steal lunches, it innovates them. ;)

Ick.

[sulli]

Who steals the lunches in the office fridge? You have NO idea what's there or how long it's been there!

Re:Ick.

[Dun Malg]

Who steals the lunches in the office fridge? You have NO idea what's there or how long it's been there!

When I worked at a university, we had to put a lock on the fridge to keep students from stealing our food. Seriously, students will steal anything that's not nailed down. This is understandable as most students live in absurd poverty. I just figure that some people come out of college and never recover from that experience, doomed forever to steal leftovers by their insane compulsion.

Re:Ick.

[Erectile Dysfunction]

Students don't live in absurd poverty. Their meals and lodging are typically guaranteed to them as part of the meal and housing plans that they have taken loans to pre-pay for. In some hardship cases they may have a higher immediate burden to avoid the use of credit, but honestly someone supporting a family of three while working a minimum wage job lives in far more poverty and that still pales in comparison to real poverty. Students in college are adult children, and many children have developed entitlement problems stemming from having everything in their lives provided to them by their parents. People that continue to take from others simply don't care that their actions harm others, and simply take because they can. This may be due to sociopathy or it may simply be the result of a lack of negative responses to their actions in the past.

Re:Ick.

[Anonymous Coward]

Security by obscurity wins! :)

Re:Ick.

[TheRaven64]

students will steal anything that's not nailed down

I am a postgraduate student. We have a fridge in the kitchen attached to our lab, and people often put food there. Some people occasionally go shopping at lunch time and put a significant amount of food in there to be taken home at the end of the day. We have no problems at all with theft of food from the fridge.

I recently visited a major US university, which had a somewhat larger department. They also had a fridge where anything that was put in it unlabelled was treated as communal property; if you took something out, then you should either replace it later or put some money into a tin to be used by someone else replacing it. Again, no problems.

Actually, the only problem we do have is lecturers coming into our kitchen, drinking coffee, and not washing up their own mugs...

Re:Ick.

[BoiseAlf]

People DO keep track of those things. I was in my break room a few years ago when a very strange coworker reached into the fridge and said "If it's here for more than 3 days then it's public domain."

Re:Ick.

[Fulcrum of Evil]

Seriously, students will steal anything that's not nailed down.

Hell, they'll steal many things that are. rule 1: anything that isn't nailed down is mine. rule 2: anything that I can pry up isn't nailed down.

Re:Ick.

[NoMaster]

My favourite is the friend who stole a window. Pissed off with work in general & management incompetence / micromanagement / tightarsedness in particular, he decided the window in the internal office would be put to much better use in the new rumpus room he was building. So he grabbed a screwdriver, ripped off the timber surround and trim, and took the window.

Kharma's a bitch, though - when he went to install the window at home, he dropped it. For the $40 the new glass cost, he could have bought a second-hand window at the local building recycling depot.

Re:Ick.

[Dun Malg]

Students don't live in absurd poverty. Their meals and lodging are typically guaranteed to them as part of the meal and housing plans that they have taken loans to pre-pay for.

Yes, that's clearly how all students live, be they freshmen, or working on their phd thesis. None of them ever end up living six to a 2 bedroom apartment because campus housing is full and/or they are ineligible for it. And there's certainly no limit whatsoever on the amount of money you can get in federal student loans-- why, you can live like a king on the free money they heap upon students! That's why they're all dressed in Armani suits and driving Ferraris.

Have you even known anyone in college? It's like you only read about dorm life once in a magazine and think "yup, that's higher education".

Re:Ick.

[Erectile Dysfunction]

Wow, genius, it's like I never enrolled at a university or anything. It's like you've read about poverty on Slashdot, and have no idea what it looks like. Those poor homeless college students with their iPods and their USD60,000+ undergraduate programs. They steal because they're disadvantaged. I can't fathom how your education stalled out with a four-year degree.

Re:Ick.

[Jesus_666]

At my university's IT department there's no theft I know of. We do make sure not to leave stuff unattended, but I don't know of a case where someone's stufff really was stolen. Also, most people get their fix of old hardware from when old desktops are put out into the hallway of the main computer lab. Except for the antique SPARCStations they threw out recently. Nobody wanted those.

Re:Ick.

[Macgrrl]

That explains why our fridage is cleaned out Friday afternoon every week. It's to manage the useby dates on the "free food".

I confess to using the cat food trick too...

[Ritz_Just_Ritz]

Some jackass kept stealing my tuna sandwich...I mean once in a while would still be annoying, but EVERY damn time was just an open declaration of war. So I made a big fat tuna sandwich with a healthy amount of "FancyFeast". I used chicken and liver flavor to make sure the point got across. So in the fridge it goes and I came back an hour or two later and it was gone. The next morning, I found an anonymous post-it note on the door of the fridge asking people to please discard "old and potentially rancid" food from the refigerator since it was a "health hazard."

Since then, my sandwich has been safe. Nobody ever owned up to the thefts or the note. :)

Re:I confess to using the cat food trick too...

[Anonymous Coward]

You should have stuck a reply note on the door asking the thief if they enjoyed the shit and dried semen you'd been adding into their sandwiches. Win!

Re:I confess to using the cat food trick too...

[digitalhermit]

I dunno... I like the idea of doing something really disgusting involving 6-legged critters to the food and not saying a word when it gets stolen. I'd walk around the office smiling that day... I could see it: people would ask me why I sit in front of the computer and every once in a while let out a loud chuckle or snicker. I'd go to random people and ask, "Did you enjoy your lunch?" then laugh softly and evilly to myself. "How was the macaroni?" "That salad looks good. What's in it?" "Interesting - crunchy cottage cheese."

Re:I confess to using the cat food trick too...

[runningduck]

I myself never put food in the community fridge, but many others had been complaining about missing food items. I thought I would help out all the poor souls so one day I put catfood in all the lunches to teach that stealing bugger a lesson. I think it worked because the complaining stopped.

Re:I confess to using the cat food trick too...

[NormalVisual]

Better yet, put that note inside a completely unadulterated sandwich and see who wigs out. :-)

Real reason

[booch]

I think you're on the right track. I think the real reason IT people don't steal other people's lunches is that they are more picky about what they eat than any other group. And I don't mean healthy choices, just that they're more likely to dislike a large variety of foods.

You had water?!?

[A nonymous Coward]

Back in my day, we had to smash hydrogen and oxygen atoms together to make our own water. Then some high mucketity-muck would come along and steal it. We tried substituting deuterium and tritium instead of hydrogen but they never did steal enough to self-destruct.

Re:You had water?!?

[dvice_null]

You had oxygen?!

Re:You had water?!?

[brusk]

You had atoms? We had to make all our own subatomic particles from quarks--and we didn't have any leptons!

Re:You had water?!?

[WilliamSChips]

You had quarks? We had to make our own quarks from preons!

Re:You had water?!?

[Anonymous Coward]

You had preons? We had to disassemble Higgs bosons and build our own preons from those!

Re:You had water?!?

[R3d M3rcury]

And you try and tell the young people of today that ..... they won't believe you.

(There. That has hopefully put an end to this)

Re:You had water?!?

[benplaut]

You had /.? Back in my day, we had to cross-examine the accuracy of every article before submission! We walked to school every day through 3 miles of blizzards, uphill both ways. No, of course we didn't have shoes! We were so poor, we didn't even have feet!

Re:You had water?!?

[kramulous]

Can somebody mod the above conversation up please?

Re:You had water?!?

[WilliamSChips]

You had blizzards? We had to make them out of every single particle of snow!

Dye...

[HairyCanary]

After the last time my lunch was stolen out of the break room fridge, I thought that perhaps next time I would put in a bit of bait food that was laced with blue dye. Food coloring, of course, so it would be harmless. Then for the next couple of days at work we could all easily identify the lunch thief by the blue stains around his mouth. LOL.

Haven't tried it yet, though.

Re:Dye...

[Detritus]

An old theft detection technique is dusting the item with powdered Gentian violet. When it gets wet, it produces a violet stain that is very difficult to remove.

Re:Dye...

[Anonymous Coward]

we had a load of students temping for us last year (about 60 of them) they would eat anything left in the kitchen. For a laugh I left a load of boiled sweets that either turned your mouth blue or made you fart, glad I didn't work in the same room as them.

Re:Dye...

[Anonymous Coward]

I think the best trick would be to combine the two methods. If you use dye AND laxative, you can identify the culprit, then say something to the effect of "I see you're the one that's been stealing people's lunches. By the way, how's your stomach feeling?"

Then follow it up by taking a picture of them with the dye on their mouth and post it in a few places around the office with a short explanation for all your co-workers who've also had missing lunches.

There is a better way...

[ChePibe]

To avoid any possible liability issues and the trouble of having to cook up ex-lax brownies, you could've just run to the store and picked up the hottest peppers you could find and soak just about everything in Jalapeños. That gets the message across immediately, and makes the culprit much easier to identify. If he complains, just say you like really spicy food.

Not that I've ever tried that or anything...

Re:There is a better way...

[Anonymous Coward]

Whoa, yet another benefit of my addiction to Jalapeño peppers.

Re:There is a better way...

[Sponge Bath]

...and soak just about everything in Jalapeños

Use both laxative and Jalapenos,
and replace the toilet paper in the bathroom with rabid gerbils.

Few things are as painful as wiping your burning anus with a rabid gerbil.

Re:There is a better way...

[rs79]

"Use both laxative and Jalapenos,"

Jalapeno browies sound pretty good.

Now, 50% habaneros in the brownie mix - you should be able to hear the screaming for miles. Except in South Carolina where they'd probably be quite popular.

Re:There is a better way...

[Dasher42]

No, man, not jalapeños, habañeros. Those things will sneak up on the thief about a minute after and then give him a kick in the pants.

Re:There is a better way...

[johnw]

Few things are as painful as wiping your burning anus with a rabid gerbil.

I'll take your word for it.

Re:There is a better way...

[Plaid Phantom]

If you're gonna do it, why not do it all the way? Toss some Dave's Ultimate Insanity or Pure Cap into the mix.

Re:There is a better way...

[Anonymous Coward]

Habañero juice can be bought easily, and worked great for a prank a couple years back. The ass-reaper hit with a vengeance!

Re:There is a better way...

[Sagachi]

Few things are as painful as wiping your burning anus with a rabid gerbil.

I hesitate to ask, but, how do you know this?

Re:There is a better way...

[schnitzi]

Jalapenos? That would only make it tastier.

Here's the proper answer.

Re:There is a better way...

[Alioth]

Too many people like the heat of jalapenos. Try habaneros instead.

Re:There is a better way...

[roman_mir]

Fuck liability. Rat poison their asses.

IT people don't steal lunches because...

[Anonymous Coward]

...we wouldn't have time to eat them!

The hours most people spend eating lunch, we spend fixing the idle computers of VIP/PHBs who we can't just kick off their computers to fix them at any other time.

How lets somebody steal his lunch?

[JensR]

Sorry, but I don't understand it at all how somebody can have his lunch regularly stolen. I'd let this happen once, assuming it was an accident. But if my lunch disappeared regularly I'd raise a major stink: Post-Its on the fridge, memos, speak with HR, etc. And I'd find out who it was, and have a "word" with him before reporting him to HR.

Re:How lets somebody steal his lunch?

[j-pimp]

And I'd find out who it was, and have a "word" with him before reporting him to HR.

I think the person would have more respecto fro you if you baited a lunch with ex-lax. It isn't chile porn and probally not part of the person's core compentencies. No need to get HR involved.

I've never seen peer reviewed experiments involving "writting up" rats, monkeys or other labratory animals.

Re:How lets somebody steal his lunch?

[ArhcAngel]

I'd raise a major stink: Post-Its on the fridge, memos, speak with HR, etc. And I'd find out who it was, and have a "word" with him before reporting him to HR.

And you would be labeled a troublemaker and your manager and/or HR would "find" a reason to dismiss you. We can't have people who are unable to "get-along" with their co-workers. It is disruptive to the workplace. I know from whence I speak.

I can believe it...

[NerveGas]

Back when I worked tech support (more than a decade ago), you did *NOT* leave your lunch in the fridge. If you did, it wasn't even worth looking for at lunchtime.

steve

Thoughts of revenge

[Anonymous Coward]

I guess one passive aggressive thing someone could do is as follows.

Go to McDonald's at the middle of the night.
Order some food, like a Big Mac.
Say you're going to pay in pennies, and you need help counting them out (while ordering the food).
Save that food for the next day.

Mr Yuk the Lunch Guardian

[NetFusion]

I use to have this problem till I discovered Mr Yuk.

Now I just put the Mr Yuk on my cans and lunch bags and noone dares touch them in the staff fridge.

Re:Mr Yuk the Lunch Guardian

[scribblej]

That's awesome.!

In one of William Gibson's novels ("Virtual Light?" I dunno... one of the ones after his writing turned awful anyhow) the main character keeps a label on his milk jug that says, "MILK EXPERIMENT." It's perfectly normal milk, he just does it to keep his roommates out.

Yours is like that, only you can put it on anything -- "Sandwich Experiment" doesn't work as well.

Re:Mr Yuk the Lunch Guardian

[Sagachi]

Now I just put the Mr Yuk on my cans and lunch bags and noone dares touch them in the staff fridge.

That's a really good idea. You could even go a step further and use a skull-and-crossbones. Then everyone would think your lunch was owned by a pirate. Nobody wants to mess with pirates.

Egg salad sabatoge

[Anonymous Coward]

At a large company where I worked, there was a brief scourge of refrigerator theft. My boss, the IT Director, even found that someone had opened her shrimp salad, ate the shrimp off of it, and placed the remaining salad back in the fridge.

Those who brought lunches regularly started making egg salad, chicken salad, and pretty much any other lunch food with egg/mayonaise in it. Only, they would "accidentally" leave it out overnight instead of keeping it refridgerated before bringing it to work.

After a week of that, I heard that the lunch theft seemed to die down quite a bit.

Be careful with pranks like that

[roystgnr]

If you cause any serious illness, you can get your ass sued off, regardless of the fact that your "victim" shouldn't have been eating stolen pizza in the first place.

Did you ever see the movie "Home Alone"? In today's world, those burglars would end up making far more money from personal injury lawsuits than they ever could have stolen from one house.

Re:Be careful with pranks like that

[Anonymous Coward]

Let them prove thet you did it. Just set yourself up as the intended victim, after all the fridge was accessible to all and it was clear that it was your slice, so OBVIOUSLY someone tried to poison you and not the thieving scumbag who stole your treat.

Oh and don't post about it on the internet. At least not using your own nick ;-)

Who took my damn pizza!?!

[RingDev]

I'm prepping for a major deployment, the capstone of my BSIT degree, 2 papers, 3 final projects, my grand mothers funeral, and some ass hat walked off with my left over pizza. Pop-tarts for lunch again.

-Rick

Holidays...

[Junta]

I wonder how obvious the request for payment was. I could see that if most of the year a bunch of bagels show up, you might look more carefully to determine why they are there and notice the request for payment. I could see that around a holiday season the explanation is 'oh, someone brought in food for the holidays', and grab one without thinking or looking hardly at all. If it was a note in front of the food they might have assumed it probably said something like happy holidays or something, without bothering to read and just grabbing for the food.

It could also serve to explain some of the executive stealing too. I've noticed year round as I talk to executives, they frequently seem to have some sort of food available for people to grab and much on, usually provided or acquired by their administrative assistant. An executive is more likely to be used to random cookies/bagels/muffins/whatever to magically appear for free consumption than us peons at the bottom.

Just putting forth an alternative explanation.

Re:Holidays...

[r3m0t]

This guy supplied bagels daily to each company, always with the same note asking for certain prices. For companies where people weren't paying (I think that level is about 70% payment), he would add another note reminding people they weren't free. So that explanation does not really make sense.

Re:Holidays...

[cubicledrone]

So that explanation does not really make sense.

Yeah but you know, every corporate manager needs apologists so they can keep fucking everyone over.

Re:Holidays...

[timeOday]

An executive is more likely to be used to random cookies/bagels/muffins/whatever to magically appear for free consumption than us peons at the bottom.

I agree, except I don't think your explanation is "alternative" at all. I think that's exactly what "entitlement" means.

Re:Holidays...

[Rix]

Sure it does. Lots of companies leave giant notes all over the place for me, and I rarely notice them. I think they're called billboards.

Re:Holidays...

[kabocox]

It could also serve to explain some of the executive stealing too. I've noticed year round as I talk to executives, they frequently seem to have some sort of food available for people to grab and much on, usually provided or acquired by their administrative assistant. An executive is more likely to be used to random cookies/bagels/muffins/whatever to magically appear for free consumption than us peons at the bottom.

Just putting forth an alternative explanation.

When I worked with my dad, there was this little old lady that came by selling bread products from .5-$1 each once a week or so. Every now and then, one of the bosses would buy all the bread products and just give them to everyone that happened to be around the main office. (Said little old lady did not leave her products out unattended, she stood their and sold them.) I'll agree with both. If food just shows up, most people assume that it is a free gift, or some one had a pot luck or something. The more high income a profession the more this happens without anyone thinking about it. If random little old man didn't have a vending machine, what made him think people actually read a sign when there is food laying out? Now a days, I'd like to slap the occasional person that pulls something like that because we have vending machines for pay food, we have about 1 a month or so when free food just shows up. Why should I be expected to know if the free food has a hidden sign that says $1 each? If donuts come in, I don't expect someone to have a sign up that says $1 each next to them.

Re:Holidays...

[MickLinux]

Let's see... when I was in college, I got a photocopy machine for $5, spent $100 fixing it up, and then put it in the AOE department for students to use. I left a small box (5 cents per copy), to cover the costs. Given the nature of our work there, it was quite useful to not have to go down to the chem-eng department to make copies ... when it was available.

There were about 100 of us.

    A large number of people used it well, and paid for their copies. A small number of people (1) photocopied their butts, (2) stole large amounts (like $10-$20) of cash from the box, (3) defaced or damaged the equipment. Eventually the unit broke, and I was only $20 to the good with a $120 bill. So I footed the rest, and tried again. The theft and defacement got worse.

    The question is not whether it was obvious, but whether people wanted to steal.

    ---

    Fast forward a few years.

    A CEO / business owner was complaining about the welfare state, and how he had to pay millions in taxes, and should be able to round up the welfare recipients, and put them to work as slaves. All this time, most of the workers that I knew were *not* making a family wage. Consider that the family wage is the replacement cost for workers, and so is equivalent to a slave's wage. Paying less is paying *less* than a slave's wage. So he was using some slaves at least, but they weren't the welfare recipients: they were the people he depended on.

    On the other hand, when one of his better workers complained about his division of the profits (much for him, little or none for the employees), he pulled the "risk" gambit: mortgage your house for the company, and I make you a full partner. So it wasn't just all greed, or a desire for slaves, or theft, or sociopathy. Whatever is going on is much more complicated than I can figure out.

    ---
    Fast forward to more recently: a recent (and now fired) boss quite possibly was a sociopath. He definitely viewed the plant as his fiefdom, and was crooked in some ways. He also gutted the company while hiking his performance rating. Yet he also got destroyed by a temper, an overinflated sense of self worth, and an anger at his own boss.

    All I can say, is that there isn't an easy equation for this kind of behavior. All I do know is that the system is moderately to severely broken, but there's nothing I can do to fix it.

Stealing? How DARE YOU?

[Lead Butthead]

Being able to steal a hungry baby's food without any remorse would probably be considered a useful trait for a CFO.

Stealing? That's not stealing. That's ... unsolicited ownership transfer.

Re:Stealing? How DARE YOU?

[Paracelcus]

In felt pen on greasy brown paper bag, Ben's lunch, made with unwashed hands and a good wet sneeze for seasoning!

Re:Stealing? How DARE YOU?

[MickLinux]

As G. K. Chesterton put it in "The Man Who Was Thursday", the thief decidedly respects property. He just wishes to make the property his so that he can respect it more effectively. It is a much greater criminal, the anarchist, who does not respect property at all, who wants to eliminate the entire definition of property.

The Mad ...

[triso]

What I really want to know is who the fucker is who deliberately pees all over the toilet seat and floor at work. I know people might hate their job and feel frustration, but is there any reason to take it out on everybody else?

Be thankful you don't have The Mad Shitter or Another Mad Shitter to deal with.

Re:The Mad ...

[Shawn is an Asshole]

Last year I worked at a camp for the summer. In one of the younger teen dorms, we kept finding ziplock bags of shit hidden in different places. Never found out who did it.

That doesn't work with the muffin example.

[khasim]

It it came down to how much you could afford, wouldn't you see the CxO's putting $20 bills into the tin?

Re:That doesn't work with the muffin example.

[Anonymous Coward]

His point was that the bagels have essentialy no value at all to the CxO, which means that they may not even understand why they'd pay for it.

Re:That doesn't work with the muffin example.

[magictiger]

It's not that they have no value. The executive has gotten to the point where they have an overgrown sense of entitlement. They feel that the muffins should be seen as complimentary. It's a gift because of how powerful the executives have become.

It's ridiculous, but some people really do feel this way. Some people need to be brought back to reality.

Re:That doesn't work with the muffin example.

[Anarke_Incarnate]

I say that we give them a complimentary "Punch in the Neck." They are entitled to exactly one "Punch in the Neck" every time they step over someone, and think they are hot shit compared to the rest of us. We all come from the same place (relatively speaking). Nobody is above us all.

Re:That doesn't work with the muffin example.

[lucerin]

think a ball bat to the crotch would do it?

Re:That doesn't work with the muffin example.

[gtall]

I think the point is the to the CEO, the fellow selling bagels for a living has no more worth than the bagel, hence it is okay to steal the bagel.

I have created my own mythology...

[WillyPete]

...for candy.

I view candy dishes on desks as offerings to the machine gods and their servants.

The true motivator...

[tm2b]

It's just that IT departments tend to have the highest percentage of employees who remember being beaten up and having their lunch money taken from them!

Re:The true motivator...

[Jesus_666]

So your point is that bullying builds character?

tortured by the dream of coffee

[dehvokahn]

Well how's this for torture ...

When I worked in Tech Support for that ISP back in the day, My cubicle was directly across the way from a little mini-break room with a fridge and a sink and a coffee making machine. But here's the thing that tortured me forever while I worked there: The coffee machine had a place to put the water, a place to put the filter basket, a burner (and it was actually directly below where the filter basket goes), and there was a drawer in the room that actually had coffee, filters, and the works. But there was NO FRIGGEN ON SWITCH!!!!

You simply couldn't turn the thing on! The plug went into the wall, and you could hear it wirring like it was prepping the heating mechanism, but there was no button or switch to turn it on.

Every day during each of my two 10 minute breaks and my 30 minute lunch I would continually inspect the machine and search for a switch. I came in one day with my computer toolkit to take it apart and find the hidden switch, but my supervisor found me before I could and told me to log-in and get to work instead. Then we got a company wide email stating that there should be no taking apart of the equipment (no matter what it was) unless you were in Help Desk.

It gets worse, because I put a request into Help Desk to have it fixed, and my "friend" in helpdesk sent me this strange email that said something like:

You mean you actually tried to get that thing to work??? HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHahahahahahahahahaaa aaaaaaaa!!!! Wait 'till I tell the rest of Help Desk!

Well you can imagine after that I became a smoker and brought Mt. Dew every day (2-2liters)

Could be worse

[Monev]

I've had someone steal my entire fridge with my lunch inside...

Plenty of lunch

[Jerry Smith]

Some co-workers (teachers, I work in a school) left their lunch in the fridge. Yes, before the summer holidays. *shudder*

Re:Plenty of lunch

[starrcake]

That's nothing... try opening a post Katrina fridge with chichen, beef and shrimp...

Everything congeals into lovely brown dark gumbo like soup... with maggots for rice...

o_O

Motion sensor cameras

[HangingChad]

They have motion activated self-contained cameras for situations like that. I'd rather fire the offender for character issues than sabbotage my lunch. If they'd steal someone's lunch, they'd steal big stuff, fudge reports, cheat on their income taxes and a host of other petty behaviors I don't want on my team or in my company.

My experience has been that one's position on the heirarchy has no bearing on whether they're likely to steal. Bank accounts are rarely a reliable standard of character.

Re:Motion sensor cameras

[Tim C]

I'd rather fire the offender for character issues

Character issues? You mean like commiting a criminal offence (albeit a minor one) on company time and company property?

Re:Motion sensor cameras

[eskayp]

Our 9 person staff working at a detached location is fortunate, and any lunch thievery is usually taken as a form of counting coup or one-upmanship.
The occasional personnel who raided the vending machines (that we rent) or continually scavenged others' meals soon found themselves shunned and eventually evicted.
We will always be burdened with a few (or more than a few) who work the system for their own benefit only.
In corporatese, they aren't 'team players'.
When people refuse to regulate their own behavior, someone else has to.

Re:Motion sensor cameras

[dbIII]

Back before this was easy a coworker caught a habitual meat pie thief by using a combination of a mercury switch on the freezer lid, an old dartboard with a hole in the middle, a video recorder and an industrial endoscope (depth of feild was very good so it could get good shots at five metres). It worked well and you could even hear the microwave timer ring on the video soundtrack when the security gaurd had finished cooking the stolen pie, then you could watch him eating it. More than twenty thousand dollars worth of gear to catch a two dollar pie thief - but the same guy could have taken off with some very expensive gear.

Re:WTF?

[subl33t]

"I want that 2 minutes of my life back."

You post to your /. journal at 3am on a Friday and you want 2 minutes of your life back?

no.

How to fix stealing from the public fridge

[polyex]

We had a problem with stealing food at work, someone was stealing this guys apple, orange, etc. Whatever fruit he had brought for lunch and left in the fridge went missing. So after a few emails asking that the thief stop went unheeded, we simply sent an email informing the last fruit stolen had spent the night before in mens urinal. That stopped the stealing cold.

Right...

[Marsala]

I can't even trust you people to type in your password without forgetting to turn off capslock, and now I'm supposed to trust with you something like food prep?

I don't think so, Tim.

easy solution

[insertwackynamehere]

add cyanide to your lunch.

There you go

[cubicledrone]

This is why you need five years of experience and a Master's Degree: so you can have long analytical discussions about who stole a lunch. This is what chairwedges sit around and talk about all day between meetings while they suck down thick benefits and paychecks in the air conditioned comfort of carpeting on every surface except the ceiling while the rest of us are actually producing something. These people are "employable." People who produce are "unemployable."

These are the jobs I'm told PhDs are overqualified for, and people with degrees and experience just aren't enough of a "team player" for. I guess asking "what the fuck are people doing wasting time talking about who stole what lunch?" is being a non-team-player.

The modern workplace is an unwiped ass.

Re:There you go

[kalidasa]

Bravo! One of the funniest parodies of a Slashdot troll I've ever seen!

feeling guilty?

[Anonymous Coward]

feeling guilty? this is quite the rationalization for theft.

very few people admit, "i'm evil, therefore i do evil things."

rather, they feel they are good and find ways to justify their evil deeds.

i think it is clear that unethical, manipulative and sociopathic people have advantages climbing the typical corporate ladder.

Spit

[wideBlueSkies]

At one job, we had the same thing...a lowly lunch thief. I'd find sometimes that if I worked through luch hour due to some problem, or if I left my food in the fridge overnight it would dissapear.

So I started dropping my saliva in my sadwiches and lunch containers. No warning notes, no nothing just spit.

The lunch thief never really stopped, but I minded a little less knowing I was giving away a little piece of myself as well. Especially when I had colds and such.

Sure it's disgusting..but the person shouldn't have been stealing.

People like this also make it impossible to have a functioning coffee club. They always steal the milk and make coffee without paying in...unfortunately the spit solution doesn't work with 'community food' like milk and coffee beans.

Re:Spit

[Impotent_Emperor]

Maybe you could have just taken one bite out of all your food. It might have deterred them from eating those items. Although, biting an apple won't work so well because it will turn brown. And it won't work on soups either.

Re:Spit

[LordWoody]

Oxidation. If you want to bite your apple and leave it for later, sprinkle some lemon juice (vitamin C, anti-oxidant) on it and it will sit for much longer before browning. Also handy if you like you apple sliced and want to do so at home before work.

Re:Spit

[Abcd1234]

Also good if you plan to make an apple pie. And it also works on freshly peeled potatos.

Bet the high-strung wierdos in IT get blamed most

[Marrow]

The last person they look for is the CFO. After all, he has the money for a bagel
right?

IT Departments may not steal lunches...

[ElboRuum]

Within the realm of probability, IT is least likely to steal your lunch, however, I have reasonably good sources confirming, AS WE SPEAK, that IT is the most likely to shake people down for milk money. Where are the hall monitors when you need them? Unscheduled bathroom breaks and they're ALL OVER YOU. Some real crime going down and you can hear crickets chirping.

And to think

[Mark_MF-WN]

Funny, neoconservatives constantly accuse the working class of feeling entitled (and to frivolities like health care, not dying in stupid foreign wars, and getting to actually elect the president, no less!) And yet it's the CEOs and other super-rich people that expect a bunch of extra favours from society.

Re:And to think

[Dun Malg]

Funny, neoconservatives constantly accuse the working class of feeling entitled (and to frivolities like health care, not dying in stupid foreign wars, and getting to actually elect the president, no less!) And yet it's the CEOs and other super-rich people that expect a bunch of extra favours from society.

Nah, it's just human nature. All people tend towards a certain level of self-interested entitlement. Of course the working class feeling entitled to frivolous things like free health care might have something to do with the government taking 40% of our money, but hey, they need it for... things and stuff. Personally, I tend towards a more libertarian mindset, but I think that if the gov't is going to take as much money from us as they do in "socialist" countries, maybe we SHOULD get free health care. I mean, the argument that they shouldn't be taking the kind of money from me that it'd take to fund such a system is essentially moot since they already are taking that much...

Re:And to think

[StikyPad]

And yet it's the CEOs and other super-rich people that expect a bunch of extra favours from society.

That's probably because they get it. The more rich, powerful, and/or famous you are, the more things you get gratis. Whether it's to get a product seen (free advertising), to build customer loyalty (repeat business), or to generate word-of-mouth recommendations (increased business), it's all about increasing revenue in the long run, or at least trying to.

And once you get something long enough, you tend to expect it, which is known as taking something for granted. It's not their fault that they take free things for granted any more than it's our fault for taking running water or electricity for granted. We all get accustomed to things; the only difference is our respective environments. Some people manage to keep things in perspective, but odds are you can't name anyone off the top of your head who celebrates the fact that they don't have to run outside to take a dump.

Re:And to think

[Mark_MF-WN]

I'm not suggesting that there's anything wrong with a feeling of entitlement. After all, entitlement is a major component of modern society -- what is a constitution, if not a list of entitlements? Democracy means that the people are entitled to whatever the hell they want from their government (assuming it can be delivered at all). Etc.

Neoconservatives, on the other hand, use the word entitlement in a derogatory sense. They use it whenever anyone suggests that maybe the government should take steps to ensure that everyone has access to affordable health care. They use it when anyone suggests that maybe losing one's job shouldn't be tantamount to a death sentence for people in the working class. They use it whenever anyone suggests that maybe, just maybe, the poor shouldn't be the ones shouldering the majority of the nation's tax burden. They accuse anyone who wants anything at all of "feeling entitled", ignoring the fact that they themselves would absolutely freak out if they were denied anything at all in the entire world. Just try asking a congressman to voluntarily not draw his state-supplied pay cheque. After all, very few of them need it -- most politicians already have enough wealth that they don't need to work. Budget tight? Try saving a few million dollars by not paying congress or the senate. Try holding back the president's $400,000. See who feels entitled THEN.

Yep

[cubicledrone]

The last person they look for is the CFO. After all, he has the money for a bagel
right?

Right after the entire department is laid off? Sure.

Lunch Stealing in a Mid-sized Startup

[Anonymous Coward]

At my own startup, lunch stealing is part of the corporate culture. It's amusing to all and a daily occurence. It's simply a fact of our corporate life that if you leave a lunch unattended for more than a few minutes, someone will eat all or part of it. Just Friday, I left two slices of pizza unattended for a few minutes in the kitchen, and someone took a knife, cut off one half of a slice, took the half and left the knife on the plate. I could not have been gone for more than two minutes.

Exactly

[DerangedAlchemist]

What a fool he is to be _surprised_ a christian would preach one thing but behave immorally. After all this is a long christian tradion from the crusades, witch burnings, pedophilic priests, etc, ect.

Satanists have tried to take the credit, claiming the faithful flock is so easily led astray by the wolf in shepard's clothing, but I think they are just jealous ;)

watch out when the food is free

[Mike_ya]

While IT doesn't steal food, if a department has food they want to get rid of without throwing it away they call IT.
We love the free food.

Re:watch out when the food is free

[Ritchie70]

No kidding. There's a table on our wing where unwanted food (leftovers from lunchtime meetings, etc.) gets dropped off. I stood and watched one day; 3 half large pizzas lasted about 6 minutes. Healthy stuff takes a bit longer - salad never really fully goes, and fruit may take the rest of the day.

i'm not breaking a fifty for a fucking bagel!

[weierstrass]

maybe they didn't have any change

Re:i'm not breaking a fifty for a fucking bagel!

[Anonymous Coward]

No shit. I once worked with a CEO that never kept anything in his wallet smaller than a $100. Stupid ass would tell people this too. Surprizingly he never was mugged the whole time I worked with him.

Re:i'm not breaking a fifty for a fucking bagel!

[Anonymous Coward]

I mugged the bastard; guess he never confessed to it. He actually had no cash in his wallet at all, thus nothing under $100. So I memorized his credit card numbers and posted them on the net.

Re:i'm not breaking a fifty for a fucking bagel!

[Some_Llama]

We need a name and place of work please.

Re:i'm not breaking a fifty for a fucking bagel!

[Starteck81]

"maybe they didn't have any change"
...because they spent it all on the striper they hired as their secretary?

Heros?????

[Quiet_Desperation]

We have to regularly lynch a random member of our IT department as a message to the rest to keep those Microsoft-loving bastards in line. We used to put their heads on pikes but the county health inspector told us to quit it.

Re:Heros?????

[dbcad7]

It all makes sense now. I can never get ahold of anyone in our IT department. They never answer the phone, and you can't find them anywhere.. obviously they're hiding in fear. I've always suspected they just have direct deposit and just telnet to clock in and out.

Re:Heros?????

[geminidomino]

The government^WIT Department should fear its citizens^Wusers, not the other way around. ;)

Re:Heros?????

[Anonymous Coward]

You didn't have to stop; just properly drain the head and cauterize the neck before impaling. Also make sure any pikes used are clearly marked "Not for food service use".

Well, that tears it

[tulare]

I'm stealing your lunch. Even if it has your name on it. After all, traditions are meant to be broken, aren't they? Go thinking I won't steal your lunch just because I work in IT, what gives you the right? Huh?

Speaking as one who regularly steals food....

[Anonymous Coward]

Sometimes there is a real reason to do so, such as you have sixteen deliverables in three days, half of them wont get done, and you are working somewhat unexpectedly all night at the office. Or all weekend. The office is in the middle of nowhere, nothing is open even remotely near where you are, you rely on public transportation, and you just need to keep working.

So, when this happens to me, which is unfortunately several times per month, I scavenge what I can. Usually it'll start with whats least likely to be noticed or annoy someone.. but eventually the frozen meals that have obviously been in the freezer collecting ice for way too long run out, and then you take what you can get.

It has nothing to do with integrity or how much money I make. Theres just nothing for me to eat at night when I'm motivated to work for the good of the company. The world is not designed for me.

I should probably just go work for google and have this problem solve itself.

Re:Speaking as one who regularly steals food....

[Anonymous Coward]

bring some food dumbass. how hard is that?

what do you do if there is no food? die?

Re:Speaking as one who regularly steals food....

[toddestan]

Most lunchrooms I've been in have a vending machine or two. Too cheap to buy a bag of chips or a candybar?

Re:Speaking as one who regularly steals food....

[Achromatic1978]

sixteen deliverables in three days, half of them wont get done, and you are working somewhat unexpectedly all night at the office

You have a project with tasks that are categorised, even by you, as 'deliverables', and yet three days out, with them not done, you're unexpectedly pulling all nighters? I call bullshit.

Re:Speaking as one who regularly steals food....

[Jesus_666]

In that case you can still leave a message and/or refill the fridge with compensation food when you have time. There's a difference between someone who is forced to to use someone else's resources but does so in a polite way and someone who just takes stuff.

Re:Speaking as one who regularly steals food....

[Anonymous Coward]

If you regularly need food for all-nighters, and there's an ice box, here's what I want you to do tomorrow:

  - Go to a grocery store
  - Buy lots of frozen lunches
  - Bring them to work
  - Leave them there
  - Repeat first step when you eat the second-to-last lunch

OMG! Now you have food and don't have to steal. Is this really that tough to figure out?!

Ah...Junior High

[R3d M3rcury]

This isn't quite so horrible, but back in Junior High School I developed a taste for mustard on french fries to defend against food theft.

Students would go to the cafeteria in groups, get their lunch, and return to the class area to eat. So as you were returning, another group would be coming in. And, of course, some kids coming in would grab french fries off kids going out. A sort of "Yoink!" snatch, grab, stuff in mouth kind of thing.

After about the third time this happened, I started adding mustard to my french fries. It was actually pretty tasty. Sure enough, a few days later, some kid reaches over and grabs my french fries as I'm leaving and he's entering the cafeteria. As the door closes behind me, I hear "Eww! Mustard!"

After that, I never lost a french fry.

Dogs will do that.

[SanityInAnarchy]

I've had a dog do the exact same thing. It may show something about the psychology of people who steal lunches -- this dog was incredibly loyal, always happy -- but had no problem with doing something he knew he wasn't supposed to do, so long as he thought he could get away with it, and would perform pretty much any trick you asked, as long as he thought you had a treat for him afterwards.

I've known people like that.

Spray your sandwich with pepper spray

[toy4two]

I used to put chocolate laxitives in my Ben and Jerry's Ice Cream. Everytime I would buy a little pint some roomate would eat it. Revenge is great.

sneak an RFID tag into your rice

[toy4two]

...and then track them to find the perp. I'm sure it would be digested right out.

Man traps are illegal

[plopez]

Why? Because you are knowingly creating a dangerous situation for another human being. Using a shotgun, you *know* you will either kill them or maim them badly and that is wrong. And before you know if they are going to physically harm you, not just take some property, you have no right to use lethal force. Lethal force is only warrented in self defence.

Now, if you string a trip wire with some tin cans on it to warn you if you have an intruder and they fall, hit their head and die, in most places you are off the hook. You had no intent to harm, and you tried to use a non-lethal approach.

That is the difference between thinking like a 3 year old and an adult. An adult understands when the response is in alignment with the offense. Placing ex-lax in a lunch to catch some one stealing your lunch is about right. Using broken glass is way over the line.

Re:Man traps are illegal

[evilviper]

Placing ex-lax in a lunch to catch some one stealing your lunch is about right. Using broken glass is way over the line.

Medication in excess of recomended dosages can commonly pose a serious risk of death. The GP said he was using a whole pack of laxative.

"no value".

[khasim]

His point was that the bagels have essentialy no value at all to the CxO, which means that they may not even understand why they'd pay for it.

Which is why I was pointing out that if that was correct, you'd expect to see $20 bills in the tin from the CxO's.

A bagel has no real value to a CxO because the CxO earns so much.

A $20 bill has no real value to a CxO because the CxO earns so much.

So the CxO picks up a bagel (no value) and drops in a $20 bill (no value). But that does not happen.

Re:"no value".

[Javaman59]

You are absolutely correct.

It's ridiculous to say that the higher paid execs don't pay because they see the bagels as being of less value. I'm sure they know enough about business to realise that each time they don't pay it severely impacts the cash flow of the bagel business. If they were responsible for a turnover, of say, $5M annually, would they just write off a customer debt of $1000 because it's chicken-feed in the big scheme? Not likely. Would they turn a blind eye to an employee who stole a $200 monitor because it's chicken-feed? Not likely. And yet they think that it's OK to steal a $1 bagel out of a pile of, say, 20.

Stealing is always stealing, regardless of the value of the item to the *thief*.

As you say, you don't see $20 bills in the tin.

Re:"no value".

[misleb]

No offense, but that is stupid. If you didn't understand why you should have to pay for something as "trivial" as a bagel at work, why would you pay MORE than was asked for?

If your company started asking for $.10 for a drink from the water cooler, would you bother putting in that dime? Would you put in $1? (assuming they had no way of knowing who did and did not pay for water)

-matthew

Re:"no value".

[murdocj]

If your company started asking for $.10 for a drink from the water cooler, would you bother putting in that dime? Would you put in $1? (assuming they had no way of knowing who did and did not pay for water)

I'd put $1 in once in a while, on the theory that it was evening out for the times that I didn't pay anything. And it would probably work out that I would pay too much, to avoid paying too little.

As others have said, it's not that the amount is trivial to the execs - after all, they probably do stop at Starbucks and pick up a bagel and latte, so they understand that bagels cost money. It's that they feel entitled to steal. Some people don't have the same sense of guilt and fair play that other people have.

Re:"no value".

[misleb]

I'd put $1 in once in a while, on the theory that it was evening out for the times that I didn't pay anything. And it would probably work out that I would pay too much, to avoid paying too little.

Well I probably wouldn't. I expect to get fresh water on the job... for free. Imagine if they wanted you to pay to use the toilets. Think of something that you take for granted.

As others have said, it's not that the amount is trivial to the execs - after all, they probably do stop at Starbucks and pick up a bagel and latte, so they understand that bagels cost money. It's that they feel entitled to steal. Some people don't have the same sense of guilt and fair play that other people have.

I don't think it is fair to assume so much about the nature of executives based on such a simple study. Certainly there is vaiability in who is going to steal and who isn't, but I think it is more complicated than simplay saying "executives feel more entitled and are more likely to steal." Like the grandparent suggested, you need to consider relative value. I bet lower level employees would be just as likely to "steal" if the relative value of the items was significantely less than $1.

Ever walk out with a pen from your company? Ever print personal documents on their printers? That is stealing. You know that pens cost money. You should probably know that laser printers cost about $.10 per page (maybe less these days). That is stealing. Maybe nobody cares because the relative value is so small, but it is still stealing.

Re:"no value".

[murdocj]

Ever walk out with a pen from your company? Ever print personal documents on their printers? That is stealing. You know that pens cost money. You should probably know that laser printers cost about $.10 per page (maybe less these days). That is stealing. Maybe nobody cares because the relative value is so small, but it is still stealing.

Ever read slashdot at work? By your definition, you are stealing. Except, guess what, most companies accept that their employees take breaks, occasionally send personal email, etc etc. I don't pay for those services, because there's no expectation that I will pay for them.

However, if someone is providing bagels, and there's an expectation that I'll pay, I pay. If the company started charging for water, I'd either pay, or bring in my own.

Some people do not feel any moral obligation to pay. And certainly the execs of my former company would fall into that class. Given the opportunity to steal, they steal, without any moral qualms. I agree, generalizing to all execs is excessive... I'm sure there's a counter example somewhere.

Women?

[antdude]

How about hot/cute women, who are willing to go with them, as baits?

Re:Women?

[Eli Gottlieb]

Since when was there such a thing as women willing to go with IT workers?

Re:Women?

[antdude]

"who are willing to go with them" :P It's rare. ;)

Re:Women?

[notbob]

hmm funny i work in IT and never have a problem finding a date or being single for very long

try getting out more and spreading your cash from just the uber pc to the nice apartment and a decent car ... oh and a haircut and a shower help too :P

Don't sit on them!

[antdude]

Learn not to sit on the toliet. Do at at angle with touching the seat. :)

Peanuts

[KwKSilver]

$100,00 is peanuts to the CEO of a major corporation. Make it $10,000,000 or $100,000,000 & they will take it. At worst they will get a $1,000,000 fine and a year or two in the kind of Federal Prison that crooked politicians end up at: more like a country club than a prison. I did some consulting work at a "prison" like that, it was more like an all expenses paid vacation spot than a jail. Not a fancy resort, mind you, but they were not even locked up.

Perks

[Joebert]

See, if the company just provided everyone with lunch, we wouldn't have this problem.

Arr...

[Anonymous Coward]

It's not really stealing...

It's lunch infringment.

Arr...

excuse me?

[Ender Ryan]

I don't buy that argument for a minute. There's an absolute fuckton of shit that people buy on an almost daily basis that cost less than a buck, or thereabouts. Coffee, donuts, fresh cookies, McDonald's dollar menu items, etc. I find it extremely hard to believe that CxOs don't understand that people who sell small-dollar items are making money on volume, and it's still wrong to STEAL their shit.

No, I find it much more likely that CxOs and their filthy ilk simply have no scruples. In fact, I've had to deal with enough business folk to be pretty mother fucking sure that is in fact the case.

Although... I don't believe that they're all sociopaths, that's pretty extreme.

Yeah, *grumble* filthy fucking bastards *grumble* :)

Re:excuse me?

[Rix]

Or, they assume its simply a gift basket someone brought in and didn't realize they were for sale at all. Most people of any intelligence in modern societies have mental blinders towards advertisements, so they may not see a sign even if it is there.

Comment removed

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

Or it could be...

[phorm]

Guys from the IT Department stealing the bagels from the admin basket...

Seriously, while I doubt this was the case I know people in admin who were petty enough to try and snag free bagels, and people in lower departments who were petty and annoyed enough with admin that they might steal their bagels :-)

All About Trust

[queenb**ch]

Most IT people hold and are held to an ethical standard that doesn't exist in say, sales. We have access to salary data simply because we can talk straight to the HR database. We know that Suzie is pregnant because we saw the email when we were looking at the damage done by the virus she double clicked on. We know that Bobby is surfing porn during his lunch hour. Mostly we don't care.

Oh, and if you are one of the sales guys who's been eating my lunch, well...I've only got one word for you. WOOF!

2 cents,

QueenB

Re:You had preons?!?

[frank_adrian314159]

Dude, we had to build them out of uncompacted strings...

It's simpler than that

[dbIII]

Get a rep for eating weird stuff - lunch theives are rarely cosmpolitan or consumers of large amounts of chilli. There is bound to be something you eat which is beyond the usual.

Here's a school lunch thief story and solution that is beyond the usual. In the town of Normanton in the tropics of Queensland, Australia the schoolchildren like to eat the sausage rolls from the bakery across the road from the school. These things are meat, fat and filler wrapped in flakey pastry - just the thing for a hungry bird of prey like the whistling kite. The birds dive on the kids - this scares the kids and they drop the sausage rolls - so the birds dive again and fly off with this meaty snack. Some kids tried to hide their sausage rolls in bread rolls, but this didn't fool the birds for long. The bakery also sells cream donuts - long sugary rolls split in half and filled with fake cream and jam. The birds have tried these rolls and don't like them due to the lack of meat. One bright child had the idea of taking a cream donut, flicking it to get rid of a lot of the fake cream, and putting the sausage roll inside. The kids can now make it across the street without being dive bombed by birds and they get to eat their lunch that is just too weird for the whistling kites to contemplate.

Link to the whole story

[Javaman59]

This is worth reading. As the discussion here shows, it is a fascinating topic. The authors of the article actually describe it as a statistical analysis of "white collar crime". I agree. None of this nonsense about them being so rich that they don't know the value of a bagel.

What the Bagel Man Saw

Might be a gov't thing.

[Kadin2048]

True. The only place I've seen a "water club" is in a government office; although I know of several private-sector offices where free coffee has been simply dropped by the employer recently, so maybe such things will start to happen there, too.

If I was managing an office, it would seem like free coffee is a no-brainer: it probably makes people more productive, it shows you value them at least nominally, and it stops people from running out for coffee breaks to get their fix in the middle of the morning.

Re:Might be a gov't thing.

[Richy_T]

Absolutely. I believe there have even been studies that "gift giving" by employers is valued far out of scale to what it actually costs. 25c per employee per day might seem like an unnecessary cost but the "pat on the head" it represents would cost much more to obtain in actual hard cash.

Rich

Who is John Galt?

[HBI]

n/t

But...

[1310nm]

"Housekeeping was cleaning the fridge, and it was going to be thrown away anyway..."

Thank you

[misleb]

Thank you for this insightful post. I was all ready to jump on the "anyone who can advance in a corporation must be a crook or dishonest" bandwagon. It would indeed be interesting to compare items of equal realtive value to each person. For example, I bet lower level employees would not be very likely to pay, say, $.10 for a drink of water from the water cooler if they didn't have to. I suggest water as a comparison to bagels because both are food related. Where you might not get valid results if you compared office supplies to bagels. There may be more to value than just relative cost.

-matthew

Yes, and no

[Moraelin]

Yes, sociopaths are excellent actors, rise to the top, and are ridiculously common at top management levels.

No, I don't think they reflect the rest of the population. Yes, everyone scores 2-3 points on an APD test (Antisocial-Personality Disorder, i.e., sociopathy/psychopathy.) But these guys are the 1% of the population that scores over 30. They're above even the average of criminals in the worst prisons. They're _that_ completely incapable of any empathy.

At that point, it's not just a minor difference of scales, it becomes a fundamental difference from the rest of us. The rest of us do some minor slip-up or naughty thing and feel guilty about it for a week. These guys do it consistently and see nothing wrong with it at all.

Re:Yes, and no

[ScrewMaster]

I disagree. Sociopathy, as a pathological condition, is not so easily categorized or pigeonholed. Sociopaths are not always so distinct from the regular population, and the fact that they cover themselves so well makes it difficult to estimate their actual numbers. It's not as if sociopathy makes one totally dysfunctional, as many other psychological disorders do, nor is it remotely obvious to the onlooker. They fit in, do their jobs, raise families, often appear to be well above average ... and unless they screw up and get caught doing something unusually bad nobody is the wiser. Hell, many of us admire these awful people because of the very success their illness permits them to achieve.

There are mild cases and there are severe ones, the mild ones are far more common than you might think, and are evident everywhere from the local used car lot to the upper management of large corporations. Note also that sociopaths can get worse over time, if they find themselves in a situation that rewards their bad behavior (or at least doesn't discourage it.) You're probably not going to be able to tell if your local shopkeeper is unable to empathize with another person ... he can still be a perfectly good businessman and do all the right things to make that business successful. The Ken Lays, Bernie Ebbers, and Carly "The American worker doesn't have a God-given right to a job" Fiorinas stand out only because of the magnitude of their sociopathy ... but lesser examples abound.

Just look at the problem the United States is having caring for the elderly. Nobody gives a damn about these people, not even their own children who would rather abandon them in a nursing home and ignore them until they die alone (and the staff of many of these fine institutions are no better.) America is fast becoming a sociopathic culture, my friend. And those uncaring people that willingly leave their parents to die slowly in a tiny room all by themselves sometimes become corporate execs. How can one expect them to treat their employees any better?

Re:Who lets somebody steal his lunch?

[JensR]

If they require me to accept people stealing regularly from me then I don't have a problem to leave, because then the work environment is broken anyway.
What's that for an attitude anyway? The "troublemaker" is the guy taking my stuff.

Actual percentages

[downhole]

I don't have the book in front of me, but if I recall correctly, the theft percentages were all around a few percent. It was something like the average CEO floor pays for 90% of the bagels, while the average grunt floor pays for 95% of them. Though the guy also stopped providing bagels if the payment percentage was under 90% or 85% or something like that.

Yeah, there is some insight to be gained from these numbers, but let's keep a little perspective too. Only 90% payment may be slightly less then the grunt floors, but it doesn't exactly make them an evil band of roving bagel thieves.

I knew it

[Anonymous Coward]

Accountants are Evil (tm).

Is not having performance metrics hard to get?

[HBI]

No one ever got fired for poor performance at the military base I work at.

Is it any wonder that they steal food and shit all over the toilet bowl?

the "magic refrigerator"

[peter303]

The guy who steals alot of stuff from our fridge calls it the "magic refrigerator". Its a constant war to keep these sociopaths from doing this.

Correlation?

[kalirion]

Just to look at all the possible explanations, could it also be that the higher up the person is, the less likely it is that they're carrying $1 bills in their pockets? Unless of course they're planning on visiting a strip club after (or during) work, in which case that obviously takes priority.

My father has a friend who's not exactly a rich fella, 100% blue collar and all that. He and his family once went to one of those apple orchards where you pick your own apples, and then drop money in the basket as you leave. Well after they came back they bragged about actually taking money from the basket on their way out.

Obviously I'm not saying that this family is a good representation of the "working class." Unscrupulous people show up in all walks of life. And I agree that the CEOs are probably more likely to be immoral. But you always have to be careful of generalizations.

Clerks got it right...

[Anonymous Coward]

Veronica: How much money did you leave up there?

Dante: Like three dollars in mixed change and a couple of singles. This time in the morning, people just get a paper or coffee.

Veronica: You're trusting.

Dante: Why do you say that?

Veronica: How do you know they're taking the right amount of change or even paying for what they take.

Dante: Theoretically, people see money on the counter, no one around, they think they're being watched.

Veronica: Honesty through paranoia.

You Bast*rd

[Anonymous Coward]

I was not planning on laughing at this particular moment in time!

For all those 'poisoning' thier lunches...

[phpWebber]

it reminds me of a story of a pumpkin grower. Every harvest, he would find several pumpkins missing from the field. He knew they were getting stolen so he put up a sign:

One of these pumpkins is poisoned.

He returned to his field the next day where someone had replaced his sign with one of their own.

Two of these pumpkins are poisoned.

Be careful: whose to say they won't take revenge?

Re:For all those 'poisoning' thier lunches...

[Anonymous Coward]

Ugh, now I want to play WoW.

Yeah, you like that poisoned pumpkin, don't you you filthy paladin.

reverse evaluation

[COMON$]

Wasnt there an article on slashdot regarding a company that did reverse evaluations? Anonymous evaluation of your supervisor and CEO, CFO etc. You know the way Democracy is supposed to work? Perhaps a model like this would work well in the business world. I am just a lowly BS in CS not an MBA, but what is saying that an elective supervisor model wouldnt work. Bad evals? kick them out, Supervisors would get elected by having good peer reviews. Any reason this wouldnt work?

Re:reverse evaluation

[Foolicious]

Any reason this wouldnt work?

Yes - it won't work because you get what you measure. So you'll get a bunch of managers that may or may not know what the heck they're doing, but still get good marks from their underlings because they learn to be what their underlings want. You would end up with more and more of an already-too-existent nerd peeve -- the person with poor skills who gets by because they can work people.

You can't escape the fact that the things that make someone evaluate a person as a good manager would almost ALWAYS bump into the things that a company (and even some of its employees) would deem to be good managerial qualities. A good manager is a good manager because he or she can balance real business needs with real human needs. But the majority of employees don't care about the business needs (except all the ones that will respond to this saying how mature and fantastic they are, of course) and won't factor this into their evaluation.

Re:reverse evaluation

[Anonymous Coward]

Run a business like a democracy?
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!
and, I suppose, the guy who posted that idea gets a vote?????????????
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!

I'll bet you don't even know a single one of your company's customers. You probably think understanding an abstraction of an abstraction (that is, your IT system as a model of your business process as a model of your actual business) is the same as actually understanding what business you're in.

You don't get a vote. You get to shut the fuck up until you learn just how ignorant you really are.

Re:reverse evaluation

[Y-Crate]

Wasnt there an article on slashdot regarding a company that did reverse evaluations? Anonymous evaluation of your supervisor and CEO, CFO etc.

I worked for a large property management company in the Mid-South that implemented such a system for their managers.

The fatal flaw in the system was claiming it was anonymous, but placing our names at the top of each page we were supposed to write our "honest" comment on. The excuse was that they needed to make sure only their subordinates responded - despite the fact we were all sat down together and supervised by someone in HR.

Needless to say, our managers got glowing reviews because no one trusted HR to keep the information to themselves.

Re:reverse evaluation

[COMON$]

I guess I am playing with the fantasy that people will be honest when they are evaluating anonymously.....

Re:reverse evaluation

[AuMatar]

You guys need to grow a set. I've never had any problem putting negative reviews for coworkers or managers. If it improves things, you win. If it doesn't, you've still lost nothing. If they don't like it, thats their problem- there's a lot of jobs out there, I don't need this one.

Re:reverse evaluation

[Foolicious]

Yeah - I hear ya. But even when the evaluation is anonymous, it doesn't change the way people think about their companies, especially larger companies.

For example, let's say I think I need a new phone, PDA or whatever in order to do my job better. Let's also say my manager has to approve that piece of equipment. If the manager declines it (for a good reason) most folks would still be more likely to think less of the manager than recognize that their own desire for a cooler piece of equipment may not factor well into budgeting, overall team morale, etc. Some folks would be able to recognize that and in those cases, your idea would work very well.

Re:reverse evaluation

[flibuste]

That's absolutely correct. There is no such thing as constructive criticism. More than often, the good critics can move mountains in corporate world. They can also show some managers the way to the door.

Re:Who lets somebody steal his lunch?

[surprise_audit]

The "troublemaker" is the guy taking my stuff.

Second that! The person(s) stealing lunches are the ones who clearly have no clue about getting on with other people.

To the watcher go the spoils

[Dan Slotman]

He should have put watching eyes on the donation box. http://science.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=06/06/2 8/1220207

Heros? Heh. More like Geniuses.

[tnk1]

Oh, but you DO know how long food has been in there if you have been carefully stalking the fridge, patiently biding your time until fresh prey comes into your grasp. As soon as that fool from Marketing has left his scrumptious ham and american cheese on white sandwich (only slightly compressed by the juice box in the same bag) alone... you STRIKE!

It is indeed going to be a fine day... just as soon as I get rid of the moron on the phone who can't figure out how to turn on his computer. Cretin.

Note to self: Make sure and head up to Accounting and throw the paper bag away and then grab some of those bagels that are out that some idiot actually wants you to pay for on the honor system. After all, every one knows that Accounting is full of passive aggressive people. They should be ashamed.

Some wealthy don't earn it -- or earn it too fast.

[Ahnteis]

>> "They didn't get rich by wasting their money."

Well, actually, SOME of them get rich in spite of wasting their money.

However, the Paris Hiltons, Michael Jackson, and Britney Spearses of the world don't value their money the same way that someone who has worked hard for much of a lifetime do.

In fact, we see MANY popular social icons (professional athletes, pop musicians, movie stars) who waste their money on things the average person can't even fathom buying -- and end up with very little money.

Sticky lunches

[flibuste]

I'm amazed at the whole story. People STEAL lunches at the office? Each time at noon, going through the kitchen is a total nightmare because of all the awful microwaved stinky dinners being prepared.

Between processed cheesed pasta, 10-year-old-beef-in-sauce-thanks-Mr-president-choi ce, curry lovers who has never seen a REAL curry leaf, I can't believe some have so much bad taste as to steal that terrible *food*.

Can I mod the FA as "funny"?

The more you make, The less you Buy !!`

[djdavetrouble]

It is true! Our Director gets everything he asks for and easily makes 1.5 million before bonus. Things he has that the company pays for: Cell phone, Blackberry, Laptop at work, Laptop for travelling (?!?), Imac on his desk at work, Imac on his desk at home, car lease, Lunch brought to his office everyday, car service EVERYWHERE, meals and drinks and all travel expensed, because of course it is ALL work related......

This also backs up my theory that the wealthy have way more time than those of us that have to do things like cook, wash our own laundry, take public transportation.......

Beware the Librarian

[Anonymous Coward]

My mother was an elementary school librarian. Being a generally nice lady she would usually have a bowl of candy or some sort of cookie (at holidays, for staff) on her desk.

Of course little kids have sticky fingers when it comes to sugar. And they're stealthy.

After a rash of candy thefts I glued a light sensitive klaxon style alarm to the bottom of the lid for her. The kid nearly shit his pants when he opened it.

On a separate occasion she helped one of the teachers stop a rash of cookie thefts. They made some tasty little cookies with red and orange sprinkles. After distributing these to the class (as bait to get their saliva flowing), they left the plate of remaining cookies behind the teacher's desk.... with a slightly spicier red and orange sprinkles. Then they just waited for the person who "really, really, REALLY! Please, please, PLEASE!" needed to get a drink of water....

Re:WTF?

[evilviper]

You post to your /. journal at 3am on a Friday and you want 2 minutes of your life back?

It was only 3am in your time-zone, not mine.

The bigger the roll the tighter the rubber band

[wilec]

The bigger the roll the tighter the rubber band. In my past experience as a independent general & electrical contractor, and also as a truck farmer I found the wealthier the customer the more likely they were to contest the bill or otherwise try and get extra stuff or services for free. The easiest to satisfy and to collect from customers I ever had were almost always the least affluent. The absolute finest customers were working class older black folks, they are the salt of the earth in IMHO. The worst were CEO & VP executive types with professionals like doctors and lawyers a close second. Interestingly enough most of the independent business owners while demanding were rare to contest a bill and far easier to get along with than the executives and professionals.

I believe my opening statement is reflective of the situation, most of these folks are simply greedy and tight. Every dollar they can coerce from you is another dollar for them. That and I believe they value money differently than most others do. I mean I value money for what it can provide for me, ie: security, a new toy, ease of mind from not worrying about a bill. I believe they value money for it's own sake, or maybe it is for the power to control others, maybe it is a competitive game they play with themselves or others, whatever it is a very different and much more powerful a need that my own. Also these types seem to have a lower ethical standard or at least a very flexible set of ideals as compared to most working class folks. They also seem to less concerned about what others may think of them on a personal basis, or at least it is far harder to cause in them an embarrassment or shame of their actions.

Matthew

We can even aggree partially

[Moraelin]

America is fast becoming a sociopathic culture, my friend.

American culture _is_ a cult of the sociopaths already, because it's the sociopaths that are given free hand to run the propaganda machine. So they glorify their own position and paint it like they're the unsung heroes, the ones who made America great, etc. And the common men and women end up believing that, since that's what they've been spoon-fed since birth. It becomes a badge of honour to basically take a weird "well I admire them for shafting me, and want to be shafted more" self-defeating attitude, and call people names if they dare argue for more empathy.

And the most perverse ways they can shape you is to get you to think "but, really, the rest of us are no better." E.g., as an unrelated example, kleptocracies all over the world stay in power by letting their citizens steal just a little too. So everyone who stole maybe 1$ worth of office supplies or took a 10$ bribe (in those countries it can be a lot), thinks it's just normal and it's "no worse than the rest of us" when the prime minister steals 1,000,000$ from the treasury or takes a 10,000,000$ bribe to let someone else plunder the country.

In America the means and culture is different from that, of course, but the damage has already been done the moment you look at the Ken Lays, Bernie Ebbers and the like and honestly think "it's just representative of the rest of us."

There are mild cases and there are severe ones, the mild ones are far more common than you might think, and are evident everywhere from the local used car lot to the upper management of large corporations.

About 1% of the population are psychopaths, as in, over 30 APD score. So, yes, that's pretty common. If you're in a town with, say, 100,000 inhabitants, you probably have 1000 fully psychopathic people in there.

Note also that sociopaths can get worse over time, if they find themselves in a situation that rewards their bad behavior (or at least doesn't discourage it.)

Actually, no, they don't get worse. They just can drop the facade and do all the bad things that they've always wanted to do anyway.

You're probably not going to be able to tell if your local shopkeeper is unable to empathize with another person ... he can still be a perfectly good businessman and do all the right things to make that business successful.

Just because they're outstanding at disguising it, doesn't make the problem any less so. And actually you _can_ tell who's a psychopath if you spend enough time with them, because they slip up all the time. They disguise themselves well from strangers, yes, but if you spend enough time in their presence (employee, friend, family member, etc), for most of them you end up wondering "my god, how the fuck can he/she be so heartless?" because they slip up and show their callous, uncaring side at the moments where you'd expect the most compassion.

There's a reason why the medical definition says "superficial, glib charm" and not just "charm". They're charming only as long as you have little contact with them. Spend enough time in one's presence, and you'll change your opinion from "charming fellow" to mild bewilderment at their occasional displays of complete lack of a heart. Even if you end up admiring them, you'll know that they're different.

Basically just because they can wear sheep clothing convincingly, still just makes them wolves in sheep clothing, _not_ sheep just like the rest of us. And if you spend enough time looking at one, you start seeing the seams on that sheep skin they're wearing.

But anyway, look, if you even think stuff like "we're no better" or "we're guilty of this and that" (e.g., of dumping elders into nursing homes) then you're _not_ the same as them. Those people would think it's _normal_ to step on corpses on their way up, and will _never_ feel guilt

Re:You had snow?!?

[A nonymous Coward]

We didn't even have water! We had to smash our own hydrogen and oxygen atoms together to make water, and as for making snow, why, we had to make our own freon, and let me tell you ...

Re:You had snow?!?

[WilliamSChips]

I think I'm having deja vu...

A few days too late...

[AriaStar]

...but I favor making brownies using ex-lax and a "special" ingredient. Get 'em high while they try to run to the bathroom.