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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... "
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.
Warhammer forums
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...
creation science book
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.
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.
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. ^^
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?
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.
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.
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