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]

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

[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

[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

[postmortem]

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

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

[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

[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

[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

[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

[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

[zacronos]

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

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

[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

[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

[Zevon 2000]

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

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?

[geminidomino]

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

Thanks a lot!

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?

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....

[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....

[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....

[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.

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

[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.

Also...

[Poromenos1]

Also because the higher-ups are used to stealing!

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

Wait a minute...

[RealGrouchy]

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

That changes everything...

- RG>

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.

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

[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

[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

[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

[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

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.

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.'

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: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.

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.

[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."

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...

[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.

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!

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.

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...

[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...

[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.

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: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?

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

[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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

[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.

[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.

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: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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

[weierstrass]

maybe they didn't have any change

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: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: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?

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.

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.

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.

"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

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: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