stolen lunches, missing mugs, and other petty office thefts: share your stories

by Alison Green on September 21, 2017

Workplace thefts are usually a lot pettier than Monday’s letter about the person who stole an intern’s jacket.

Like this from a commenter recently: “I have a Bath and Body eucalyptus (mini) hand sanitizer next to my computer. Turns out someone has used it up, then refilled it with water so it wouldn’t look like it was used. It costs a buck.”

Or this: “I had someone steal my pyrex dish once. They dumped my lunch out into a little baggy, put that back in the fridge, and stole my dang dish. WHO DOES THAT!?”

Or this: “Someone in the office even stole a coworker’s mug! He had left it on the counter while he went to the bathroom before he got his coffee and it was gone when he came back. TWO YEARS LATER he found it soaking in the sink after the thief had used it and promptly ‘stole’ it back. He was very excited.”

Of course there also was the letter about the coworker who stole someone’s spicy food and got sick (and the epic update), the manager who stole someone’s family heirloom, the boss who stole an employee’s iPad, and the boss who kept stealing lunches.

So let’s talk office thefts — petty and not-so-petty. What have you found stolen at work? Even better, if you’ve been the perpetrator, now is the time to confess anonymously here and seek salvation. Share in the comments.

You may also like:
{ 1,959 comments }

{ 1,959 comments… read them below }

    2. Naomi*

      I just wonder about the logistics of that! It’s not like you can slip a monitor into your pocket. How does someone walk off with one without being spotted?

      1. Ange*

        Back in the day when flatscreens were £1000+ each, we came in one Monday to find all our flatscreens had been replaced with non-flatscreens. We thought it was IT at first cos they were prone to changing things round with no notice. My boss called the police and got yelled at by the head of security (who refused to let him view the CCTV on the grounds that “there was no point”) so we all assumed someone in security was in on it. Never found out who or how, though.

        1. Middle Name Jane*

          Wait, wait, wait. If the police were called, how could the head of security (of the building?) refuse to let the police view the security camera footage? Couldn’t the police compel them through a warrant or something?

          1. SusanIvanova*

            Head of security claimed it was a mistake? And since they’re security, the police would believe them.

          2. PhyllisB*

            I think she meant security wouldn’t let the BOSS view the footage. I’m sure they couldn’t refuse to let the police view it if requested.

    3. Mike C.*

      Oh, let me clarify – they’re stolen for use at their own desks. Like people will wander by one area, take a few monitors, and they set them up at their own desks.

      The place is massive and people are moving all the time, so it’s hard to catch.

      1. ThisIsNotWhoYouThinkItIs*

        We hid ours in a storage room if they weren’t in use. We were worried anything supply-related (monitors, mouses, keyboards) on an empty desk was fair game after all the upheaval (multiple department moves over months).

        1. Mabel*

          This reminds me of some thefts that happened a few years ago. My colleague and friend was on vacation in China, and while she was there, her father, who lives there, became ill, and she had to stay for a few more weeks. While she was away, one of the managers – of another team told people – incorrectly – that my friend was laid off or reassigned to a different client (I can’t remember which). So people started taking things from her desk. I told the manager that she was wrong and that my friend was away due to a family emergency, but she didn’t seem to care, and she didn’t correct the story she had started in the office. Our friends and I had to run around and collect all of her things – some were company-owned, like tape, stapler, etc., but some were her personal property. Someone took her bamboo plant and let it completely dry out. It lived in a big vase full of water, so letting it get dry would clearly cause problems for the plant. I ended up with that plant when she finally did leave the company, but it never recovered from the neglect.

        1. Mike C.*

          They certainly do! But with all the movement and reorgs and whatnot, it becomes very difficult to track. They only seem to care about that sort of thing when it comes to laptops. No one touches those.

          1. Just Jess*

            This sounds so similar to my current org. It’s so disorganized and dysfunctional here that I wouldn’t be shocked to find out about an unsolved murder because “Security never asked Operations for the funds to get new cameras” or “Operations never told IT to install the new cameras” etc.

      3. LCL*

        Ah yes, the redistribution of company purchased tools. Justified by ‘I’m not stealing it, I’m using it for work.’ Just imagine how this plays out as applied to keeping company vehicles stocked. I keep threatening to RFID the more mobile tools, there are services that offer it. Not to bust someone, but to go to the vehicle that has 3 when we are supposed to stock 1, and return it to the correct vehicle.

      4. Elizabeth the Ginger*

        This reminds me a little of moving back into the dorms in the fall at college – you wanted to get there early, so if your room didn’t have the “good kind” of desk (with the keyboard tray), desk chair (that tilted back slightly) or mattress (a bit newer and springier) you could trade them with the ones in an empty room down the hall. It didn’t feel like stealing if no one lived there yet…

      5. VDub13*

        I swear you work for my company. Monitors are taken here a lot also. Some people have up to 4 monitors. smh

        1. A Programmer*

          *chuckling sheepishly while looking around at the 4 monitors and 4 tablets currently on my desk* (none of them stolen btw) In my job two monitors per computer is generally considered a minimum and many of us have reason to need two PCs. The tablets you gotta keep an eye on though, I learned pretty quickly that borrowed devices generally don’t come back unless you go find them.

          1. John B Public*

            Something I let people borrow I usually ask for their car keys in return. Either they don’t really need it or I’m guaranteed to get it back.

      6. nonegiven*

        At one place my son worked, they were told to take their laptops home at night to keep them from being stolen. Pretty sure the monitors were locked down.

    4. Turquoise Cow*

      When I first started at my old job I didn’t have a desk for about two weeks (everyone was moving around) and when I did start they gave me a new computer with a flat screen. Everyone else had old computers with CRT monitors. Ooh did some of the old timers get mad. I half expected it to be stolen at some point. Of course, if it was, it would have been very easy to identify the culprit.

      1. That Would Be a Good Band Name*

        This reminds me of when my position at OldJob was first allowed to have a laptop instead of a desktop. People who had roles that had traditionally been ones that allowed remote work had ancient laptops – ones passed down from their predecessors. Since there was no laptop to pass down to me, I got a brand new one. Cue the outrage!

        1. Turquoise Cow*

          One old guy said he REALLY needed one, and it had nothing to do with me, it was because his eyes were bad. Which was probably partly true, but he complained a lot less about it before I came along.

        2. memyselfandi*

          My OldJob kept a priority list of who had the oldest computer equipment. Since we were largely grant funded and funds for equipment were hard to come by, whenever anyone had funds for new computers the equipment was purchased and the person with the oldest computer got the upgrade. It was the only way to keep everyone roughly within the same generation of technology. Of course, from time to time there were funds from overhead to support computer upgrades.

    5. Melissa C.*

      This reminds me of my first job, where everyone had a Mac mini. Some of the keyboards were nicer than others, and I came in after about 2 weeks on the job to find that someone had swapped my nice, new keyboard with their old one. I could immediately tell who did it though, because her keyboard was COVERED in bronzer and she was the only one who wore that much makeup. I just waited one night until she was gone and swapped them back.

      1. Specialk9*

        At OldJob, they built out a fancy new office with really nice chairs, Herman Miller, for everyone. They got a call from Herman Miller. Hey, your chairs keep coming up on eBay. Turns out someone was just rolling a chair out to his car every day and seeking them. But the chair company monitors eBay and buys their chairs that get posted, checks the serial numbers, and pings the company who bought them. So, nice racket, for a little while.

        1. entrylevelsomething*

          I had no idea Herman Miller did that. It’s super nice, but I wonder why. A way to weed out fakes?

          1. cheeky*

            Perhaps, but also, Herman Miller and other office furniture companies often lease their equipment to companies, so they probably also look for diverted/stolen assets.

    6. Samiratou*

      Any monitor left in an open cube (eg. where someone has left the company) is fair game, but stealing from someone’s actual desk is Not Done.

      1. Middle Name Jane*

        Oh, I will raid a vacant cube/office for nice office supplies and whatnot, but I would never take something from a a cube or office of someone who still worked for the company. That’s wrong.

      2. TootsNYC*

        I wouldn’t take a monitor–those are too high-end. And the IT folks need to keep track.

        I’d swap chairs, or staplers, though.

      3. Steve*

        One time after a layoff I collected something like 14 unused monitors and set them up next to my two to make a 16 monitor system. They weren’t hooked up but I still felt like a day trader/online poker player. IT new where they were and when we started staffing back up, kept coming back to my office to grab a couple.

      4. SusanIvanova*

        We had a bunch of open cubes nearby where we had computers set up as a small server farm, because when you write server software you need to have them nearby for the inevitable hard restart, not out of reach in the server room.

        Late one evening we notice that a phone has been plugged into one – not just someone’s random personal phone, but the special ones that the security guys carry. Naturally we call security to report strange equipment plugged into a server – why, it might be reading files and sending them outside the company! (Which we didn’t believe was the case here, of course – test servers don’t even have real data – but that is the sort of thing that our security is very concerned about.)

        Another security guy collects the phone. We find out later that the first guy’s excuse was he needed a charge and thought the cube was unoccupied. Technically yes, but with a running computer in it?

      5. Electron Wisperer*

        Our engineering department (Where everyone runs at least two monitors, often three) are not above swiping the ones from the desk of anyone in the department who goes on holiday, it has gotten to be something of a game, and it is expected that on return from hols you will find your three 4k 26″ replaced with whatever old junk was kicking around (We manufacture TV broadcast gear, there are always old monitors kicking around).

        Trick then is to figure out who mysteriously has 4 or 5 screens and then swipe the best two of theirs that evening (Bonus if the best of theirs is better then your originals), nobody will say anything…
        Yea, engineers can be childish like that.

        ‘Scope probes and clips are also routinely fair game at any time.

        Regards, Dan.

    7. Gen*

      I used to live with a guy who once left his office with a massive CRT monitor up his sweatershirt. He was surprised when security apprehended him. I’ll never understand how he though people wouldn’t notice the square lump

        2. SusanIvanova*

          That’s how some thieves got away with stealing big screen TVs from box stores! Just wear the right polo and khaki and nobody notices.

      2. JennyFair*

        My mother worked undercover retail security for sixteen years. She told me men will stick anything down the front of their pants and assume no one will notice. Once, a man stole a box of old 5.5″ floppy discs…and thought no one would notice his, um, square package.

          1. Glacier*

            I’ve been reading this blog for years, and think this might be the funniest comment I’ve ever read.

    8. MashaKasha*

      I had that happen once. At an OldJob long ago, after a few years and a lot of networking, I was finally given the largest CRT monitor they had, 24″, iirc. One summer, OldJob hired a company to redo the roof on the office building. The contractors apparently took a portion of the roof off and went home for the day, and that evening, the area got hit by a heavy lake-effect rain storm. We came in the next morning to find the entire building flooded and were given 30 min to pick up our belongings, and told not to worry about the computer equipment, the company would move it to our new locations. I walked into my assigned cubicle in the building next door, and was greeted by something like a 15 inch monitor. I made inquiries. I had a good friend in the desktop support group, who would’ve liked to be more than friends, if both of us weren’t married. My friend did some stealth investigating, and, in his own words, “I walked into this guy’s office in the legal department and he had two 24″ monitors in his office. We’ve never given two of those to anyone. I figured one of them was yours, so I took it. Here it is.”

      I also had a coworker steal my office chair at an even earlier OldJob. The woman who mentored me when I started there, transferred to another floor soon after, and gave me her old chair as she was getting a new one. Nice, cushy chair with armrests. The next day, I came back from lunch, my nice chair was gone, and a cheapo chair with no armrests was in its place. It was an open-office area, so I found it fairly quickly, with another coworker sitting in it. I walked up to her at the end of the day and nicely asked if she was done with my chair, because I needed it back. Didn’t expect any results, because I was new and she had her friends sitting around her to back her up. Oddly enough, I got the chair back right away, and no one took it from me again.

      1. Starbuck*

        Ooh, I like that tactic of assuming they were planning on returning it anyway when you ask for the chair back. It’s like you’re doing them a favor by picking it up instead of having them roll it back! Very clever.

        1. sstabeler*

          It’s probably partly that it gives them a graceful out- “oops, sorry, I was borrowing it for a while while you didn’t need it- here, have it back-” so they can at least claim officially that they hadn’t stolen it. Hence, they’re less likely to argue back. (bringing it up, on the other hand, is why they never took your stuff again- they knew they’d be caught)

      2. 2 Cents*

        We used to mark our chairs with taped-on sticky notes to the bottom because the salespeople, who were given smaller chairs, would try to assume one of the support staff office chairs as their own. Except they’d never think to check underneath.

      3. Arjay*

        I’ve told this story before here, but I attached my chair to my desk with a dog leash because people kept stealing it to use in the conference room next door.

        3. AMPG*

          When my old office installed a lactation room, they had to send out more than one reminder to people to stop taking all the chairs for meetings in the conference room across the hall.

    9. Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain*

      A few years ago my department was being moved into a newly renovated office space on campus. People from around campus started to circle like vultures asking about stuff they wanted to claim…”So are you taking your chairs?” type of stuff. Yes of course; we’re just moving offices not being eliminated. The head of campus security came in and actually stated to my boss that he was going to get our very large Apple monitors (for his IBM computer??). He seemed really confused that we would be keeping them and taking them with us. A 6-foot whiteboard from my boss’ office did end up “misplaced.”

      1. SusanIvanova*

        Apple monitors haven’t used proprietary cables for over a decade; it would work fine on the IBM.

        When my team got replaced the vultures didn’t have a chance; we’d already made arrangements to transfer stuff to the other teams we worked with.

  2. radiolady*

    I had a small bottle of Tory Burch perfume in the desk drawer of my desk, inside of my office. We are a small radio station with 6 full time employees (mostly male and over the age of 70), and three high school part timers that work during the nights/weekends. Never could prove who it was, but one of those part timers always smelled like Tory Burch from then on…she quit with no notice shortly after. And food…always disappearing food.

    1. Parcae*

      Amazing. Imagine if the recent jacket thief had gotten away with it, then casually started wearing the jacket to the office.

      As best I can remember, I’ve never had anything stolen from me at work. Either I’ve been incredibly lucky, or no one likes my stuff!

      1. Bostonian*

        Right? The person who was stolen from is going to know EXACTLY what it smells like.

        On the other hand, there’s always plausible deniability in “I liked that scent so much, I bought it for myself.”

          1. radiolady*

            To clarify, our interactions were VERY limited. I am the morning show host, and she worked mostly nights. We did cross paths, but it was rare.

    3. Amy G. Golly*

      Oh God, at my current job, any food that is not nailed down is IMMEDIATELY consumed as if by a plague of locusts! I’ve worked in public libraries for years, so I’ve long been familiar with the culture of communal food – there’s leftovers from a meeting/party/program, or someone brings in treats. But it was always the norm to label food that was up-for-grabs – if it didn’t specifically say “take some!” then you didn’t touch it. Writing your name on food was more so they knew who to bother if that carton of take-out started growing mold.

      Then I started this job, where the default is, “If there’s no name on it, it’s up for grabs!” I learned that lesson the hard way when I left the remains of my lunch in the fridge for just a few hours only to find it completely decimated.

      1. Life is Good*

        At my old dysfunctional workplace, clients would gift the WHOLE office with fancy chocolates and toffee, baskets of cookies and meat and cheese trays during the holidays. The big boss would grab them as soon as they were set down, before they were opened, and take them to “re-gift” to someone on his gift list.

        1. Otis ELE*

          Same at my office – except big boss takes them home to share with his family. A lot of times we never even see them arrive. Makes it awkward when you suspect a client has sent a gift to you but you never got it…

        2. Chaordic One*

          One year the mail room received a “Seasons Greetings” card from the White House addressed to a former employee. Since the intended recipient no longer worked there (he had been on a panel and did get to meet the president), the mail clerk put it on display in the mail room, but then the company president’s secretary spotted it and took it up to the company president’s office and we never saw it again.

          Happy Holidays!

          1. radiolady*

            We get t shirts and other promotional materials from sports teams we are affiliated with. They are for on air giveaways, and of course the staff can get some too. Boss takes the boxes home as soon as they arrive, doles it out to his son’s baseball team and coaches, and then brings the leftovers back to the station. He owns the place, so I guess he can do what he wants.

            1. radiolady*

              To clarify, through our affiliate agreements, the promo materials belong to the station, so he isn’t violating the affiliate agreement.

      2. Merci Dee*

        On occasion, management here will order pizzas early in the day to provide lunch for the line workers and the office staff. After one or two incidents, management had to have stern talks with the different groups of line workers — the pizza place would drop off the pizzas about 20 or 30 minutes before lunch time, and the pies would be distributed among the break rooms around the plant, based on the number of employees who used them for the lunch break. Apparently, some folks would hit the break rooms about 10 minutes before lunch time, and would walk off with 7 or 8 whole pizzas each. So there wouldn’t be enough to go around when everyone took their lunch breaks. The General Admin manager opened a break room door to check on the set-up right as 3 of the line guys were trying to strong-arm their combined 21 pizzas out the door, and he absolutely flipped. I don’t think there have been any more pizza purchases since that discovery.

        1. Rebecca in Dallas*

          Ugh, some people are the worst! When I was a manager at a department store, the company would pay for catered food one day during the holiday season. We would arrange for several deliveries throughout the day, since we had people working morning, afternoon and evening shifts. The morning shift people would eat at their normal lunchtime, then I would catch some of them coming back to the break room after their shift (ie when the afternoon shift’s meal was arriving) and just taking as much food with them as they could carry!

        2. Floundering Mander*

          Ugh, this reminds me of a big company party we had in a pub where the people who were in the back room next to the buffet table loaded up their plates with a ridiculous amount of food. We had roast chicken drumsticks as the main appetizer, and some people had 6 or more on their plates. The entire pub was full of employees, and by the time the people who were sitting in the front managed to squeeze into the back there was nothing left.

          So management ordered a second round of snacks, but the people who had eaten the first lot did the same thing again! It was incredibly rude.

        4. Normally A Lurker*

          OMG. I used to work at a resturant. On the three busiest days of the year (Mother’s Day, Father’s Day, and Valentines), the 7 best waiters (me included) used to work doubles, so we worked from 9a to 11p straight through. (Yes, I know, illegal. But also, 3 days a year and you knew what you were getting into, and they never forced any of us – they asked if we wanted the double.)

          Anyway, the manager would always order pizza for the people who worked doubles to eat around 3.30-4. Which, as luck would have it, is literally the time the 2nd shift started.

          I can’t tell you how many times I walked into empty pizza boxes bc I was on the floor and the people who had JUST gotten to work were finishing up their 3rd slice.

          Eventually, management started locking it in the office, and giving the ppl with doubles the key to the office to go take a 15 min break and eat. Whatever was left after all of us had eaten became communal.

  3. Former Retail Manager*

    During the holidays, when the special flavored creamers come out, I usually keep one in the fridge consistently for those last 3 or 4 months of the year. When my first one disappeared, I thought it might have been a victim of an unannounced fridge clean-out. By creamer #4, I was convinced that someone was stealing them. I never found out who it was, but I no longer bring fancy creamer. It just seems odd to me because the stuff was gone each time by 10:00am and the person presumably didn’t leave work until at least 3 or 4 and it’s supposed to remain refrigerated. Did you hide it in your desk? Just weird.

    1. DecorativeCacti*

      I don’t drink coffee but one of my coworkers brings her own and leaves it in her lunchbox. One time she went to use some and it was empty. She hadn’t even opened it yet.

    2. SJ*

      It’s so ballsy to steal food from a communal kitchen. Like… anyone could walk in while you’re doing it! Anyone!!!

      1. Jules the 3rd*

        Sure, but not everyone will know you’re stealing. Only the owner would, probably.

        Reading these stories reinforces my ‘bring it in my own cooler’ mantra.

      2. Red*

        My ex-coworker got caught with her hand literally in a coworker’s food container. Turns out that she never bought breakfast but regularly snacked on other people’s lunches in the kitchen WITH HER BARE HANDS! She got fired a few weeks later for coming into work drunk.

          1. Hamsa*

            My friend was a strict dieter and needed her exact amounts of food & drink where she left it, so, she would put her milk in a Motts apple juice bottle (brown) it made the milk look weird and she labelled it her “brew”, it scared the milk thieves away.

        1. Happy Lurker*

          One of those “I have 7 coffee’s a day”. Now I get it…it’s coffee flavored milk. I really just never thought about it before, since I am from a long line of black coffee drinkers.

    5. SoCalHR*

      Creamers are the worst! People think they can just constantly free load off your creamer. Its one thing to run out of your own and be in a pinch one day, but not ongoing. At one office I started buying the big bottles at home but would bring a smaller amount to work in a cleaned out water bottle or jar. I feel like that helped reduce theft. Maybe because the bottle was clear and more noticeable if you took some or because it just looked like some mystery liquid (they can’t be all “ooooh peppermint mocha, that sounds sooo good, I’ll just take a little).

      1. bb-great*

        I think I’ve told this story on here before, but my mom combated the creamer thieves by pouring her Coffee-Mate into a Rubbermaid reusable drink container…and labeling it “breast milk.” Worked like a charm! She did however get caught pouring it into her coffee once and had some explaining to do.

          1. bb-great*

            She just explained her plan and the coworker was suitably impressed. I should add that there were no new mothers at the office and it was a small enough place that everyone should have known that, but I guess no one wanted to take the risk.

        2. medium of ballpoint*

          That’s a great idea! I’ve started buying the individual containers (like the ones at the gas station) and keeping them in my desk because they don’t need to be refrigerated.

          1. SoCalHR*

            I actually do the same thing now, Medium of Ballpoint – but mostly because I’m not always in the office (although it sounds like we do have an active creamer-thief here, so its probably a good plan anyway).

      2. Kat M.*

        I especially hate this because I used to bring in non-dairy creamer for myself and a couple of lactose-intolerant colleagues. No matter how many pleading explanations that there is PLENTY of creamer available for other people to use, NONE of which I can consume, folks just didn’t seem to want to walk 15 feet into the next room to get it when they could reach into the fridge for my soy creamer instead.

        I eventually just stopped bringing it and started drinking tea at work instead of coffee.

    6. SpicyCoffee*

      This kept happening to one of our employees. His solution: he put his name on it, along with the words “NOT COMMUNAL!” and then… replaced about 1/4 of the bottle with this insane hot sauce. It was brilliant, and really easy to spot the culprit! Karma!

      2. AwkwardKaterpillar*

        I had this problem once, I wrote on it ‘Not Creamer’ it was shocking how long it lasted after that.

          1. Bostonienne*

            In my office, breastmilk, the real deal and labeled as such, was stolen once (not mine, which I kept in a cooler in my office).

      3. lamuella*

        I remember reading of someone doing a science experiment with his office fridge. Each week he would buy a 2 pint bottle of milk and put it in the communal fridge, and would vary what was written on it, whether it was opened, etc, to see how that would affect whether it was stolen. His conclusions, as I remember them:

        An open bottle gets pilfered a lot more quickly than an unopened bottle.
        An unlabelled bottle gets pilfered a lot more quickly than a labelled one
        A name on a bottle is more effective than initials in stopping pilfering
        A man’s name is more effective than a woman’s in stopping pilfering
        Decanting milk from a store bottle into your own container considerably reduces pilfering

        and my favourite:

        The best thing to write on a bottle of milk to stop people stealing it? “MILK EXPERIMENT”

        1. Specialk9*

          I so love the mental image of the tireless science experiment approach to office creamer pilferers. If you find that link, I’d love to read it!

      4. Specialk9*

        Hot sauce in the creamer is great. Unless you’re that guy who got fired for having his spicy lunch stolen (though can I just say how satisfying that resolution was??).

        1. sstabeler*

          actually, I disagree. If you’re adding a substance- regardless of what the substance is- there’s the implication that you want the food thief to get hurt (mouth seems like it’s on fire due to hot sauce in the creamer, allergic reaction due to added allergen, laxatives speak for themselves) while the guy who got fired alwasy ate spicy food.

          Conversely, I have little-to-no problem with labelling your food in a way to get the thief to reconsider (I’d be careful about claiming your food contained an allergen, but something like “WARNING-SPICY”…) even though the food is undoctored.

      2. DDJ*

        Anything that looks like cream/creamer, I bring in a mason jar. Because people won’t know if it’s soy or almond or milk or cream or creamer…and I don’t seem to have any issues. I did have a few issues when I brought it in the creamer bottles, unfortunately.

    8. Jane Eyre*

      This happened to a former coworker. She always brought creamer in for everyone to use but with the stipulation that you couldn’t finish off the carton and leave her with none. Pretty reasonable policy. Apparently someone took offense and started swiping the entire carton! Each time she replaced it, it would vanish. One day, she secretly brought creamer in a kiddy sippy cup. You guessed it — vanished that same week. It was utterly amazing. We never did discover the thief.

      1. Church Lady*

        I temped for a huge insurance company a few years ago and someone stole my pint carton of half and half with my name on it the same morning I brought it in, sometime after I opened it. Bastards.

    10. Obi-wan's wife*

      I’d transfer it to a container that didn’t identify it as anything special, say like plain soy milk or other random identifier, and see how long it lasts.

    11. eilatan*

      One of the wings at my office is full of temporary contractors and they don’t bring in their own half and half. Instead, they were using mine (clearly labeled) and it was being consumed much faster than should have been. Moved it to the smaller fridge in the same centrally located communal kitchen, and the thievery ceased. I honestly don’t mind someone using it because they’ve run out, but to just keep using someone else’s because you’re too lazy to stop by Wawa on your way to work is not cool.

    12. Red 5*

      At our office, we often have a stash of single use creamers that are available to anyone to use. Sometimes brought in by a random co-worker, sometimes actually bought by the office. Like, we’re talking entire boxes of the stuff at a time dumped loose in the drawer.

      One day, I had been cleaning out the moldy food from the fridge, and noted that there was at least two dozen creamers hanging out in there, if not three dozen.

      The _next day_ there was absolutely not one single creamer in that fridge. Not one. When somebody asked if we had any, I went and looked myself and they were all gone.

      The only thing I can imagine is somebody just stuffing them into their jacket pockets and looking around to make sure they don’t get caught, then trying not to get too squashed on the subway on the way home since the creamers would explode.

    13. chi type*

      If you’re not the kind of person who’s really uptight about food you can just keep your “creamer” at your desk. There’s like 0% dairy in those International Delight-type NON-DAIRY creamers.
      That stuff is all soy and chemicals. Delicious, delicious soy and chemicals. Lol.

    14. ket*

      It’s not quite on-topic but too good not to share. Freshman year: first year of communal living, etc. Ice cream keeps getting stolen from the communal freezer. Repeated theft despite community discussion. Finally the boys who had the ice cream found a roadkill squirrel, got a bit container of vanilla, dug it out, tucked in the squirrel, and covered it with the ice cream.

      The “squirrel fridge” lives in infamy. Theft stopped.

      2. LA*

        This is on-par with what my grandfather did as a kid when his lunches kept being stolen from his cubby. After a couple of weeks of stolen lunches, he went into the pasture and found a cow patty that would fit between two slices of bread, and packed that for his lunch.

        His lunch was never stolen again.

      3. shocked and awed*

        Oh my God. That is truly brutal. If I were the thief, I’d literally be put off ice cream for life.

  4. anon for this one*

    Once a colleague in a different office suite asked someone who worked in my suite to drop off a book she was lending me. The person who was supposed to deliver it decided to keep it for a few days so she could read it first. So, not really a theft, but definitely a joyride.

          1. MyInnerDemonLikesCookies*

            I’m a librarian and am going to totally drop that comment about “joyreading” in to a conversation as soon as I can. I can see it becoming a #joyread on Twitter, too.

    2. Amadeo*

      I had something like this happen at a clinic where I worked. We each had these little 12×12 cabinet cubbies we stored our belongings in before going back to the treatment area to work. It was at that point in time that Prisoner of Azkaban was new and I had the hardcover in my cubby to read at lunch.

      I walked into the break room at lunch time and one of the receptionists had it out reading it. Didn’t ask my permission, didn’t even poke her head into the treatment area to say that she was going to get it, just got into my cubby after my book and helped herself. I got a little tetchy with her and asked her not to do that ever again, but didn’t raise my voice. She went around telling everyone that I yelled at her for it. Dude, girl, if you had just ASKED ME if you could read my book while you ate, it would have been fine.

      1. Nan*

        oh noes! Books are off limits. No touchy my book! Especially if I haven’t read it yet. Nope. Nope. Nope.

        I would have been beyond angry.

        1. Jan*

          I had a floater covering my desk while I was on vacation. When I returned I notice a book I’d had on/in my desk was missing. When I emailed the floater she admitted that she had it and would return it when she was done reading it. Didn’t even ask! When weeks went by and I contacted her again, turns out she’d gone out on medical leave and wouldn’t be back for months!! What nerve!!

          1. frog*

            Wow! I had borrowed a book from a coworker with her full knowledge, then had to go on kind of last-minute medical leave. When I went in to meet with HR about the leave, I made sure to bring in the book, and asked that they return it to coworker for me, since I knew it was part of her favorite series. HR kind of laughed at me, like, why was I thinking of this issue, of all things, when going on medical leave, but I was like, well, I know how I’D feel if it were MY book, so. I can’t believe someone would be that blasé about not returning something they’d basically stolen in the first place.

            1. Not a Morning Person*

              Reminds me of a great scene from the movie “Out of Africa.” Robert Redford is explaining to Meryl Streep that he is cutting off a former friend for not returning a book. She says something like, “So you’d lose a friend over a book?” And he replies, “No, but he did.”

        2. LSP*

          I’d be much more upset about someone just going into my cubby without asking. I’m with Amadeo. Sure you can borrow the book, but you have to ask first, because taking people’s belongings without their permission is pretty much universally considered to be a “dick move”.

          1. Elizabeth West*

            If they take it without asking, they’re on my list of people never to loan anything to, because they obviously have no damn boundaries and I would not ever trust them with my stuff again.

          2. Amadeo*

            Yes, honestly this was my biggest problem with what she did. It’s possible that I’m just super territorial, but the fact that she just…got into my stuff and removed my book like it was something she was entitled to do was what really got under my skin. It was 10% about the book and 90% about the intrusion on my space.

            1. Amadeo*

              (of course, I am that sort of person where if I happen to catch you inside my home/things helping yourself, you can forget the damn dog, you need to be worrying about ME!)

        3. Future Analyst*

          My mother-in-law once came to visit “to help with the baby” and instead read my new book (without asking) before I got to it. I think it’s the angriest I’ve ever been at her, and she’s done some pretty crappy things.

          1. motherofdragons*

            That would drive me absolutely nuts! I can absolutely see my MIL doing something like this, and then spoiling the ending for me on top of it (which she’s done with TV shows before).

            1. Liz in a Library*

              I still remember my dad, upon seeing a preteen me reading Murder on the Orient Express, saying to me, “You know blank did it, right?” (I recognize we are probably past Agatha Christie spoilers, but just in case!)

              When I got mad, his response was just, “Well, it’s not like you believed me, right?”

              1. A Programmer*

                Actually I for one have to thank you for not spoiling it! That book is sitting on my bedside table at the moment but I’m putting off reading it until I can see the movie with my husband who just recently introduced me to Poirot.

              2. Cherith Ponsonby*

                I recognize we are probably past Agatha Christie spoilers, but just in case!

                Except for That Particular One with the Really Cool Twist, of course!

                I once accidentally read one of my neighbour’s birthday books (we were about 12) – it was a Babysitter’s Club book and I picked it up to see what it was about and the next thing I knew I was three chapters from the end. Luckily I’m a super-fast reader and I have the superpower of being able to read a book without breaking the spine, but still, dick move by Little Cherith there.

              3. spoiled :(*

                My mother did this once with a book I won’t name here. I mentioned I was reading it and she said, “Oh, that’s the one where the girl dies, right?”

                The book had one male lead and one female lead. I hadn’t gotten there yet. When I got mad, she fell back on her default, “It’s just fiction.”

              4. Jen*

                My dad did that to me with the Sixth Sense, and then again with the Green Mile. Wasn’t done maliciously, at least, but c’mon.

              5. Caitlin*

                Thank you for not spoiling! I just bought a copy of the book, in anticipation of the upcoming movie.

              6. Susan Ryan*

                I fixed my Dad for spoiling. I tore out the last chapter when I could tell he was almost to it and held it for ransom. He never told me who done it again.

        4. ss*

          My dad used to buy me books for holidays and have them professionally wrapped at the bookstore. Then he’d go home and VERY carefully slice open the tape at one end and slide the book out, read it himself, then slide the book back in and retape it before giving it to me as a gift.

      2. Kate*

        Nobody touches my Harry Potter!

        I’m glad I’m not the only one who feels this way about books. I had an officemate who used to “borrow” my textbooks all the time, without asking or even mentioning it, and then take them home. He was also in a LDR with his wife while they figured out the logistics of their careers, so sometimes I’d be looking for a book and wouldn’t get it back for weeks until he returned to the office. I finally said, “Hey, if you borrow one of my books, can you let me know so I know where it is if I’m looking for it?” And yep, that too got relayed as me “yelling” at him about it.

        1. Typhon Worker Bee*

          I’m still astonished that no-one stole my copy of Deathly Hallows. I pre-ordered it as soon as I could, but then ended up going out of town for a long weekend on the day it was released. Canada Post helpfully left the special edition Amazon box (covered in Hogwarts logos and the like) on my front step, fully visible from the very busy street, on the Friday morning, and it was STILL THERE when we got back into town on the Monday night. I couldn’t believe it. And yes, I did stay up all night reading it!

          1. Elizabeth West*

            That was the only one I stood in line for–until 2 am, at Barnes and Noble. Then I went home, slept, got up, went to skating practice, came home, and started reading. I began at 12:30 and finished at 7:45. If I didn’t live alone, I would have been LIVID if anyone had picked up that book before I got home from practice.

        2. TootsNYC*

          And yep, that too got relayed as me “yelling” at him about it.

          That’s because he knew that you would have been entitled to yell at him for reals. He knew he was wrong.

        3. only acting normal*

          We had the complete set of hard-backed Harry Potters, and I feel small and petty about this but… I’m still annoyed my husband gave them away to our young niece without asking me first.

          1. True Story*

            Nope. Don’t feel petty. I’d be mad. It would be so easy to get her a set of her own, and there’s a chance you might want to gift them to your own children someday (if you plan to have them). Or, barring that, you might just have an attachment to them. People get attached to their objects. There’s a great TedEd video that talks about the attachments we form with our things.

          2. It's-a-me*

            My mum sold my entire Animorphs series at a garage sale for $2. Not $2 each, $2 total.

            While I’d like to think some young kid got to enjoy them, I know it’s far more likely the person sold the books for what they were really worth on ebay (about $7 a book)

        4. Indoor Cat*

          Perhaps a tangent, but I have come to wonder if for some kinds (subcultures?) of people, “yelling” colloquially means just any kind of harsh / negative tone. Stern lecture could be yelling. Snappish or brusque correction could be yelling. Pretty much any critique that isn’t hand-holdy, let’s-learn-from-our-mistakes is “yelling.”

          It used to really irritate me, because I thought the complainer was just lying to garner pity, but it happens so often that I almost wonder if the word useage has changed and broadened so much that now one can assume that “He yelled at me,” might just as easily mean “He reprimanded me” or “He chewed me out.” That is, the complainer isn’t intentionally being deceptive in their phrasing.

          In the way that “Literally” has expanded to mean “virtually” in addition to its original meaning: https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/literally

          But, I’m not sure. Perhaps I’m giving rule-breakers too much benefit of the doubt.

          1. dawbs*

            No, I’d go with this.
            I’d say my dad “yelled at me” if he was upset and reamed me out without raising his voice.

            I’m kinda always shocked when people go with “but I never raised my voice” because I consider it just a figure of speech.

            1. sonicgirl95*

              I dunno about this. Back when I was in driver’s ed, my teacher was….quite the character. He didn’t yell, but he had that forced calm where you can tell he’s just boiling inside. I was terrified, and slightly traumatized about driving for a while. (My mom made sure my younger sister signed up with a different one!)

          2. sb*

            Yes, this is a term changing. I use it this way and generally assume others are too. I’m not using it for additional sympathy, and I wouldn’t find being screamed at vs being quietly-sternly-lectured to be more worthy of sympathy.

            I wonder if the drift is because honestly? I couldn’t tell you in retrospect if someone did/didn’t raise their voice when chewing me out over something. So yes, all unconstructive feedback I’d call “yelling”, because I literally (yes, literally) don’t recall what particular method of tone/voice/facial expression was used to convey displeasure. I’d probably say “shouting” if I did specifically want to indicate that shouting/loud voice was used.

      3. Breda*

        When Half-Blood Prince came out, I had a swim meet the next morning. My mom let me go to the midnight release on the STRICT INSTRUCTION that I not read it when I got home, but go straight to bed so I could get up at 6 for the meet. (I was real bad at mornings.) I…did not do this, but I didn’t stay up to read the whole thing. Instead, I brought it to the meet the next morning. EVERYONE on the team (and some from the other team) was trying to read it over my shoulder. I’d hand it over to someone else every time I got up to race, but forced them to return it as soon as I’d dried off!

        1. Talia*

          I went to the midnight release for Deathly Hallows and then went to my job at Wendy’s the next day, and took it to read on my break. My colleagues were the exact opposite– they were extremely befuddled by the fact that I was *reading* from the beginning of my break to the end of it when I could have been smoking in the parking lot with them.

          I was… not a good culture fit at Wendy’s.

          1. TheNotoriousMCG*

            When Deathly Hallows came out I went to the midnight release and my mom knew there would be NO stopping me from staying up and reading it until the end. She had made me a little nest on the couch with snacks next to it and left me there. When she woke up again at 5am and found me SOBBING over a certain character’s death she just said ‘DONT TELL ME ANYTHING!’ And got me a bowl of cereal.

          2. Merci Dee*

            When Deathly Hallows came out, my daughter (who was 2 or 3 at the time) and I were living with my parents while I was going through a divorce and trying to reach a settlement for a car wreck. I picked up my book at the midnight release, and my mom was still awake when I got home. I walked in, and she said, “I know you’re dying to read that book. So your dad and I are going to take care of the kiddo this weekend — you just read until you’re done.” To this day, I think that was probably one of the best gifts my mom had ever given me.

            Bonus memory from that weekend — I went to the midnight release with one of my friends who is also a huge Potter fan. We stumbled through the doors of Barnes & Noble at about 11:30 or so, and the place was already packed. A few store employees were dressed in costume and checking names off against the pre-order list to give them a voucher to present at the desk for their copy, and they were also giving out free “commemorative” pins that were badges for each of the houses. Nothing fancy to their distribution, as they’d just reach into a box and jam whatever they grabbed into your hand. After we were herded away from the door and were guided to the end of the line, we checked to see what pins we’d received. My friend happened to get a Gryffindor pin, and I got a Ravenclaw. She blinked and looked up at me and said, “Well, the Sorting Hat couldn’t have called that one any better.” I couldn’t help but agree.

            1. Bobbin Ufgood*

              I bought it “for my husband” and then had a 36 hour work shift and took it with me . . . not sure he’s forgiven me yet

            3. Jess*

              I love that your parents did that, what a treat! I have a two-year-old and even though I’m not a single parent or anything like that, the idea of having a weekend to myself just to read sounds like BLISS!

          3. Clewgarnet*

            I went to the midnight release of Deathly Hallows, was given my pre-ordered book in a stuck-down paper bag, and went back home to read it – only to discover they’d given me the version with the ‘adults’ cover, rather than the ‘childrens’ cover I’d ordered!

            So I read the version with the adults cover in one night, being very careful not to damage the spine, then went back the following day to swap it for the childrens cover. (I refused to have ONE BOOK not match all the others in the series.)

        2. Anion*

          Heh, I was in the UK when Deathly Hallows was released, and I went to a midnight release party. My mom (in the US) made me promise to scan the first chapter into our computer when I got home and email it to her at work, so she had the first chapter of the book four hours before it was released in the US. :-)

          (I normally don’t condone such things, but she was buying the book anyway, it was only the first chapter, and I knew she wouldn’t be loading it onto any websites or anything.)

      4. Sheworkshardforthemoney*

        I only liked bananas that were just past being green and still a little firm with no brown spots. One day I found someone had switched my perfect banana with a gross, soft brown spotted one. Turned out it was my boss and he did it as a joke. I got my banana back.
        In another workplace someone stole my bottle of Glucerna, a supplement for people with diabetes. A drink that was meant for people with a medical condition. It’s not like I could have a soft drink in it’s place.

        1. TootsNYC*

          when I was young, the guy in the cube next to me stole our friend and coworker’s banana. We held it for ransom (drew an alarmed face on the peel; tied a “blindfold” around it; held a gun-shaped bookmark to its head). We thought we were hysterical. She was only lightly amused at waiting for us to finish our shenanigans before she could eat it.

      5. Chinook*

        See, I will share a book but being the first one to read it is a huge issue because there is nothing like the “new book smell.” Plus, some people (whispers) crack the spine!!!

        My grandfather was also like this with his newspaper – he wanted to be the first to read it while it was all folded neatly. Once he has read a section, it was fair game to everyone else.

        1. Typhon Worker Bee*

          Yes yes yes. I am all about sharing books, but only if I’ve already read them. I don’t mind cracked spines, dogearing etc (some of my favourite books are very battered indeed, having survived multiple moves and vacations), but I get to do the first damage to my own books, thankyouverymuch.

        2. ss*

          oh that ‘spine cracking’!! Several members of my guild did a bulk order of a special technical manual related to our guild. At our meeting, our order came in and we were all handed the books we’d ordered, still shrink-wrapped and pristine. Some of the people in the meeting hadn’t purchased the book and one asked if she could look at the book. So one of the members handed over her wrapped book. The person unwrapped the book, opened it to the first page and pressed down ran her finger along the inner spine to crease the page flat. Then flipped to the next page, and did it again. She flipped to the next page and started to run her finger again to crease the page flat and the book’s owner finally yelled across the table at her “what do you think you’re doing????!!!”

          1. Ladybird*

            Compound that with Harry Potter!

            So driving home from a midnight release, my younger sibling asks to see the book. I refuse adamantly as he doesn’t like reading and only came for the party. I’ve been reading the series since the first book came out.

            Back and forth, him asking, me refusing. He says he just wants to look at the book. I have to give him the book, but ask him not to open it, as I want to first. Knowing he’ll open it anyway, I ask him to make sure to not crack the spine and hand it back to him.

            What does he do? Cracks the spine.

      6. Jess*

        I’d definitely be annoyed by this, especially since she was eating while reading your book – what if she got food on it? What if you’d bought it to give to someone as a gift (i.e. not reading it yourself) and wound up with a book with broken spine, dirty pages etc?

      7. Kraziekat*

        I WOULD have yelled, if it’s a brand new HP book, but then again, after Goblet of Fire, I made a point to clear my schedule two days after the release, and going to the midnght releases. I either had understanding managers, or my days off naturally fell that way.

      8. MHR*

        When I was around 20 I worked at WalMart up in the deli. One thing I remember is someone used to bring in a communal book to the break room and leave it there. People would read on their breaks (iirc we got an hour for lunch) and everyone had a different bookmark. This is the reason I have read the first few chapters of the last Twilight book despite never having read any others or seen the movie.

    3. stitchinthyme*

      Wow. How hard would it have been to ask the owner if she could read it after you were done? I never understand people.

    4. Miki*

      The library book I checked out titled “Sociopath next door” (recommended by AAM community) disappeared from my cubicle (I work at the library, but all my books are in non-English languages, this was the ONLY English language book I had there) for like a month. Once I received the email reminder that book is due back and couldn’t find it, went on Amazon and bought the replacement copy for the library. In the mean time, a coworker (it’s a 25 plus people department) found the book on another cart (I checked everywhere before ordering a replacement) and I happened to see and snatch it back from her. I have a strong hunch that a member of a cleaning crew was reading it for the month. Now I own a copy of the book.

      2. Specialk9*

        Did you have this running commentary in your head?
        Who steals someone else’s library book about sociopaths? SOCIOPATHS that’s who!

        1. Julia*

          I’d be tempted to leave books around that are ‘How to stop murdering your coworkers’ or ‘How to hide a body’.

      3. Just Jess*

        There you go. It’s a department of 25+ people so odds are that at least one of them is a sociopath since the book claims a 4% rate in some countries.

    5. BookCocoon*

      At a previous job we started a community bookshelf where staff could share books. You could either donate books or, if you wanted to get your books back eventually, put a Post-It with your name inside. I contributed 3-4 books and put my name inside. After a while I noticed one of my books was gone and figured someone had borrowed it to read. It was never returned. A couple years later I noticed the book (The Alchemist) on our AVP’s bookshelf. I was pretty sure it was probably my copy, but it was my first job out of college and 1) I didn’t know how to confront her and 2) I didn’t really like the book that much anyway and figured it had found a good new home, so oh well. In retrospect I’m guessing it wasn’t so much an intentional theft as that she took it off the community bookshelf intending to read it, put it on her own bookshelf, and promptly forgot about it. I’ve always wondered if she ever opened it years later and found my name inside!

      1. ss*

        I loaned a technical manual to a colleague and she had it sitting on her shelf for over a year. I finally went to her and asked if I could have my book back. She informed me that it wasn’t my book… that it belonged to coworker “Y”. I knew it was my book because all of my postit bookmarks were still sticking out of it.

        As I reached over her to get the book from her shelf, she continued to loudly protest that the book didn’t belong to me. I silently opened the book to the inside cover and pointed to my name that I had written inside and then took my book with me.

    6. Lora*

      My copy of Perry’s Handbook of Chemical Engineering tends to migrate to other offices. Those things are $$$. Also Roitt’s Immunology and Lehninger’s Biochemistry. I leave them at home now, they are so far out of date that they’re not relevant anymore, but 10 years ago they were The Book for those particular disciplines.

      One day I put on my desk:

      Men Explain Things To Me by Rebecca Solnit
      How To Win Friends and Influence People by Dale Carnegie
      The Logic of Scientific Discovery by Karl Popper

      These have never been touched.

      1. Geillis D*

        My copy of The Cell is over 20 years old and I have switched disciplines since I have last used it, but I am strangely attached to this book and it survived multiple moves and decluttering sprees.

        Couldn’t get rid of Lehninger fast enough, though.

      2. Lissajous*

        My dad got me a copy of Perry’s once as a Christmas present. His comment was “Make sure you put your name in that and guard it closely. Perry’s are prone to wandering off.”
        (We work in the same field, and this was in my early days; definitely appreciated!)

        Fortunately I work in a smaller company and people ask before they borrow textbooks or notes. Usually because the question is “do you have anything that covers Topic X?” but I’ll take it.

  5. SJ*

    At my last job, a notorious sh*t-stirrer/gossip went around telling eeeeeeverybody that the office cleaning woman had stolen money from her wallet, with zero proof. It was infuriating.

      1. SJ*

        Nope! The cleaning woman was still around when I left my job. My coworker made noises about going to HR or the police, but I managed to convince her that trying to report someone based on a hunch about a supposed theft was a dumb idea.

        I’m not actually convinced there was money missing from her wallet at all. She was just the worst.

        1. MHR*

          We have someone like that. “My wallet was stolen! You need to find out who did this immediately and i want them fired!” 10 minutes later “never mind it was in my car” Happens once every few months.

          1. ND*

            Or my manager/owner of the company, who called everyone who had been in that day to ask if they’d taken her car keys. They then called their spouse to drive the hour plus into the office with the spare set of keys, only to find the original in a pocket of the bag all along.

    2. DataQueen*

      UGH YES. A woman I worked with was on vacation when her desk had to be moved for unexpected flooding (the pipe burst, our whole floor was relocated), and in the process, the headphones that were plugged into her computer got lost. She blamed the cleaning people, the carpet guys, the painters – everyone, and guilt tripped our manager so much about it that he finally bought her new headphones.
      Oh, and these were $10 earbuds – not beats or whatever those fancy Dr. Dre ones are called. Cheap airplane-quality headphones.

      1. Roscoe*

        Well, I do think it was your company’s responsibility to replace those if they were taken while she was out on vacation. Not cool to blame others without proof though

        1. Partly Cloudy*

          I believe it. My boyfriend tested Beats against Bose and the Bose headphones were much better for both quality and comfort.

          1. Elizabeth West*

            We had a rash of petty thefts at Exjob—stuff was disappearing from people’s cubes, so I started taking home my Creative Labs headphones instead of leaving them in my drawer. Not long before I left, an online friend gave me a pair of Symphonized Wraith wood headphones. Beautiful things–very hipster, with a metal band and a fabric cord. He said he had an extra pair of ‘phones he didn’t want and would I like them? I said sure, and he shipped them to me. You could have knocked me over with a feather when I opened the box.

            If I take these to work, I plan to bring them home with me every night (I got them a padded case, haha). It’s not that they’re super duper expensive (about $99 and they’re usually on sale), but they’re really NICE. I don’t want anyone else using them and if someone took them, I’d turn murderous.

            1. Andraste's Knicker Weasels (formerly ancolie)*

              Oh my god, I hadn’t heard of that brand before, so I looked em up. They are BEAUTIFUL!

      3. Artemesia*

        Nothing worse than accusing vulnerable people of theft. My son once accused our cleaning person of theft. She was a new person assigned by the person we had been using. In order to make sure we didn’t falsely accuse, we actually put some money in the place he saved money and carefully counted it, the next time she came to clean. Yup, half the money was gone that evening and at that point I was comfortable reporting her and costing her her job. But not going to risk that when a 10 year old who might have misplaced the money complains without testing it.

        1. stitchinthyme*

          Same sort of thing happened to me once. I had a bottle of painkillers that I’d been prescribed after a surgery; fortunately, my recovery was relatively pain-free and I’d only taken 3 out of a bottle of 30; I opened the bottle more than a year later to dispose of the rest and found that there were only 9 left. I didn’t want to accuse the cleaning people without further proof because I know the stereotype of low-wage workers being dishonest, etc., and I didn’t want to make false accusations against vulnerable people, but the only other key to the apartment was in the complex management office, and while they could have come in anytime, they had no reason to (no repairs or anything); the only people I *knew* had been in were the cleaning people.

          So the next time they were scheduled to clean, I replaced the remaining painkillers with some innocuous vitamin pills and put the bottle back. Sure enough, after the cleaning people had been there, several pills were missing — I suspect they’d been taking a few each time over a period of months, figuring I’d never notice.

          I called the company to tell them what I’d found, and they talked to their people and said they insisted they hadn’t taken anything. I was in the process of moving out of the area (I discovered the missing pills while cleaning stuff out in preparation for the move), which meant I would have stopped using that cleaning service anyway, so I let it go…and now I make sure that on the very rare occasions when I have anything like pain pills in the house, they’re locked up.

          I should also note that I’ve been using various cleaning services for more than 15 years now, and that’s the ONLY time I’ve ever noticed anything missing. Hell, one time I was in a rush and didn’t leave a note with their tip on the table, figuring they’d know by now that it was for them…and they didn’t take it.

          1. Not a Morning Person*

            Good idea to lock up such things even when you are just having company over. It’s a sad state.

          3. Artemesia*

            I have my drugs in my bathroom, but when we are having guests they get stowed in the walk in closet. I can easily imagine someone helping themselves to the Ambien which is the only stealable drug I have at the moment.

        2. Manders*

          This happened to a friend of mind once, only the thief ended up being her scummy older brother, who thought he could get away with blaming it on the cleaning person.

          1. Anon for This*

            Yeah, my nephew has serious drug and alcohol problems, in and out of rehab for years by now. When he was younger, but not too young for drinking and scamming, he got the nanny dismissed for theft of nice jewelry. I have wondered for awhile about that. :(

        3. Samata*

          This happened to a friend of mine with an expensive bottle of bath oil someone had gotten them for their wedding. It was an unopened bottle and when she came home it was EMPTY but placed back..

          She called the cleaning company and the manager was really nasty to her. Until she let him know she had nanny cams all over the house and had proof of the theft on video. The girl got fired and they got their bath oil replaced.

          1. Millie M*

            I just have to wonder…did the cleaning people take a bath at her house? How did they use a whole bottle of bath oil? Why didn’t they use some and replace it with water so it wouldn’t be so noticeable?

    3. You're Not My Supervisor*

      “ROSA. I KNOW YOU STOLE MY NECKLACE. I’LL HAVE YOUR SON DEPORTED. OH WAIT. I FOUND MY NECKLACE.”

    4. Mrs. Fenris*

      My MIL had a HANDGUN stolen from her by a cleaning person once!! She didn’t have proof, but she filed a police report and fired the cleaning person.

      The gun was registered to my husband.

      Somebody used it to rob a bank a couple of years later. Imagine our reaction to having the FBI knock on our door at 8 AM. (He was not a suspect…they had video images of the robber, and Fenris was 20 years older, 100 pounds heavier, and the wrong race…but it sure made everybody’s life easier to be able to give them a copy of that police report.)

      1. Specialk9*

        O_o. That would be a rough way to wake up! Good thing they were so clearly not guilty.

        I feel that if a cleaning person CAN steal your gun, you shouldn’t be allowed to have a gun. Gun safe or locked cabinet or no gun.

        1. Mrs. Fenris*

          Oh, don’t even get me started. My MIL is not responsible enough to own a houseplant. There are a million reason she should have never had that gun.

  6. Rainbow Hair Chick*

    I had a small bag of Cheetos in my desk. Someone ate them all, then used my white sweater that was hanging on the back of my chair to wipe the cheese dust off. My sweater was stained and I had no Cheetos. So sad. I learned to lock my desk after that.

    3. SJ*

      WHAT??? I mean, I pretty much never wear white because I am definitely the sort of person to accidentally get Cheeto dust on myself, but I shouldn’t have to guard my whites against other people too!

      2. Countess Boochie Flagrante*

        I taught my niece and nephew how to use chopsticks specifically so they could use them for that same purpose. No more orange fingers!

        3. TheNotoriousMCG*

          Am I weird in that I really love to build up the cheeto dust and then lick it off at the end?

          Yeah?

          I thought so

          3. Cherith Ponsonby*

            You may be weird, but you’re certainly not alone.

            (Bonus points if you get so much dust on your fingers that you have to scrape it off with your teeth! Disgusting it may be, but so very satisfying.)

      3. lover of faux cheese*

        Chopsticks! They keep your hands clean, and it takes longer to eat them so you don’t mow through the whole bag in one sitting. Not that I have ever done that…

      6. oviraptor*

        When my sister and I were kids we just used toothpicks to eat cheetos. After conducting numerous experiments, the conclusion was that the toothpicks worked best with cheese puffs (kinda boring) or cheese balls (much more exciting – there was always a good chance the cheese ball would become a projectile).

    6. JessaB*

      I put a can of pringles in my stuff box at work. I never had a problem if people used stuff but dammit, they ate ALL my pringles and didn’t tell me. Now I worked 11pm to 9am I could NOT leave the building and even if I could there was nowhere within a 15 minute break that would be open. If they’d just told me they’d eaten them. This was before we had a snack machine installed. I had nothing to snack on at all in a 10 hour shift. Only the sandwich I brought for “lunch.” I flipped a gasket on them.

    7. AMT*

      This is my favorite because of the implication that the thief stood around eating the Cheetos at your desk after the theft. Like, wouldn’t you want to make a quick getaway? The brazenness!

    13. Floundering Mander*

      I’d seriously go on an office rampage to find the culprit and make them pay for my ruined sweater. I have a hard enough time finding clothes that I like without some jerkface ruining them for me.

  7. SNS*

    We have two “office mysteries”. 1. who stole the bed risers we use to make our standing desks higher from one coworker and 2. who stole half of a hard boiled egg from the fridge from another coworker’s lunch

    1. JulieBulie*

      Was there only half an egg to steal in the first place, or did they actually take half and leave the other half behind??

        1. KHB*

          Not work-related, but that reminds me of a time I was staying in a hostel with a communal kitchen. I’d gotten two (identical) donuts, eaten half of one of them, and put the rest in the fridge. The next morning, the whole donut was still there, but the half-eaten one was gone. Hope somebody enjoyed getting my germs.

          1. Turkletina*

            One time, I made eight pancakes. I ate three of them, and put the rest in the refrigerator. When I came back the next day, there were three and a half pancakes left. That wasn’t the first time my roommate lied about eating my food, but it was the most bizarre lie. I might not have noticed if she just took one whole one!

            1. Janelle*

              My boyfriend and I are known to take a bite or two out of a slice of pizza then put it back in the box. We agree this is acceptable behavior however in our relationship.

            2. KHB*

              Oh, and then there was the time that I’d made like a dozen mini cheesecakes (think cupcake-sized), put them in the fridge, and in the morning every. single. one of them was gone. My roommate had eaten ALL of them overnight (and she confessed to this). After that, our relationship went downhill, quickly.

    2. Artemesia*

      I once stole a bag of oreos out of someone’s lunch. I put little bags of oreos in my own lunch and thought it was mine. Later I realized, when I got my lunch out that it wasn’t and I had been the office thief. I just quietly stole away and never mentioned it or did it again.

      Wiping stolen cheetoh dust on someone’s sweater. That should be a firing offense. Who wants to work around someone that awful?

        1. zora*

          I’m currently doing the opposite. I’m pretty sure the thing in the freezer is mine, but I forgot to label it, so I’m waiting another month and if it’s still there, I’m going to eat it. And really really hope I’m really not stealing it!

          1. NacSacJack*

            I’ve done this with pop. I actually waited 3 months because I sometime accidentally buy extra or get a freebie from the machine, but I know another co-worker brings hers in from home. we drink the same flavor of pop (or is it soda?) (Or is it soda pop?.

            1. Lady Jay*

              There’s a Dilbert about this. The boss tells employees that the company will no longer provide free soda; one of them (Dilbert, I think) says there never was any free soda. The boss insists that yes, there was . . . only to have yet another worker pipe up and say that he brought a soda to work every day for five years only to have it stolen from the fridge every time.

              The boss looks at him for a beat then asks, “Why didn’t you just drink the free ones?”

          2. Rusty Shackelford*

            I have, more than once, sent out an email asking if the thing in the freezer belongs to anyone or if it’s mine and I forgot to label it.

          3. Steve*

            In the past I’ve labeled my sodas if there was any chance of confusion. Otherwise I can’t be sure and I will just leave it there. And even seeing the soda still there, I can’t be sure it’s the same soda that has been sitting there or if it’s just someone bringing a fresh can in each day.

        2. Not a Morning Person*

          My manager did this to me once. We were using the same brand of frozen meals. She just stacked the ones she purchased in her freezer and would take the one off the top of the stack from home and bring it in. I, on the other hand, always looked at mine and made a specific choice for the day. One day I went to heat mine up and it was gone! There was a different variety still there that I knew wasn’t mine because I remembered what I brought in, but also it was something I would not have purchased. I asked her about it because it’s a small office and everyone knows what everyone else is eating. I’d earlier assumed that she must have roght in the same one. She was mortified! She replaced it the next day. She was a good manager, even if she was an accidental lunch thief!

          1. Normally A Lurker*

            I eat the same kind of yogurt as someone else on my floor. I am always TERRIFIED of doing this and becoming the *worst* person at the office because of it.

      2. GS*

        My boss accosted my co-worker in the hallway for stealing his lunch, just casually sauntering down the hallway eating it.

        Turns out they’d brought they exact same veggies, exact same dip, in the exact same container, in the same grocery shopping bag, on the same day.

      3. Rachel Paterson*

        A similar story, from Douglas Adams’ book, ‘The Salmon of Doubt’:

        This actually did happen to a real person, and the real person is me. I had gone to catch a train. This was April 1976, in Cambridge, U.K. I was a bit early for the train. I’d gotten the time of the train wrong. I went to get myself a newspaper to do the crossword, and a cup of coffee and a packet of cookies. I went and sat at a table. I want you to picture the scene. It’s very important that you get this very clear in your mind. Here’s the table, newspaper, cup of coffee, packet of cookies. There’s a guy sitting opposite me, perfectly ordinary-looking guy wearing a business suit, carrying a briefcase. It didn’t look like he was going to do anything weird. What he did was this: he suddenly leaned across, picked up the packet of cookies, tore it open, took one out, and ate it.
        Now this, I have to say, is the sort of thing the British are very bad at dealing with. There’s nothing in our background, upbringing, or education that teaches you how to deal with someone who in broad daylight has just stolen your cookies. You know what would happen if this had been South Central Los Angeles. There would have very quickly been gunfire, helicopters coming in, CNN, you know… But in the end, I did what any red-blooded Englishman would do: I ignored it. And I stared at the newspaper, took a sip of coffee, tried to do aclue in the newspaper, couldn’t do anything, and thought, What am I going to do?

        In the end I thought Nothing for it, I’ll just have to go for it, and I tried very hard not to notice the fact that the packet was already mysteriously opened. I took out a cookie for myself. I thought, That settled him. But it hadn’t because a moment or two later he did it again. He took another cookie. Having not mentioned it the first time, it was somehow even harder to raise the subject the second time around. “Excuse me, I couldn’t help but notice…” I mean, it doesn’t really work.

        We went through the whole packet like this. When I say the whole packet, I mean there were only about eight cookies, but it felt like a lifetime. He took one, I took one, he took one, I took one. Finally, when we got to the end, he stood up and walked away. Well, we exchanged meaningful looks, then he walked away, and I breathed a sigh of relief and st back.

        A moment or two later the train was coming in, so I tossed back the rest of my coffee, stood up, picked up the newspaper, and underneath the newspaper were my cookies. The thing I like particularly about this story is the sensation that somewhere in England there has been wandering around for the last quarter-century a perfectly ordinary guy who’s had the same exact story, only he doesn’t have the punch line.

    4. Fin*

      Our boss leaves food in his office for all of us to eat – just random stuff like pretzels, nuts, fruit, etc. He once left a large canister of braided butter pretzels in there that were quite popular. One guy decided that his kids would like them, so took the whole thing home! Now, I really liked those pretzels, and was pretty bummed when they weren’t there, so I actually went around asking everyone where they had gone. He came right out and admitted it. I was so flabbergasted I just walked away with my jaws hanging open and didn’t say a word. What does one say to that?!

      2. Lady Russell's Turban*

        I once made a large cake with very expensive ingredients for a much-loved co-worker’s Friday birthday. We work in an office of healthy eaters so more than half of it was left towards the end of the afternoon. Co-worker went to take the leftovers home to share with her family and the cake was gone! I asked around and discovered that much dis-liked co-worker’s son was having a sleepover party that night so she took it to serve to them.

        Above much-loved coworker would make a birthday cake–on her own dime and time–for each of the 14 people in the office and for the 8 supervisor’s she helped support in another area. These were given to the birthday honoree who would then put them in a common area and send out an email noting the delicious cake was available to all. Dis-liked co-worker would simply take hers home without sharing. Please note, she is the highest paid administrative staff member (by far and much higher paid than the clerical staff cake baker).

        2. SassyRam*

          We had a similar cake theft at our workplace. A coworker’s wife baked our shift a cake which he placed in the breakroom during shift change, come break time the entire cake and dish were gone. Three days later the cake was carried in by someone from the earlier shift, so said she found it in her fridge. We can’t tell if she was lying (she is notoriously ditzy) but her story was that she woke up the next morning and when she saw the cake in her fridge she thought someone had broken into her house and place it there. It wasn’t until she heard us complaining about it that she realize that she must have taken it home instead of her leftover tuna salad that day.

      3. Not a Morning Person*

        There was a guy at my office who would do this. At the holidays the office would receive “treats” from clients. He would take them to his car. sometimes before they’d even been opened. The office would order pizza and as soon as everyone had their first serving, he’d start moving pizza around in the boxes and fill up one of the boxes and take it to his car. His manager had to make him go to his car and bring the food things he took back in. He always acted like he was surprised that other people hadn’t had the opportunity to share or that anyone else might want seconds.

        1. Rachael*

          at LastJob our Treasury department got alot of cool holiday treats from brokers and other financial institutions. They were always kind and shared with everyone. One time I walked by and jokingly asked “Hey, where’s the chocolate covered potato chips? Did [financial institution] stiff you this year?” (they got them every year).

          I was shocked when she said that some dude who works in another department literally walked up and took the whole upopened box and walked away. I told them that he was lucky I wasn’t there when that happened. So, sadly, the one item that everyone looks forward to was stolen. :(

      4. jmm*

        One of my co-workers bought a large bowl of fresh cherries for lunch. Where we live, fresh cherries cost like $6.99 a pound in season, so it wasn’t a cheap lunch. She went to the kitchen, washed the cherries, walked a bit down the hall to clock out, got back to the kitchen and they were gone – bowl and everything.
        Her supervisor was aghast that anyone would take the whole bowl. Supervisor pushed the issue and finally someone confessed — the thief said she assumed the cherries were for everyone to snack on — but how she felt comfortable taking the bowl and all….the nerve of a brass monkey, as my mother would say.

    5. Witty Nickname*

      I once brought some leftover fried chicken in for lunch for me and my husband. Someone went into the box it was in, took a couple pieces, ate them, and then put the bones back in the box, effectively ruining everything that was left with their germy gnawed-on chicken bones. I’m still mad about that, and it’s been more than 10 years.

    2. Happy Lurker*

      I worked in a 20 person (small) government facility where a couple hundred dollars was stolen from the candy/coffee fund. It was locked up too, so it was obvious who of the 4 people it was. It took a while but they fired her.
      At my current office, the missing tp used to drive me crazy only because I was the one that had to go buy it. I was constantly running to the store. When a certain employee left my office supply bill dropped in half (as in 5 cases of copy paper a year, 10 boxes of staples, bandaids, everything). If it wasn’t nailed down it went home with them. It was noticeable because we only had 4 people in the office. Seven years later I still haven’t gone through as many boxes of staples as I did in the 2 years sticky fingers worked here.

      1. zora*

        I’ve heard a similar story from a place I used to work and the thing that always gets me is: What is that person doing with all the staples and paper clips??!?!?!? Like, seriously, are they running a collating business out of their home??? I just can’t even imagine what people are doing with some of these office supplies at their HOMES?? It is so weird to me. Anyone have any theories that make sense?

        1. Happy Lurker*

          Me too – honestly, I figure it is a sickness. There were two working adults in their home. What are they doing with everything…hoarding?
          I had heard other stories from a coworker and I really believe it was a kleptomania or compulsive type situation.

          1. zora*

            Oh yeah, you’re probably right. I always forget that not everything people do can be explained with logic. ((Sigh)) Thank you for the reminder, now I’m not quite so confused.

        2. Just Jess*

          Maybe they volunteer with a faith-based group and are the person who always brings the office supplies (and jackets) for events?

          1. Happy Lurker*

            That would be good. I could get behind that.
            “Why did you take thousands of dollars worth of office supplies?”
            “For my church and the poor starving children in Africa, of course!”

    3. Parenthetically*

      This reminds me of a guy I knew in college who thought it was edgy to steal whatever audacious thing he could from restaurants — napkin dispensers, stacks of menus, take-a-penny-leave-a-penny dishes, etc. Once a group of us went out to eat and once we got in the car he pulled a massive triple toothpick dispenser out from underneath his coat. Such a tool, that guy.

      1. SunshineOH*

        I may or may not have a set of stainless steel salt & pepper shakers in my house from a local restaurant chain. Went to dinner with a group one day and found them in my purse after we left, where someone put them as a prank.

        1. Happy Lurker*

          I had a friend with a nice collection of restaurant embossed ash trays…that sure is going back to the old days!

          1. OtterB*

            We used to have a hotel-embossed ash tray left by the previous owners when we moved into our house. In those long-ago days we still occasionally had guests who smoked. We didn’t, so that was the only ash tray we owned. I’d get it out if someone asked for one and I’d feel like I had to explain every time that WE weren’t the ones who took it.

            Had a nice hotel towel, too. My husband was doing a lot of work travel and using the gym at work at lunch. So he’d take a hotel towel to work with him, and one ended up coming home by accident.

            1. Elizabeth West*

              I did that once. I accidentally packed it (my clothes were on it and I shoved the whole mess into my suitcase). It was on a college trip probably 30 years ago. Whoops!

              1. This is She*

                I accidentally stole a very nice hair dryer from a hotel! My bestie and I were on a road trip and she’s notorious for leaving things behind. While she was dowmstairs checking us out of the room, I did my customary ‘sweep’ — collected her phone charger, her razor, and ‘her’ hair dryer, threw them in my tote. We drove all day, and at that night’s hotel, I gave her back her things and she’s all “uh, I didn’t bring a hair dryer…”

                I called the hotel and apologised, asked if I could send it back to them by post. They were all “whatever. Don’t bother, but thanks anyway.”

                And that’s how I got a new hair dryer.

              2. only acting normal*

                I knew someone who stayed at their friend’s guest house and stole all the towels… not one towel, like a whole set of 3 or 4, from their *friend’s* guest house. Who does that?!

        2. Floundering Mander*

          Somewhere I have in my possession a coffee mug from Denny’s, back when they still had the logo on them. Presumably they switched to plain mugs because jerky college kids like me were stealing their mugs.

          We used to have a plate from a local buffet restaurant with distinctive custom dishes. One night we were there when a thunderstorm rolled in and all the power in the neighborhood went out after a lightning strike. When it became clear that it was going to be out for a while the manager made everyone leave. Mom had just filled up her plate when this happened, so she wrapped it up in some napkins and took it home. We kids were absolutely scandalized that Mom would steal a plate, so of course it was a cherished item that we teased her about incessantly.

      2. Steve*

        I had some friends in college who furnished their off-campus apartment with dining hall plates and cutlery. They would go to breakfast, put a muffin on a stack of four plates. Three plates would go in their bag and one into the bussing area.

        At the same college – maybe some of the same people. They renovated a hang-out area and replaced built in chairs and tables with regular ones that move. Within a week all of the chairs had “moved” into people’s dorm rooms. There were passionate arguments made on the school message boards about how the chairs belong to the public at the college, the students were part of that public, and therefore they had a right to use the chairs in their rooms. Campus security did a sweep of every room on campus, brought them back to their rightful place, and literally tied them down. Well, cabled and locked them down.

        2. the gold digger*

          My college used to do regular room searches for silverware and dishes.

          They missed the coffee cups I discovered my husband still has, 30 years later. I have suggested perhaps we return them to the rightful owner and he refuses. (We don’t use them because they are too small.)(So it’s just nostalgia.)(Although when I consider what my school charges in tuition these days and what they pay the president, I realize they can afford to comp us five coffee cups.)

          1. birchwoods*

            Room searches!? That’s so invasive! My undergrad uni had a culture of kids taking the dining hall’s cups and ice cream bowls, so about once a semester around exams they’d put out bins for honor code collections, no questions asked. It worked very well. I’d say the more prevalent problem was students bringing in large Tupperware containers in backpacks and filling them up with cereal. I regularly made illicit extra sandwiches to take away with me, mainly because my class schedule often made me miss meals, and we were allowed to take fruit. That was pretty common, and most people only took what they were going to eat. I think most people didn’t feel bad since our dining hall meals evened out to 11 dollars each (10 years ago at this point). That should give an idea of what tuition was….

        3. Cherith Ponsonby*

          Most of the glassware in my first solo flat came from the uni bar (the rest was Nutella and Vegemite glasses). They’re such convenient sizes and so aesthetically pleasing! I still have some of them 20 years on (which is probably a longer life than they would have had at the uni bar).

          My dad used to travel on business a lot and we ended up with a lot of airline cutlery. I don’t know if it’s a genetic thing, because I have a similar problem with cafe teaspoons.

          1. Happy Lurker*

            OMG! Just remembered a ski club trip to Europe. First night in the restaurant bar and they were missing like 35 beer mugs…which were the coolest beer mugs any of us silly Americans had seen. Management begged us to bring the mugs back…I have the best 18 year old Rugenbrau mugs in my freezer. I cherish them. Reminds me of the great trip we had. I am sure these mugs lasted longer in my care than the hotels too!

        4. only acting normal*

          Someone once stole all the mouse balls from the physics department computer lab when I was at university. (I assume it was a prank rather than for some actual purpose). The department were understandably pissed, but I still think it was quite funny.

            1. valc2323*

              my brain translated that as “those clear plastic balls you put rodents in to run around” and then wondered why you’d have them in a physics lab. Bio or psych lab, sure.

      3. SaraV*

        If I wasn’t an honest person, I would steal the glasses from a family reataurant chain here in the Midwest-Plains states. They’re a great size, and I love the pattern on them.

        1. The Principal of the Thing*

          You can always ask to buy them from the restaurant: these items are often consumables and ordered regularly and they might be happy to let you buy your own for the good publicity.

        2. CMart*

          Ask your server some day if you’d be able to buy them from the restaurant.

          Maybe they’ll say yes. Maybe they’ll say no. But if you’re kind of a regular or are really nice I’m guessing there’s a 60% chance your server will look around shiftily, say “I ain’t seen nothin'” and wink at you as they gesture toward your purse, if not come by with some clean and dry glassware wrapped in a napkin.

          Source: did a lot of unscrupulous winking and under the table condiment and promotional glassware hand-offs to customers I liked over the years.

        3. Elizabeth West*

          Absolutely ask where they got them. It might be a place you can order from yourself. There’s a restaurant supply website called webstaurantstore.com someone told me about. Anyone can buy stuff (though it often comes in bulk quantities).

          1. Elspeth McGillicuddy*

            Their prices are good, but the shipping is outrageous. I’ve always found better total prices somewhere else, so search google if you know what the thing you want is called.

      4. Sara*

        ooh I may or may not do this when I’m drunk. I found a pool ball in my purse the other day (though I don’t think I put it there)

        I should say, this doesn’t happen very much since I’m out of college. College me was a real klepto

    4. It's-a-me*

      Oh that makes me think. I have a little ‘Gumball’ machine on my desk, but instead of gumballs it has brightly coloured erasers. I wonder if anyone has stolen one and got a nasty surprise.

  9. Murphy*

    At my old job, I had my food eaten on multiple occasions (pre-packaged frozen meals) which sucked because we didn’t get paid very much, had a very short time for lunch, with almost nothing nearby. I also had my tupperware thrown out. Once a month, there was a board meeting in the break room/conference room, and apparently they couldn’t be treated to the sight of my clean tupperware. Sometimes it was hidden in the cabinets, but several times it was just thrown out.

    This wasn’t theft, but it was weird: Recently I couldn’t find my travel coffee mug in the office kitchen (which I always clean and leave in the dishrack to dry), but the dishwasher was running. I looked for it the next day and sure enough, someone had put my clean, not dishwasher safe, coffee mug in the dishwasher. I have no idea why.

    1. Betty*

      Eh. Communal kitchens shouldve allow people to leave their dishes out everywhere. You can clean it when you get home. I dont get the people spending 15 minutes washing their dishes, taking over the sink and taking up all the counter-space afterwards.

      2. NB*

        Because they can waste valuable work time standing uselessly at the sink. I once watched a salaried coworker rinse a clean fork for two straight minutes. It was sparkling!

        1. Betty*

          You know there are those people who come in, make an entire meal (microwaving bacon, eggs, etc) that takes 10 minutes, hog the kitchen then proceed to wash every dish that they brought in to perfection (that takes 10-15. Then keep their dishes there to dry, taking up the entire counter-space.

          These are often teh same people who take up half the communal kitchen bringing in a week’s worth of groceries then making a meal at work, not at home and bringing it in.

          And I’ve thrown out dishes left sitting out taking up space for an entire day or days. it’s not your home people. And if you take up all the space, I’m moving your stuff. And if that movement is the trash can, so be it.

          1. NotAnotherManager!*

            Eh, you’d hate my office. This happens every day in my office, and that’s why the full kitchens are there – to prep food. Maybe I just have kinder than average coworkers, but people doing more elaborate food prep often let others jump the line of they’re going to be a while and no one cares if you move their stuff, if they walk away from it. People also leave dishes in the office and wash them fully rather than carting them home every day – a number of people take public transit and some bike, so leaving things at work is much easier. There are often things drying on the counter. If you threw away peoples reusable food containers because they left the drying in the kitchen after lunch, you would not be very popular. The fridges get tossed every Friday, if you’re stuff’s not labeled and dated but no one’s going to begrudge you washing your dishes and setting them out to dry.

            And salaried employees aren’t wasting valuable work time – they should have to finish their work regardless of time, so if they want to wash them dishes and take that time off their work, the work just has to get done some other time. I don’t mind taking time to wash my lunch container or chat with a coworker because if I have to finish my TPS reports after dinner, I will. That’s my choice of how to use my time.

        2. Typhon Worker Bee*

          There was a guy who used to work here who would take fooooooreeeeeeeeveeeeeer to wash his tupperware and fork. It was painful, and he was immune to all hints. Seriously, dude, there’s a line-up behind you at our only sink – do what everyone else does and just get it clean enough to take home without stinking your desk, bag, or car out.

      3. Katniss*

        I mean, if I bring something that needs to be in the fridge, I’m not going to let the remainders of it sit on my tupperware for the rest of my day or even for my trip home: that will ruin the tupperware. So I wash it in the kitchen sink. Don’t take 15 minutes though and I just towel dry it.

          1. Katniss*

            It definitely has in the past: with food crusted on that I can’t get off, or smells/tastes that will not come off after being marinated all day long. The office sink is there for our use, so I use it.

          2. The OG Anonsie*

            Not all kinds of foods will but some will definitely leave a discolored funk on plastic tupperware forever.

            1. pop*

              Washing it at work or not wont change the color change.

              Also, no one should be microwaving in plastic anyway.

                1. pop*

                  “Old, scratched, or cracked containers, or those that have been microwaved many times, may leach out more plasticizers.”

                  Straight from you article. So those microwaving and washing cause theyd get ruined sitting for a while with old food are . . . 0lder. More leachate of carcinogens

                  Plastic is made from fossil fuels. It’s not that hard to buy some glass Pyrex containers.

              2. Allison*

                Wait what? I’ve been microwaving food in plastic containers for freaking EVER and have never had a problem.

      4. Jesmlet*

        I rinse out my tupperware so that it doesn’t have food crusted on it or anything then throw it into the dishwasher when I get home. But I towel dry it so it’s not an eyesore/taking up space in the kitchen and then just stick it in my bag. We end up collecting a lot of tupperware over the years and every so often I go through them, ask who it belongs to, and if it remains unclaimed, I’ll toss it all. Since I’m the one who has to organize and find a place for it all, either take your shit home, or don’t whine when it ends up in the garbage.

        2. Rusty Shackelford*

          I rinse it out at work, but I’d rather wash it at home in the dishwasher instead of at work, using the dish soap I don’t like and the scrubber that smells like old coffee. :-P

          1. Rebecca in Dallas*

            This! I just rinse my (off-brand) Tupperware, dry it with a paper towel and take it home to actually wash it. We don’t have an office dishwasher, there is just a disgusting sponge that’s been in the sink for months.

        3. Kyrielle*

          I just rinse (or shake clean into the trash for loose non-sticky foods) mine and take them home, but I use mostly glass bowls with tight-sealing plastic lids. Washing it at work uses up time I should be working.

          Um. The irony of saying that in a comment I’m making from work hasn’t completely eluded me, either….

      6. Murphy*

        I hardly think leaving either a coffee mug or a tupperware in a dish rack counts as leaving dishes out everywhere.

        I don’t want my coffee mug to get all gross during the day, so I take a minute and rinse it out. When it’s clean an dry, I can toss it in my lunchbag later to take home.

      7. Rachel Green*

        I clean my dishes in the work kitchen every day, because I’d rather hand wash them at work than have all those plastic containers taking up space in my dishwasher at home. I don’t leave them sitting out on the counter, though. I have a towel that I use (and keep at my desk) to dry the clean dishes. If I have a lot of dishes, it can take 10 minutes, but usually it’s just 5.

      8. Jerry Vandesic*

        At one former job, any dishes/mugs/silverware that was left in the kitchen was tossed in the trash by the cleaning staff every evening (under employer orders). After you lost your first pyrex dish, you tried not to leave things after using the kitchen.

    2. Elemeno P.*

      Sounds like they were trying to be helpful, but were most certainly not! I had a case like that a couple of weeks ago. We had a potluck, and I brought in my rice maker to make my dish. In an attempt to be helpful, someone filled it with soap and water once it was empty. This would have been very nice had the rice maker not still been plugged in and turned on, so I ended up struggling to take out a pot of near-boiling water so I could take it home to clean.

    3. Samiratou*

      Oh, that reminds me of the time I had a tub of cream cheese thrown out by an unannounced fridge cleanout. Despite the sign saying it would be cleaned at 9pm on Fridays, they hadn’t cleaned it in awhile so they randomly did a cleanout on a Tuesday night (or something). It was homemade roasted garlic & parmesan cream cheese (really good!), in a quart-sized ziploc canister and that and a few bagels got tossed. Man, was I angry about that. That was to be breakfast for me and my husband for a couple weeks. They cleaned it out overnight so when we got there the next morning there was no rescuing the container.

        1. Talia*

          I used to leave a week’s worth of lunches/sandwich fixings in the fridge at the first place I interned, because there was a grocery store across the street from work and I hadn’t yet found grocery stores within perishable-transporting distance of where I was living. Other people did similar, though for different reasons, so I don’t think anyone minded.

        2. Typhon Worker Bee*

          I used to fill a tall-but-skinny Tupperware with a tub of hummus and veggies, and when combined with the Ryvita in my desk drawer it would last me a full week of lunches while not hogging any more fridge space than the other containers people bring in each day.

        3. Samiratou*

          We didn’t usually, but had made up a double batch of the cream cheese specifically for work breakfasts. We would have brought the cream cheese home over the weekend, and brought in a tube of bagels as we used them, but yeah. It was one container and one tube of bagels, so it didn’t take up much space or anything.

        4. Bird*

          No, it’s really not ridiculous, as long as your office has a large enough fridge that everyone can fit their food in.

          1. Rusty Shackelford*

            +1

            Seriously, we’ve got a full-size fridge and a small office and lots of people leave several days’ worth of food in it. And it’s fine.

            1. Bleeborp*

              Yeah, I do the same, it’s really not that big a deal. I usually have a little stack of containers with my veggies and stuff for my salads, and I assemble them when I’m ready to eat. It’s fine as long as I don’t take up too much space or let anything go bad.

          2. Mabel*

            Plus, the “Thats ridiculous” comment was kind of obnoxious. Parlor could have asked why Samiratou had that much food in the refrigerator instead of declaring it to be ridiculous.

        6. Allison*

          I bring cream cheese and bagels from home often. I’ve been keeping the cream cheese at work (careful to label it, or the department that gets free bagels on Friday will use it) and sometimes bringing in a few bagels at a time.

        7. Genevieve*

          I feel like it’s very common for people to leave a large container of peanut butter, cream cheese, etc in the fridge to make fresh sandwiches or bagels every morning. Many people do it at my office and we don’t run into any issues.

            1. Rebecca in Dallas*

              Supposedly you’re supposed to keep natural pb refrigerated. I keep it in the cabinet and have lived this long, so I think it’s just a myth.

              1. zora*

                It depends on how long it takes you to eat it. I have let natural peanut butter sit for months without eating it and it definitely turns rancid, it was pretty gross.

                Also, being refrigerated helps keep the oil from separating out again, which is why a lot of people refrigerate it.

                1. Rebecca in Dallas*

                  Oh, good to know! Luckily a jar of peanut butter never lasts months in my house! I eat pb every day.

                2. zora*

                  Ha! Yeah, if you go always go through a jar quickly, you definitely don’t need to worry about refrigeration! ;o)

            2. Someone else*

              Many natural peanut butters (ie no sugar in it) specifically indicate they should be refrigerated after opening.

              1. saffytaffy*

                Not to be pedantic, but natural peanut butter isn’t called that because of sugar. Don’t forget, sugar is natural! (plus it’s an unregulated term, but whatever)
                Natural peanut butter is missing the hydrogenated oil and stabilizer(s) that makes normal peanut butter homogenized and smooth.

        8. ReanaZ*

          I would often bring in a container of 3-4 days of soup, and heat one serve up in a bowl daily. Why is this weird?

        9. NotAnotherManager!*

          I do. It’s easier to do one heavy day on public transit than 5 medium-heavy days. Each floor has a kitchen with a full-sized fridge, and many people bring in multiple days’ lunches at one time.

        10. Jessen*

          It’s especially common I’ve found among people who have to deal with either food thieves or food “sharing” at home.

      2. Admin of Sys*

        We had a director once go through all the cabinets and throw away things or move them to the communal spaces, without warning. I lost a tea pod, a container of cinnamon, and about 25 tea bags because of it. I’m all for regular, announced clean-outs, but give some warning!

    4. BookCocoon*

      Not work related, but I once had a roommate borrow my travel mug without asking, and she put it in the microwave (it was not microwave safe) and melted part of it.

    5. Winifred*

      I work in a church with a Sunday coffee hour, and we have hundreds of donated coffee mugs for said coffee hour.

      I have an expensive, fancy double walled and lidded ceramic mug for making my tea that is kept in a separate kitchen on a different floor than the coffee hour mugs.

      The first time my mug vanished, I found it in a cupboard in one of the Sunday School classrooms (because that’s where they found it — NOT).

      The second time it vanished, it never turned up.

      I bought a second one and put my name on it (twice, so you could see my name from every angle) with a label-maker. I didn’t like doing this. It has vanished once and I found it in the completely separate, coffee hour kitchen again, mixed up with other coffee mugs. I never found the lid.

      I’ve worked here 3 years so perhaps should count myself lucky! Moral: even churches have people who are loose with other people’s stuff.

      1. SevenSixOne*

        I used to work with someone who had a custom coffee mug that said something like I STOLE THIS MUG FROM SAM LASTNAME, and a photo of Sam with an over-the-top sadface.

    6. Alli525*

      I had to throw out old tupperware at my last job, but only because I wasn’t about to open it up and risk fungal infection from the moldy leftovers therein. Everyone in the office had been warned that this was a throw-out day, so no excuses, and no one EVER dared ask me about those items.

      1. SunshineOH*

        Ugh. The fridge wars. Everyone wants to complain about it; no one wants to clean it.

        One time a few years ago I finally couldn’t take it anymore so I put out an email 2 days ahead that I was going to clear it out and dispose of everything. So, as scheduled, I went in to clean and tossed everything. One guy proceeded to lose his shit because he had just gotten to work an hour before I started, and “why in the world would you throw away someone’s containers? What am I supposed to tell my wife??” Uh, dude… how am I supposed to tell the difference between your stuff that’s been in there an hour vs. The stuff that’s been in there a month? This is why I have everyone notice!

        Constant uphill battle.

        1. JanetM*

          I used to clean out our department fridge pretty much every Friday at the end of the work day. One day I started at 4:55 instead of 5:05. Oh, the humanity.

        2. Limi*

          Ugh. I was that guy too.

          When I started working at current job, our break room was kind of a dump, and our fridge was “open the door, oh stars above what died in there” nasty. I put up with it for a few months, before I just straight up asked the interim supervisor if I could clean it out for safety.

          He said to go right ahead, and gave me like two hours to deep clean the thing. Which I did. I cleared out everything. There was stuff in there from people who hadn’t worked here in YEARS. After very nearly the full two hours of work, it smelled clean, I had disinfected and scrubbed all the gunk out and it was proper again.

          At lunch time, another co-worker went looking for his food… and got mad at me for throwing it out. To my knowledge, no one used the fridge, as most everyone brought in their own cooler containers specifically because the fridge was nasty.

          I immediately apologized and offered to take him out for lunch on my own dime for the error, and offered to pay for a new set of tupperware containers to replace the ones I’d thrown out. He refused and walked off all huffy with me.

          At which point, I stopped caring. I mean, seriously. There were 3 lunchboxes in there from people who had died/quit between 2-5 years before, I… as a new person can’t differentiate whose stuff is whose, and I offered to replace/pay for your lunch immediately. What else can I do?

          1. Just Jess*

            This is a reply to Limi and Sunshine.

            I have a big problem with “I can’t stand this anymore! Let’s change right this second!” when it comes to the office fridge situation. If you’ve been putting up with it for months, or years, please give people at least two weeks notice that a change is coming. Someone could be on vacation, you can’t judge what’s considered “smelly food” for other people, and two days is not enough notice. If someone did this, particularly without sending out an email since I read all of the general comms office emails, I would be incredibly pissed that my leftovers from yesterday were gone.

            The best way to go about cleaning the fridge would be to give at least two weeks notice before doing anything, then start the process by using a marking system for sketchy looking food, and then toss it a week after it’s been marked as sketch. People should be able to put together “My food is marked to be thrown out. Better take it home or finish it” but it wouldn’t hurt to be explicit about that as well.

            1. Specialk9*

              I generally agree, but with a fridge full of 5 year old food, so gross most people brought their own coolers, and a strong smell? No way that needs another 2 weeks. But as a general rule, giving people two DAYS of heads up, with posted signs, should be done.

              1. Just Jess*

                I really want to understand this thinking because I see it often and it’s soooo not how I think. It’s not time-sensitive. Hypothetically: it’s been five years, but giving two week’s notice would be too much?

                OK, maybe there’s a party and you want to make space for cakes. Eh, then maybe you don’t really have time. But where possible, why not do it right?

                This is a micro example, but I feel like there’s a macro version when leadership does poor, badly communicated roll outs of sweeping changes. Sure, the changes might be needed and are probably time sensitive, but doing them on such a minuscule timeline drastically affects quality and adjustment capabilities.

          2. ss*

            Most offices that have round-the-clock shifts tell people that when there is going to be a cleanout and everything without a name and THAT DAY’S DATE on it will be thrown away.

      2. Not a Morning Person*

        One office I worked in had a clean out day every two weeks on Friday evening. The cleaning staff did it and they were instructed to remove and trash EVERYTHING in the refrigerator. That included even unopened drinks, Tupperware, bottles of condiments, lunch bags, etc. Most people remembered and didn’t leave stuff!

      3. Specialk9*

        I occasionally have Mason jars that get pushed to the back and I find them gaggingly late. I’ll admit that with a hairtrigger nausea gag reflex, I just toss them. Not because the glass won’t get clean in the dishwasher (it will), but because I won’t deal with the liquid former vegetables. (Gaggg)

        Ok change the subject. Puppies. Hair clips. Fluffy clouds.

      4. only acting normal*

        I once threw away something completely unidentifiable from a communal fridge. I think it may once have been a plastic bag of potatoes (?!) but it was blue-black, liquefied and leaking all over the fridge so I didn’t feel the need to give warning.

    7. la bella vita*

      There isn’t a kitchen on my floor, so there’s some woman who washed her travel coffee mug out in the bathroom sink in just leaves it there all afternoon to dry. Every single day. It is beyond weird to me.

      1. Betty*

        Ewwww. Then all the “poo hands” float around said “clean cup”. Ewwwww.

        PS – thats how I feel about gross communal sponges at work kitchens as well.

      2. motherofdragons*

        At my old job with the state, they didn’t have a kitchen for staff, so people would do their dishes in the bathroom and leave them on the counter. Sometimes it was just a mug, but many times it was a bowl of oatmeal that was left to soak all day. Yeuch.

        1. Artemesia*

          If I encountered that a second time on a given day, I think I would just throw it in the trash — beyond gross to inflict that everyone.

          1. the gold digger*

            I spent about a month washing the oatmeal dish in the sink. I would wash mine right after I ate – wash, dry, and put back in my desk. And I would wash the gross bowl half-filled with oatmeal and water because I couldn’t bear to leave something so nasty.

            After a month, I had had enough and I just threw the whole thing in the trash.

            It never re-appeared.

            Thirteen years later, I am still satisfied I did the right thing.

      3. a1*

        This happened often in my last position, too. We had a break room, but no sink or water of any kind there. So people often washed the cups and tupperwares in the bathroom, but lots of them also left the stuff on the bathroom counter until the end of the day. This is cubicle land, with decent sized desks! Why would you clean a bowl or mug or tupperware and then leave it in the bathroom. This was a daily thing. I’d see 3-5 washed items just on the counter for half the day or more.

        One of these people would also take their sweet time washing their items even if there were a line of people who had just come out of the bathroom stalls waiting to wash their hands. Step aside, please, you don’t need to stand over the sink that long. The bathroom did have 2 sinks, but after lunch was a busy time.

        1. a1*

          It was also “fun” to go to wash your hands and find a piece of lettuce, or oatmeal crumbs in the bottom of the sink. Sinks not made for food.

    8. many bells down*

      My husband’s office will order in lunches for whoever wants to participate. On several occasions, his lunch, labeled with his full name, has been taken.

      Ironically, this is a tech job with a kitchen filled to the BRIM with “help yourself” snacks; candy, cereal, cup o noodles, popcorn, etc. There’s a TON of freely-available food but still lunches get stolen. And my husband can’t just sub a cup o noodles, because he has celiac disease.

      1. Specialk9*

        I’d probably invest in an RFID label machine, just to track the thief down. But my sense of outraged justice is high, especially for theoretical matters.

      2. Jenna*

        Grrrrrr! I’m celiac and I understand. My old office all I’d have to sub with would have been peanut M&M’s or tortilla chips from a vending machine.

    9. Former Hoosier*

      I was a caregiver for my good friend who was in a rehab facility for several months. I would bring her food because the food at the facility was terrible. I always used those cheapie disposable plastic containers so that if I didn’t get them back, I wouldn’t care but she always wanted me to get them back. So she would ask (the food had to be stored in the commercial fridges with her name on them) for them and the staff would always say they couldn’t find them. So I would go into the kitchenette area and almost always find them still with her name on them. I began to think that the staff just didn’t look because they were usually there and it didn’t seem like someone was taking them home.

    10. MissDisplaced*

      On the pre-packaged frozen meals thing… They may not be stolen as much as eaten, especially if a lot of people bring that type of thing in and they are on sale. Unless you had your name on them.
      I was guilty of that once. I ate a frozen dinner I thought was my own left in the freezer from previous week. But apparently it wasn’t and the person screamed at me. It was an honest mistake, there was no name on it or anything.

  10. Bow Ties Are Cool*

    I buy my own mechanical pencils for taking notes, because I need the kind with the squishy grip and my company only provides the cheapo ones. One day I took some notes in the morning, and then in the afternoon when I needed to jot something down I realized both my lovely pencils were missing off my desktop. It’s been months now, but I still keep an eye out when I’m walking by other people’s cubicles…

    1. sam*

      I had something similar. My company supplies pens that I don’t like, so I buy my own pilot precise roller ball pens. Which are not cheap. And they kept disappearing.

      I solved the issue buy buying a set with purple ink. Did it accidentally the first time, but then I realized that the purple ones weren’t getting stolen. Since I only use them to take notes for myself (I’ll hunt down a blue/black pen to sign official documents), it doesn’t really matter if it looks like I’m 12 writing in purple ink.

      I honestly don’t know if it’s because other people think writing in purple is embarassing, or because it would be too obvious that they stole the pen off my desk, but either way, I’ve had an entire coffee mug full of the suckers sitting right out on my desk for three years and I’ve never had to refill it.

      1. LKW*

        I like to toggle between ink colors in my notebook so I know where one meeting ended and the next started. I use pretty much any color. The fancy color pens: greens, reds, purples – never get stolen.

          1. Amber T*

            Red – High Priority
            Blue – Mid Priority
            Green – Low Priority
            Purple – Waiting on something

            (Reception ordered me a pack of 12 purple pens specifically, and I paid for her silence with two of them. Yes, I have 10 purple pens hiding in my drawer.)

            2. Specialk9*

              I did this in school with highlighters. I had a system – yellow, orange, pink were important items, ranked (pink was very rare); blue and green were vocab and names, I think.

        2. Anonymous 40*

          I thought I was the only one who did that! One time several years ago, I came into work to find only the orange pens missing. Never did figure out who did it.

          1. Amy Farrah Fowler*

            If you’re in Texas… I know people who went to Texas A&M who throw out any orange pens, markers, highlighters, post-its, you name it because University of Texas’ color is Orange and they are “rivals”… These are people who are LONG out of college. I just roll my eyes.

      2. Gen*

        My manager used to buy nice biros, not that fancy but at least three grades better than the supplied ones, she dipped the ends in hot pink or UV green glitter paint. No one stole one twice, you could see them clear across the office

        1. Fur Princess*

          I also have brought in my own supplies when the company-supplied weren’t to my liking. I always marked my items with White Out or nail polish. If one went missing, I could always say to the person that stoleborrowed it, “Hey, that’s my pen, I marked it with White Out/nail polish.” I usually got the item back with a sheepish “oops, sorry”. However, if it was a manager who walked off with the premium supply, I usually got push back about how I was not.nice to not share or how they felt entitled to use things that they coveted regardless of ownership. The entitlement, it burns!

        3. Clewgarnet*

          Screwdrivers in my office will normally last about three days before wandering off with somebody.

          I’ve had the same set for over a decade. Possibly because they’re pink and sparkly with GIRL TOOL! written on them. One even has feathers coming out the end.

          2. JustaTech*

            I had a co-worker who specifically ordered all her pens in October to get breast-cancer awareness pink so none of the dudes would steal them.

            The only pair of freezer gloves (for going into liquid nitrogen freezers) that have never walked away are also pink. Hate the sexism, love keeping my stuff.

      3. Skunklet*

        2nd on the purple pens, but i do it on purpose b/c that’s my favorite color, lol… never been stolen either!

      4. MissMaple*

        Yeah, I don’t know what this says about me, but all the office supplies I purchase personally are pink, purple, or turquoise. Not because I like the colors, but because no one will take them. Pink safety glasses, check. Purple clipboard, check. Turquoise pencil cup, check. Pink travel mouse? Got it on sale. I guess it’s the one benefit of being in a male-dominated profession, no one will steal your “girly” desk items.

        1. JanetM*

          Long and long ago, I worked at an office that I believe evaporated pens — I don’t mean that people took them, I mean they just vanished into the ether. I swear there was at least one instance when I left my office with a pen in my hand, and by the time I got to the reception desk, it was gone.

          Finally, a friend gave me a pen on a rope, which managed to stay with me for several months.

          1. M*

            My brother had a habit of walking off with the pens we kept by the phone, which irritated everyone (because there were then never any there to note down numbers/etc, and it wasn’t a cordless phone, so it was a real pain to go hunting mid-call), but particularly my father.

            Best present I ever got him was a pair of cheap pen-on-a-chains, of the type you’d find at banks and the like. We never attached them to anything, the mere ridiculousness of walking off with a pen with a metre-long chain dangling from it was enough to shame my brother out of the habit. We went back to perfectly normal pens about five years later, he’s never taken one since.

        3. Floundering Mander*

          Yup. I go out of my way to find hot pink tools, because nobody else is willing to be seen on a building site with a pink tape measure. I think I went through 5 or 6 of them in a year before I figured this out. I hate pink myself but it’s proven to be an effective defense.

        4. Specialk9*

          Someone I know had a keyboard taken, so she vajazzled hers. (Ok fine, bedazzled, but I always think vajazzle when I see it! It’s like a 6 year old ballerina and a stripper headed up a committee on decorating keyboards.)

        5. LavaLamp*

          I have a Kipling 100ct pen case that stores all my good pens and it lives in my purse and comes back and forth with me to work. I don’t leave my pens available to be touched. I keep a pen cup with a couple crap pens work supplies so if someone needs to borrow one they can. Just not my good ones.

      5. SaaSyPaaS*

        I’ve had my nice pens go missing too. I bought a red pen and replaced the ink with black from the same kind of pen. Nobody seems to want to steal what they think is a red (or purple or green) pen.

        1. azvlr*

          I did this too. As an enlisted person, the officers would come in for the morning meeting and one guy in particular would just take over whatever desk he pleased to conduct his super-important Supply Officer business before the meeting started. He usually took over my desk since I was up doing other things at that time. He stole my pens, and doodled on my pristine desk calendar. Red ink was only for the CO’s official signature, so that “red” pen never left my desk until it ran out of ink.
          I pranked the candy jar with super-sour candies. The wrappers were in Japanese, so they couldn’t tell what they were.

      6. On Fire*

        Last job was bad about pens disappearing -those nice Pilot roller ball pens with the clear barrel. Some of us started writing our name on a tiny piece of paper, unscrewing the pen, and sliding our name into the barrel. It wouldn’t deter a deliberate thief, who could simply take the paper out, but it did stop those who honestly forgot they’d picked up your pen to scribble a note at your desk.

    2. Cruciatus*

      Mine is similar (for which I’m very grateful compared to these other stories!). My last job started in the fall and since it was back-to-school time I decided to buy myself some nicer pens for the new job since I love buying stuff like that in fall (and we’re talking like a $2 pen, not anything crazy). Anyway, my “fancy” pen went missing one day, though it’s probably just because I worked at the front desk of an office and I left my jar of pens on my desk and someone needed one and forgot to put it back). Even until I left I was looking at everyone’s desks and pen jars to see if it showed up somewhere else. Actually, since I still work in the same building, whenever I go back there I still sometimes check what pens they are using! I don’t like losing ANYTHING!

      2. Janelle*

        I used to work for a doctor and the reps would bring pens and such. Everyone has one they liked. Nurses and doctors would search the office to find their exact pen before willing to work. Ha. It was in a joking way in fairness but we were serious about our pens.

    3. krysb*

      I buy specific pens and bring them to work. If I find them at anyone else’s station, they get cussed. My pens, y’all. My pens.

      1. Former Hoosier*

        I do the same thing and will track my boss down when he takes them. He thinks it is hilarious that I pay for my own pens and track them down when they are missing but agrees that since I pay for them, I should get them back. He is an equal color opportunity pen stealer and has stolen my pink and lavender ones. He is just absentminded though not an actual thief.

    4. FCJ*

      I would be so mad. I’m left-handed, so what kind of pen I use really makes a difference between smooth, clean writing or a smeary mess with a cramped up hand to boot. If someone stole my nice pens I’d go on the rampage.

      1. memyselfandi*

        Me too! And because I am so particular I have a thing about not taking anyone else’s pen if I need to borrow.

        1. Mabel*

          Me, too. I need the thick barreled pens or my hand hurts, so I can’t use a “regular” pen for more than a few seconds without pain.

    5. DeskBird*

      My husband always begs me to bring back the free pens whenever I go to the OBGYN. They are pink and say Dr. Suchandsuch OBGYN on the side in big letters – and he says they are the only pens no one will steal from him. He can’t keep a normal pen on his desk for an afternoon without someone making off with it.

      2. LKW*

        Agreed and props to your husband for using manly men’s nonsense for his own benefit. When I worked in construction we would order pink visitor hard hats – any other color was stolen. The pink hard hats were never stolen

        2. Fiennes*

          They’ve done studies showing that pink cars are virtually never stolen or carjacked. If I’m ever at perfect liberty to choose my car color, pink it shall be.

      3. chocolate tort*

        OMG this mental image though:
        *cramming pens from the obgyn’s receptionist desk into a purse* Oh, ha, they’re for my husband!

        Now that I work at home, I STILL think someone is stealing my pens. I suspect my furry grey co-worker, who cries when I shut her out to make calls, headbutts my face, and spends most of the workday asleep.

        2. Alli525*

          Might I suggest looking underneath/behind your couch? My old roommate and I always marveled at the things her cat decided to steal and hide.

          2. Former Hoosier*

            My mom kept losing her stylus pens that she used for her iPad (she is retired). One day when I was visiting, I turned her chair over and found like 5 stuck in the crevices. Now she looks before she buys a new one.

            1. Specialk9*

              Pacifiers. We’ve bought at least 60. Every now and then we move something and find a jackpot. But never a jackpot of 60!

              1. Floundering Mander*

                Pacifiers are probably the most common thing I see lying lost in the street. If I were more artsy I’d start collecting them and make some kind of wacky installation out of them.

      4. Winifred*

        I have a cup of decoy pens and pencils on my desk for people to use, as more often than not someone borrows my mechanical pencil after coughing into his/her hand.

        1. Tongue Cluckin' Grammarian*

          I have a prank shock-pen sitting out on my desk because instead of using the pens and notepads specifically set out in easy view for people to leave me messages with (because for some reason, putting that message on my whiteboard- which is company standard here- was too hard???), people rifled through my desk and used/stole my personal-use pens and stickies. Now, nobody messes with my personal desk stuff.
          (I don’t actually recommend this most places, cos really, it’s super unprofessional of me…)

      6. MillersSpring*

        I had a coworker who was using a freebie pen from his wife’s doctor’s office. He didn’t realize that the drug advertised on it was for a yeast infection drug.

    6. Bow Ties Are Cool*

      Updating, because I realized there’s more to the story:

      Our admin, who is great, found out about my stolen pencils and why I was bringing my own (bit of early-onset arthritis), and got permission from the department head to order Nice Pencils for everyone! A day after the box of Nice Pencils appeared on the team shelf, it was empty. People from other teams were spotted wandering off with Nice Pencils. Now Nice Pencils live in the team locked drawer, and if you want one you have to present yourself to the admin.

      1. CanCan*

        At my dad’s work (well-known multinational communications company), they recently locked away all supplies. So if you want any pen at all, you have to present yourself to the admin!

        I guess their thinking is, “We’re a technology company. Nobody reviews paper documents. Nobody has meetings away from their computer. If you want a pen or paper, you must be doing something shady.”

        1. Tongue Cluckin' Grammarian*

          I’m the Materials Manager at my lab. I’ve semi-jokingly (but more serious than kidding…) asked for an Army supply set-up. Everything locked up behind a gate that has a little opening to slid your request through, and a small lockable door with cart that your requested item would be placed on and slid out to you.
          She told me no. :(

          (She put me in charge of supplies specifically because I have a tendency to go High Control with things that are “mine”. She’s holding me back from becoming the Supply Dictator of my dreams.)

      3. Sea Born*

        I worked at a small college that had two buildings. In Building A, the supplies were locked up and you had to get a key from the admin. In Building B, they were in an unlocked cabinet (away from students, though). No idea why the buildings were different in regards to supplies.

    7. Political staffer*

      I work in a male dominated field and my office supplies were always being stolen (they don’t supply them). So I solved that problem by buying everything in the pinkest girliest design I could find. They borrow my stapler, but (so far) no man has stolen a pink stapler, scissors, etc.

    8. RJGM*

      I’ve never had anything stolen at work, but my husband steals pens from himself… He’s super-picky about what pens he uses, and his special pens from work ALWAYS end up in his pockets, and then on his desk at home. One of his best shirts was ruined by ink when he forgot to take the pen out of his pocket. :(

      Now, when I accidentally take something home from work that I meant to leave there, I call it “pulling a Jake.” (Leaving something at work that I meant to take home is a “reverse Jake.”)

      1. Fur Princess*

        Locked office supplies – on one hand, I can understand because people can be nutty when they get something for nothing but I’ve also worked places where the supplies-under-lock-and-key thing was taken waaaay too far. The worst place was where you had to trade in an old, used up supply to get a new one. It bordered on childish – you had to show that the pen was out of ink. I actually had a co-worker refused a new pencil because the old one was “long enough” according to the Guardian of The Supplies ™. It’s a pencil, people, really!

        1. JanetM*

          Oh, dear — you just reminded me of the place I worked where the company provided coffee and tea; the coffee was in the kitchen, but to get a new teabag you had to bring your used one to the office manager.

          2. Floundering Mander*

            O_o

            That is a crazy level of control, and I would refuse to play that game and just bring my own tea, even if I had to carry it around in my pocket.

          3. Specialk9*

            Wow. Reminds me of conservative Jews who have to get male rabbis’ blessing to have marital sex again by showing a used pad without blood.

      2. Anonymous 40*

        I do that too. Both of those, actually. My son Jake just looooves to wander off with the good pens from my desk.

      3. he he hello*

        Oh man, I was certain someone was stealing my pens from my desk drawer in my office, until I realized that I would take out a pen, write something and then drop the pen into my purse where it would disappear into a black hole.

        1. SpiderLadyCEO*

          I do this! Part of my job last year was registering voters, and not only did we need pens for this, we needed a specific colour of ink. So we would bring a whole ton of pens with us, and sure, people would wander off with a few of them, but the big thing was them disappearing into our purses and crevices of our cars. I remember dumping out a purse and finding like, 20 pens. When I cleaned my car once we wfinished that, there were pens in every crevice, for months afterwards.

    9. Alda*

      Back in school, when I was maybe thirteen or something, a classmate suddenly had my pen. It was marked with my name and everything. She got it from her mum, who was a teaches and had accidentally taken it home from the teachers’ room, where some other teacher had put it after probably stealing it from me by using it to write out something for me.
      …only now, as I’m writing it out, sixteen years later, am I starting to wonder why no one noticed my name on it until I did.

      1. only acting normal*

        I took my music stand to school for an everyone-welcome orchestra-thing once (I was not a good musician!). I’d labelled it with my name, but it still went missing. I did find it afterwards, but it had been bent flat by a teacher to use as the conductor’s stand. I was sooo upset because I was super careful with my things (I knew I wasn’t getting replacements if I broke my toys) – that’s why they chose mine, it was nice and tidy unlike the scruffy ones the school had. My (private) music tutor fixed it for me with pliers and brute force, but I never did any school orchestra events again.

        1. only acting normal*

          PS
          The same teacher had previous for wreaking kid’s things – don’t know whether they were superbly cack-handed or just mean.

          1. sstabeler*

            Mean. By the sounds of it, they deliberately chose the music stand in the best condition to ruin -the fact it was fixed later by somebody else is irrelevant- which is, in a sense, beyond mean and into the realm of minor abuse. (I say minor as it isn’t anywhere close to beating kids, but deliberately damaging a kid’s stuff is arguably itself abusive for a teacher, particularly since it’s reasonably forseeable that it would mean the kid gets into serious trouble- particularly when it presumably keeps happening- with their parents.

    10. But you don't have an accent*

      I have a similar one! I bought some matching desk supplies…because I have a shopping problem…and one of the matching things was gold, ball-point pens.

      These are (inside) the exact same as a bic pen, just a different color of plastic. They came in a package of 6 and one day I came in to only 5.

      My manager walked by and commented that they looked cool and I made the off-handed comment that I must have misplaced one, so now he’s on the lookout for whoever has a gold pen.

      They did however, leave a very nice, but not nice looking pen in their place, so I guess I shouldn’t be mad?

      1. Kraziekat*

        I would prefer a nice working, but not nice looking, pen over a nice looking, but not nice working, pen

    11. zora*

      When I walked in this morning my boss turned to me and very apologetically said “I just stole all your pens.” :oD It’s funny because they aren’t pens I paid for, they are the ones the company buys. She just is terrible about losing pens, no matter how many times I restock her desk, and so she grabbed all the pens off my desk this morning.

      It’s fine, I just restocked her desk and mine, but I love how she did the opposite of stealing and sounded so guilty about it! She’s a pretty good boss to work for. ;o)

    12. Elizabeth West*

      Front desk woes–people would always borrow stuff off my desk. They used my stapler all the time. At OldExJob, I got so sick of it I bought a great big pink-reddish Xacto stapler and put a sticker on it with a picture of Milton from Office Space and the word “MINE!” They left it alone after that, LOL.

    13. ss*

      My boss would walk off with my pens by the dozens over the course of a week. I finally special ordered pens that were printed with “stolen from [my name]’s desk”. Then after about a week, I walked over to his desk and made an obvious show of gather all MY pens from his desk.

      1. Typhon Worker Bee*

        My former boss did the same – not maliciously, just absentmindedly. I ended up ordering a bank-style pen with a string on it, and attached the base to the part of my desk he used to sign the various documents I gave to him. Problem solved, and he thought it was pretty funny!

  11. DecorativeCacti*

    One of my coworkers went to have lunch one day and found the containers that held her lunch empty, washed, and with a note that said, “Thanks, it was delicious ;)”

    We had so much silverware go missing from my department’s personal stash that we went and got the ugliest ones we could find. So much easier to find the thief now.

    2. K.*

      I’d have been SO MAD to receive that note. Somebody would have heard about that.

      Whenever I hear these “someone ate my lunch” stories, I think back to fifth grade when two boys ate my lunch when I left the table to go to the bathroom and our teacher found out, went OFF on them, made them buy me a new lunch, and sent a note home to their parents. It really struck a nerve with her. (There were no food insecurity issues among this student population, for the record.)

        1. K.*

          She’s a petite woman and didn’t raise her voice, but you knew when she was angry and she. Was. Angry. She was a great teacher. I went to a K-12 independent school and kept in touch with her until I graduated, even volunteering in her classroom sometimes.

      1. Frozen Ginger*

        I would’ve said to heck with decorum, and shouted “WHO THE F&%$ ATE MY LUNCH AND LEFT THIS NOTE?!”

        1. Alli525*

          Or at least a company/department-wide email with a photo of the empty container and note. Seriously, how incredibly brazen!

    5. JanetM*

      I couldn’t keep silverware in the drawer at my last office — I was buying a big pack of Costco spoons about once a quarter, and forks one or two times a year. Knives never went missing though.

      I suspect it wasn’t conscious theft; just someone would grab a spoon for their lunch or their coffee and unthinkingly drop it in their lunchbag when they were done.

      1. SpiderLadyCEO*

        My ex-roommate did this. I kept the house, so I would be doing the dishes and find spoons that weren’t ours. It turns out he was mostly stealing them from his parents’ house, but it was all because he would be snacking on something and just fling all the remains into his lunchbox or backpack once finished. We had so much random silverware, ahaha.

    9. Partly Cloudy*

      Wow, that’s ballsy.

      I once left a pro-active note on my own leftover birthday cake that read “A kitten dies every time you steal food.” When I went back to it at lunch (yes, I’d gotten – and started eating – the cake that morning), there was another note that read “I’m helping control overpopulation. Thanks for the cake!” BUT the person had not actually taken any cake. :)

    10. Liane*

      I’ve mentioned the greedy overnight shift at (In)Famous Retailer a few times–wreaking (not just eating!) 3 whole sheet cakes, one for each shift and the first few to get breaks Thanksgiving overnight stuffing 5+ slices of pizza into each of their lockers.

    12. crookedfinger*

      Oh, I would’ve hunted that asshole down based on handwriting alone, even if it took weeks…that’s some infuriating bullshit.

    13. Serin*

      Someone put a question on Quora that was basically: “In your office culture, are items in the shared refrigerator there for everybody, or are they people’s private food?”

      It made me wonder if there actually are offices where it’s acceptable to open a brown bag and eat what’s in it? Or was this pure wishful thinking on the questioner’s part?

      1. Tin Cormorant*

        There are offices where the admins stock the communal fridge with stuff that’s free for anyone to take, like drinks, yogurt cups, sliced up fruits/veggies, cream cheese for bagels, and milk for cereal in an attempt to offer healthier snacks. Maybe that’s what they were thinking of.

        I can’t imagine there actually being a workplace where it’s normal to open a random plastic container full of obvious leftovers and eat it. Maybe (a big maybe) if the company offered free lunches that came in the form of brown bag lunches, but in that case I’d expect there to be a bunch of identical ones for people to grab, and most importantly, for someone to have explicitly mentioned this when I was hired.

      2. Miles*

        At my current office some of the items in the shared refrigerator are communal. The office buys bread, jam, margarine, sometimes fruit etc. and then we have things like soy sauce, ketchup and hot sauce that get bought for events then end up in the fridge for whoever wants them. You wouldn’t take a brown bag or leftovers that someone obviously brought, but there have been issues with people bringing cans of pop or bags of fruit for their private use and having someone else think they were free for the taking.

    14. Delightful Daisy*

      I accidentally stole my sister’s lunch one day. She didn’t eat it when she left work so I gave it to a coworker, who thought that meant she could keep taking sis’s lunch. Big sis was not happy when she got to work that night and found out I’d given away her lunch. Oops… 30 years ago and she still mentions it at least once a year. :-)

      1. Yzma, put your hands in the air!*

        This woman thought that because you gave her your sister’s lunch ONE TIME that meant she could continue to take it? That is far more outrageous to me than you accidentally giving the lunch away.

    15. Her Grace*

      One of our floors had so much silverware going missing they actually chained a communal tea spoon to the bench so it wouldn’t go walkies. That was the only floor that had that problem.

    1. SunshineOH*

      Wow. I was skimming through the thread above this comment, and for a second I thought you said “eating” instead of “stealing”. That’s a commitment.

    2. RKB*

      Someone had left a toonie at my desk and I had put it in my vest pocket so I could deposit it as extra change; I forgot and went home with it. Was mortified and put a toonie back into the float when I was at work next. I for sure thought I was done for.

        1. Ego Chamber*

          “Toonie” = Canadian 2 loony coin (2 + loony = “toonie”).

          “Float” = Cash and change in the register at the start of the day, before any sales, to make change throughout the day (typically $100 or $200 in 20’s, 10’s, 5’s, 1’s and coins).

          1. Chinook*

            A Canadian loony/loonie is a $1 coin with a loon on it. A toonie is a $2 coin with a polar bear whose pr guy was no where as good as the loon’s.
            Plus, if you bash the older ones just right with a hammer, it can break into 2 parts and make a $2 washer.
            Both have the Queen on the reverse and neither nickname refers to her.

            1. SpotTheDog*

              Loony was cute when it came out, toonie was just dumb. I was a big supporter of the movement to call it a doubloon when it was released. That would have been so much cooler and made us all sound like pirates.

            2. Typhon Worker Bee*

              An American friend of mine was visiting once, and needed about $12 back in change when paying a bar bill. The waitress asked “loonies and toonies OK?”, and my poor friend turned to me with such a look of confusion and panic on her face!

  13. Lizzy*

    Someone keeps stealing my egg sandwiches from the freezer, even though they are labeled with my name. I’ve taken to labeling them “THESE ARE NOT YOURS” which does not stop the thief but makes me feel better.

    The most bizarre theft? I keep a bottle of grapefruit bitters in my snack drawer for water. Someone stole–not the bottle, not the cap–but the little plastic insert at the neck of the bottle that controls the flow of the bitters. Now I can’t shake the bottle into my water–I have to careful pour a little into the cap, then dump most of it back into the bottle, then splash a drop or two into my water.

      3. Kit*

        For the record, deliberately poisoning someone is a crime, even if they deserve it. Setting traps for human beings is illegal, and a judge is NOT going to buy that you just like your egg salad inedibly spicy.

        1. Fiennes*

          Poisoning is illegal, but making something very very spicy or just plain disgusting is not. So ipecac no, Tabasco yes.

          2. Jesmlet*

            If I was the thief and you added tobasco to an egg salad sandwich, I’d just steal more often. That sounds delicious

            1. Fiennes*

              At normal amounts, yes. But add enough of it and you’ll throw the egg salad thief a curveball that won’t be forgotten soon.

        2. AC*

          If you put a note on it saying, “Do not eat this, it’s poisoned and you will definitely get sick.” Take a picture to document that you had a warning on it, and someone eats it anyways, you did everything within reason to prevent someone from eating a poisoned sandwich. It’s got a clear warning and therefore no longer constitutes an unprotected trap.

          1. Aloot*

            I don’t think a judge would be terribly amused by that, either.

            And the workplace wouldn’t be either. I wouldn’t be so happy about getting myself fired even if a judge was willing to let it slide.

        3. Kindling*

          Yeek. As a person who likes spicy foods, this worries me a little. ‘Inedible’ is really subjective. I made some curry for myself and my boyfriend and I thought it was delicious; he couldn’t eat more than a couple of spoonfuls because it was actively hurting him. I just worry that if someone stole my lunch I could be charged with a crime. I guess my boyfriend could testify in court that I really legitimately like spicy foods?

          2. Not a Morning Person*

            You really need to to read the link Alison posted above about the food thief and his comeuppance. “A coworker stole my spicy food…”

        5. Anion*

          Put some hairs in/on it. That’s not poison, it could even be visible once the sandwich is unwrapped, but maybe they’ll stay away from your sandwiches after that.

    2. DaniCalifornia*

      You need a locking lunchbox! And perhaps a lot of freezer inserts and keep it at your desk. That is pitiful that someone would do that.

    3. Jesca*

      Our department at my last job bought hamburger meat. Someone stole ALL of the raw hamburger meat. It was early in the day too. Where did they stash it?!?!

          1. Electron Wisperer*

            Amateur.

            The correct thing to hide (several of) around nightmare bosses office is a smoke detector fitted with the cheapest, nastiest dollar store batteries you can find.

            Months after you leave the action starts…. “BEEEEEP!”, Have you ever tried to track one of those things down by sound? Not easy.

              1. Falling Diphthong*

                And they terrify me. Even though I work at home and it is unlikely the cats can figure out how to order things off ThinkGeek.

              2. The Cosmic Avenger*

                Yes! Get an Annoy-o-tron! It emits short beeps at random intervals, far enough apart that it’s nearly impossible to track!

    5. Adlib*

      That’s definitely weird. It almost sounds like they did it with the express purpose of making your life harder.

      On a side note, that is a super interesting idea! Grapefruit bitters in water…I may need to try that.

      1. Anion*

        That’s what I was thinking. A note that says, “I hope you like the sandwich I spit in yesterday. I was really phlegmy, too.”

        (I normally wouldn’t advocate anything as gross as discussing phlegm, but in this case…)

    7. zora*

      Someone on the internet started making ziplock sandwich bags that are printed to make the sandwich inside the bag look moldy. You really need those bags.

  14. Adhyanon*

    My cooler ice packs for breast milk! I had a long commute by public transportation so I froze my ice packs in the communal freezer during the day. In a ziplock. With my name on it. The first time it was one of two. The second time it was both. That was a horrible place to work.

      1. Steve*

        I assume the milk doesn’t go in the ice packs, but rather the self-contained ice packs and the milk both go into a cooler.

    3. Kyrielle*

      Me too! Only once, and the woman who grabbed them – to keep groceries cool on the way home – was still there and gave them back sheepishly when I explained what they were for. She said (even tho, like you, I had them corralled in a labelled bag) that she thought they were the office first aid ones.

      …even if they were, and there was only one of those but hey, even if they were, shouldn’t those be *in the office* in case needed?

  15. Misspelled Forgery*

    Not such a petty crime, but it’s so dumb that I’m going to repost it (I posted it in the comments of the stolen jacket letter):

    In college I worked at a sandwich shop for about a month and then quit when I got a higher paying job at an office. A month or two into my new job, I went to buy something with my debit card and got declined. When I went to look at my bank account, I found that I was overdrawn due to a $500 check being cashed. When my bank sent me a copy of the check, I found that it was written to a former coworker of mine at the sandwich shop. She stole a check out of my purse and wrote it to herself.

    The funniest thing? When forging my signature, she misspelled my name. My name, spelled correctly, was on the upper lefthand corner of the check, of course. What a f***ing idiot.

    When I called my former sandwich shop they told me she had already been fired a week before for something unrelated. My bank reimbursed me and I filed a police report, but I don’t think the thief faced any consequences. Hope you bought some common sense with my stolen money, Gabby.

    1. Anna*

      While in college, a friend of mine had her credit card stolen and used. The person who stole it (someone else who lived in the dorms) signed her name wrong by adding an “S” where there was none (imagine that her last name was Steven instead of Stevens). The bank: Are you sure you didn’t make these purchases? My friend: The name is misspelled. I know how to spell my own name.

      1. Archie Goodwin*

        Same thing happened to me in college, less the misspelling – a girl who worked in the card-issuing office copied my debit card information, as well as that of a couple of other students, and was using it around campus and around town. She spent, as I recall, not even quite a hundred bucks from my account over the course of the semester. She was quite clever about it – I think the most she ever spent was eight or nine dollars at one go. So I noticed my debit card was losing a bit more money than I thought, but I thought I was just misremembering how much I’d spent.

        Didn’t find out about it until the beginning of the next semester when campus police called me in to talk about it.

        That’s it – I lost two bottles of Diet Coke from the office fridge, one each on two separate occasions, but I like to think someone just picked them up in error. Hasn’t happened in a while, anyway.

      2. JessaB*

        A friend had permission to use our phone card back before cellular phones. She was in the Navy. She had been stationed in Texas for training. Someone shoulder surfed the numbers of our AT&T card, and started using it. We called the phone company to report and they asked the usual “how do you know she didn’t make all those calls?” Well the answer was “they were made from a dormitory at a Navy base in Texas, she is currently stationed in Rhode Island. Here’s a faxed copy of her orders.

        No problem, charges reversed, but the joke here is, who the heck uses it ON the base, where they have full control of the phone system and it takes them five minutes to figure out who was being called and therefore who likely made the calls. At least leave the base and use a public phone. Someone got charged and then discharged.

      3. Former Hoosier*

        But sadly, I actually did mispell my name today on a credit card receipt. And I have had the same one for 45 years

      4. NotoriousMCG*

        Once in college my debit card was stolen. They charged a movie and Starbucks to it and I was SO MAD. Had to go through the whole cancellation and reordering the card. Was describing how pissed I was to my best friend and mentioned the charges. My friend then stopped talking, looked in her bag and said, ‘Oh sh*t.’

        She hadn’t given me my card back after paying at mcdonalds a few days before and because we used the same bank and looked just like hers she had been using it for three days

    2. Arya Snark*

      Years ago, someone stole a checkbook out of my purse while I was grocery shopping. He then wrote a check out to himself, put “prom” in the notes and signed my name, also spelling it incorrectly (and it’s a very simple name). Gabby and Damon could be twins!

      It took me a while to figure it out because I had pretty major surgery the day after the theft and didn’t try to spend any money for a while. I only found out when my rent check bounced. I filed a police report and the bank gave me back my money eventually, but not until after their branch security officer accused me of collusion and I raised a major stink about that one with their HQ. Good times!

      1. Misspelled Forgery*

        Goddamnit Damon, get your own prom money!

        Thankfully my bank believed me pretty quickly, as the check image proved that 1) my neat, forged signature looked NOTHING like my illegible, scribbly actual signature and 2) the legibility of the forgery made it SUPER obvious that my name was misspelled, which people normally don’t do with their own names.

        1. LN*

          I sign my name as an illegible scrawl, so I think it would be pretty clear my card was stolen if you could actually see any letters in my signature at all. That’s a comforting thought.

      2. Greg M.*

        that’s why I hate any time I ask my bank about security they are like “oh we guarantee you’ll get your money back if it it’s stolen” yeah a month later, gotta pay bills honey.

        For the record I kicked up a big fuss about the wireless pay on cards as well as the fact that the bank (used to) have passwords that A. didn’t allow symbols B. weren’t case sensitive C. only up to 8 digits and the best part D. if you pw was 8 digits you could type the 8 digits and then more and it would take it.

        1. Willow*

          Someone took $500 out of my account at an ATM (still no idea how)–the bank gave me a temporary credit until they investigated. I guess they would have taken it back if they determined I’d withdrawn the money?

          1. Ego Chamber*

            Yes, that’s exactly how it works.

            When I was doing call center work that was customer service for a bank, we’d get calls sometimes from people who had reported fraud that wasn’t actually fraud, and they were so pissed that we had “stolen [their] money” by removing the temporary credit when they didn’t want to press charges to continue the fraud process because they “couldn’t do that to family” or something—but they also didn’t think they should have to pay back the money, since they didn’t spend it.

            1. Jessen*

              Having read legal advice stuff, I feel really bad for people in that situation. No one wants to press charges on their parent or sibling. I also heard a few cases where the parent was “supporting” the child – while using the young person’s credit to do so. Completely understandable what one should do legally, but not a comfortable situation.

    4. a girl has no name*

      In college, a girl in my dorm stole her roommates debit card and used it down the street at the grocery store. The store had cameras. I’m sure those living arrangements were pleasant until she could move out. Oh, and the girl who stole the card was not kicked out of school and is currently educating America’s youth. Yikes!

    6. Thornus67*

      When I was in college, we all left our dorm rooms unlocked while we were there. Facilitate people coming in and being social and whatnot. Anyway, one day, a friend of mine says he got weird charges on his checking account. Like, 1-900 sex lines. He refuted the charges, and the company sent him a copy of the recording. Someone else in our dorm who we knew had gone in, stolen the checkbook, then called a sex line pretending to be my friend. And the university didn’t even kick him out of the dorm room because technically it wasn’t breaking and entering since my friend had left the door unlocked (probably as he went next door).

    7. LibraryGryffon*

      Someone did something like that to my sister when she was in college. She disputed the two forged checks (about $20 total maybe) and the bank just looked at the signature, which appeared to be done by a drunk five year old with a crayon, and said, “Yep, forgery, here’s your money back.”

      I on the other hand had the housemates from hell who would eat anything in the fridge if they were hungry, even if you had told them that that was all you had to eat for dinner the next day as you didn’t get paid until the day after. I quickly learned that one hated black olives and the other mushrooms, so, to this day, a pizza doesn’t seem right if it doesn’t have both of those on it.

  16. Rusty Shackelford*

    I had a box with two leftover slices of pizza in the fridge, and someone took one. I’ve always wondered if they thought they were being kind by leaving me half my lunch, or if they thought I wouldn’t notice, or what.

    1. Liz2*

      Was it a normal sized pizza box or a small box? If it were a normal pizza box, I might easily think it was leftover from a pizza party and available to all.

      1. Rusty Shackelford*

        No, it was a small box. And even if it had been a normal pizza box, there’s absolutely no reason to assume any pizza you find in the fridge is “available to all.”

        1. Liz2*

          There is in my office, but we have team lunches and events semi regularly with leftovers almost always available to all.

          Since yours was small, no way someone could have confused it.

          1. Serin*

            If we want to share food leftover from a party, we always put a huge note on it that says FOR EVERYBODY. I think it’s less because we want someone to eat it than because we want potential thieves to have no excuse.

            1. Specialk9*

              We don’t do that in my office. We just leave stuff in the kitchen, or on a table. Eventually someone throws it away. It would make sense to put up a sign, but we don’t.

    2. Samiratou*

      I almost stole someone’s pizza because it looked like mine and was in a similar bag (in a ziploc in a plastic bag from local grocery store chain). Fortunately I noticed before heating it and swapped them back, but if it was a common pizza chain, it’s possible it was a mistake? Probably not, but you never know…

    3. ACA*

      This happened to me, too! I had two slices of pizza in a gallon ziplock, and someone stole only one of them. So I still had SOMETHING to eat, but….

    4. It's-a-me*

      Someone in my office once accidentally stole and ate some pizza from the fridge, instead of their own. They offered theirs to the other coworker, only problem is said coworker is vegetarian and the uneaten pizza was barbecue meatlovers.

      How does anyone get those two confused?

  17. AnnaleighUK*

    Not me, but a co-worker, had her potted plant stolen and when she sent an office-wide email asking where it was, it quickly degenerated into a weird sort of office-based Taken thing. Ransoms were demanded – and sent from anonymous emails and IT wouldn’t help her find out who it was. Which makes me think IT had something to do with it. In hindsight she shouldn’t have used a quote from that film in the original ‘where is my peace lily?’ email but the office kind of rolls like that. It has since been returned, in full health!

    1. OtterB*

      My husband’s potted plant once disappeared at the office while he was on business travel. He asked around about it. The company president had taken it (moderate sized company, maybe 100 employees). There was apparently a hilarious company-wide email thread about how he could have it back if he promised to water it and not leave it to wilt.

      My husband is no longer in that job, but the plant survives on the windowsill at home, where we remember to water.

    2. LN*

      What a bizarre thing to steal. Like, I get why people steal useful things like food and office supplies – not that it’s justified, but it makes sense at least – but who sees a plant and is like I MUST HAVE THIS NOW, DAMN THE CONSEQUENCES!!!

    3. Millie M*

      Someone stole a big chunk of my peace lily. I had this gorgeous peace lily a coworker gave me. It had lots of little babies, and I was just about to dig some of them up and repot them so I’d have more peace lilies. Someone dug up a whole bunch of the baby plants, and I came in one morning and the pot was about half empty, with just little divots around the sides where the babies used to be. The plant-stealing jerk must have taken it out of my office, because there wasn’t any dirt on the floor. It was a very clean crime scene. After that I took the plant home, and now I have boring plants in my office that no one wants to steal.

      1. Specialk9*

        In college, I had a gorgeous Wandering Jew plant (I know, it really sounds racist, right? It’s that vine with variegated blue-green and white leaves and the backs are purple) and it kept dying. It got sun, it got the right amount of water. Finally one day I saw dirt on the floor, and my roommate confessed to having knocked it over, regularly, when piss drunk. She would just stuff it back in the pot, clean up, and of course it was dying from root exposure to oxygen. Plant criminals.

    4. Sabrina Spellman*

      A faculty member once had her peace lily stolen as well. I think it was from her MIL’s funeral, I’m a little shaky on the details, but I later found out it was never returned. Instead, another faculty member bought her a new one.

  19. Red Reader*

    I don’t know if this exactly counts, but someone tried to steal my chair out from under my butt once. Dude (who I’d never seen before) was going to a meeting in a conference room at the end of my cube farm row. I had no involvement in the meeting whatsoever, he wasn’t even meeting with people in my department, but he stopped at my cube and went “Your chair looks comfortable. I’d like to take it to this meeting.” I glanced up, all “ha ha,” because of COURSE he was joking, right? He wasn’t joking. He stood there for a solid three minutes waiting for me to get up out of my chair for him. Then he went “UGH!” and punched the cube wall and went to his meeting. I told the manager of the department he was meeting with. He was never seen or heard from in the cube farm again.

      1. Red Reader*

        It wasn’t even that comfortable of a chair!! Like, I might’ve let him have it if there had been an alternative within easy reach, haha.

      1. Red Reader*

        I feel like I probably would have done anyway, but if he hadn’t punched the wall, it would’ve been “haha, this weird thing happened,” not “you know that vendor y’all were meeting with this afternoon? HE PUNCHED MY CUBE WHEN I WOULDN’T LET HIM HAVE MY CHAIR.”

        1. Nea*

          A vendor. Who wants to do business with your office. Demanded your chair. And got violent when he didn’t get his way.

          There is not enough “wow” for this. Methinks someone is a little vague on how vendors get and keep business relationships.

        3. SunshineOH*

          He was a VENDOR? Wow. I would have 100% gone into that meeting and called him out before they even started talking. What an ass.

    6. EddieSherbert*

      We have a 99% remote employee (he comes in half a day twice a month for a specific meeting) who for some reason has a desk and has THE NICEST CHAIR. And he obsessively guards it.

      No monitor or supplies or anything at his desk. Just a name plate and a chair. So every time someone new starts, they basically accidentally take his chair (assuming it’s an empty desk and they can trade chairs) and then get REAMED OUT the next time he’s in the office. Because he marked the chair so he can find it and he WILL walk around the whole office to find the ‘thief’.

        1. EddieSherbert*

          Yeah, it’s one of those things! Like maybe we should warn people or something? But… he’s SO annoyingly over-the-top about it… so we let it happen. Haha.

          (It’s not like a “specially ordered for him” chair or anything!)

          1. kittymommy*

            It’s way over the top and yeah I can definitely see it being annoying but compared to all these little thief stories this guy with his “you will pry my chair out of my cold, dead, once a month hand” is cracking me up in Taco Bell!!

            1. Fur Princess*

              This reminds me of one place I contracted where the poor sod that had the cube right outside of the conference room took to locking his chair to his filing cabinet (think bike cable lock) because it had gotten rolled into the conference room by so many meeting attendees. He told me he started locking it when he got chewed out by his manager for interrupting a meeting to get his desk chair back in order to work!

          2. Jules the 3rd*

            You should warn people. Having a new person get yelled at for something that you know about and can prevent is unprofessional, hazing and downright mean.

            1. EddieSherbert*

              People tend to do the trade on “the down low”, so I don’t even notice until he’s noticed.

              … and I feel like it’d be weird to give them a pre-action warning at my introduction to them. “Hi! I’m Eddie in teapot spout design, nice to meet you! Don’t try to steal AngryGuy’s chair!”
              *chuckles at their imagined reaction*

      2. Code Monkey, the SQL*

        Ohh, that reminds me of my first week on project at my current job. There’s usually an interval between hiring and getting onto a project, so I had been in a little room watching training videos by myself for a while. When I finally got moved to a room with other people, I grabbed the available desk (which was empty except for a mouse pad and pencil cup), plugged my laptop, and started training with them.

        The next day…. “Who was at my desk? Someone moved my mousepad! Why is my chair all wrong? Who messed with my power strip!?” I had to humbly apologize to “Eddie” for messing up all his stuff, then go find an actual spare desk and chair, drag them down the hall, and wedge them into the new room. Ooof. Welcome to the project.

        1. ReanaZ*

          Too be fair, people try to hotdesk on my desk all the time and it is the most irritating thing in the world to get back to your desk and find it all messed up. A huge productivity waster for me. So maybe don’t leave people’s desks all messed up and put it back like you found it? (You changed his chair and didn’t fix it???)

          I don’t think Eddie is in the wrong here.

          1. Elizabeth the Ginger*

            It sounds like Code Monkey thought Eddie’s desk was empty (and intended by TPTB to be Code Monkey’s) because there was nothing that indicated it was anyone’s permanent desk.

            1. Rebecca in Dallas*

              Haha, my car has the kind of seats that you can program, so I can easily get it back to the way I like it. But EVERY DAMN TIME he uses my car, he messes with the way I have my A/C set. It drives me insane!

      3. Rusty Shackelford*

        Okay, but if he’s in the office two half-days per month, and the dates of those meetings he attends are known, why not take his chair but put it back at his desk on the days he’ll be in the office?

    7. Simone R*

      I had totally forgotten about this-but my coworker had a croissant stolen out of his hand once! There were a bunch of leftover pastries from a meeting left out for the taking. He had just picked up one of the croissants and another coworker walked up to him and was like I want that one. We all stared at him blankly because there were many more in the platter! But then he just took the croissant out of his hand and walked away.

      3. Brandy*

        But it was in the guys hand. A: He wouldn’t have gotten it from me B: He doesn’t know where my hands have been C: I’d soooo report this to a manager.

        1. Ego Chamber*

          I probably would have yelled after him to that effect. Wtf. O_0

          “You don’t know where I’ve been, Lou! You don’t know where I’ve been!“

        2. Rebecca in Dallas*

          “Maybe I should have washed my hands after I handled that dead woodchuck, but oh well. Enjoy that croissant!”

      5. Crystal*

        That’s happened to me. I bought a dozen doughnuts on the way to work (to share! because I’m nice!) and my boss wanted the flavor I was eating and took it right out of my hand.

        3. motherofdragons*

          Non-pregnant me probably would’ve laughed awkwardly and just filed that away as an incredibly weird story for later. Pregnant me? Fisticuffs.

      6. Your Weird Uncle*

        I feel like that’s got to be part of some crazy psychology class experiment, like my friend had in one of her classes. She had to do something that went outside conventional norms, like jump into a queue. Maybe he had to steal someone’s food and write a paper about it.

        Sidenote: I would have taken an F for that particular assignment.

          2. Mabel*

            The same class had students do this every year at my school, so after you had seen it the first time, you just didn’t react at all. The psychology students didn’t know what to make of the lack of reaction.

        2. Simone R*

          He was kind of a socially awkward guy in the first place-we thought he was kidding at first, but then when he followed through it was so bizarre! My theory is that he was trying to be funny and just failed.

        3. LavaLamp*

          Oh my god. I did this in high school for my sociology class. I chose something very benign; I got some Christmas bells and laced them into my boots. Annoying but not horrible.

          I shudder remembering the one student who clipped her toenails on the table at Golden Corral.

      7. Minister of Snark*

        I can actually see this happening. My husband was negotiating a rather sizable contract for a vendor to provide products for his department. The vendor was supposed to meet with them at DH’s office but “missed his flight.” When they arranged for a conference call that afternoon, Salesman was distracted, sounded bored and DH had to basically drag product details out of him. When DH mentioned that maybe they should just reschedule the meeting so they could speak face to face, Salesman made a comment about how he didn’t want to bother coming to our tiny little town anyway, “wasn’t worth the trouble.”

        DH asked, “Salesman, are you aware your regional sales director is on this call, too?”

        Salesman says, “Yeah, why?”

        Professional self-preservation. Dude didn’t have it.

        2. Snark*

          Yeah, sometimes, you just watch someone wander out in front of the freight train, and your’re like, “Watch out! A train!” and they’re like, “Nah, I’m good here on the tracks,” and you’re like, well, this will be a story.

      9. Delightful Daisy*

        I am laughing so hard at this and at the doughnut. Seriously, who the heck has that kind of gall? I knew I was lucky to work with the people I do but didn’t realize quite how lucky. I am picturing the look on the face of the person he took the croissant from, and the person whose boss stole her doughnut out of her hand. My colleagues are probably wondering what the heck is going on in my office.

    8. CMDRBNA*

      Ah! I worked for the feds and we had a terrible, terrible coworker. I had to bring my own office chair in because I was having back problems and he kept moving my chair to the office down the hall because he was a raging asshole.

      1. Nea*

        I brought in my own chair to deal with back issues and was told that it might be stolen. My reply was “I bet not if it’s hot pink.”

        And indeed, people treat my not-quite-Barbie-pink chair as if it’ll give them a disease. I buy my luggage on the basis of how likely it will be to make people flinch away from it as well (although the actually Barbie pink carry-on is the envy of every 8-year-old girl who sees it.)

          1. Nea*

            Precisely! Why tie on pom-poms or colored straps when the whole piece of luggage can be spotted across an entire airport?

            Samsonite’s “jungle colors” some years back were Barbie pink and neon lime green. Container Store, if there’s one near you, always comes out with uniquely patterned luggage every June that’s for sale for a couple months only. (I had one with purple paisley hearts from them, but I didn’t like the way it rolled.) Currently I’m working with a mostly white set from another country, and there is very, VERY little white luggage out there – especially covered in pictures of monuments from another nation. My “favorite” – I actually dislike it, but it suits my parameters – Vera Bradley duffle is bright orange.

            …not that I’ve put a lot of time and thought into my luggage or anything.

            1. Queen of Cans & Jars*

              My MIL bought me a purple plaid suitcase for Christmas one year. Can’t miss it on the baggage claim!

        2. But you don't have an accent*

          Yes!! This is my luggage theory tooo! I bought Tumi (since I travel over 80% of the time for work and they have a pretty decent warranty) and I went with this patterned luggage that has white, black, slate blue, and light pink spots all over it (it looks really cool). I have NEVER seen anyone else with it.

          3. birchwoods*

            I’ve found, weirdly, that it depends on the country. My suitcase is a beautiful jewel purple color, easy to see when everyone else’s is black and grey, until I traveled to Beijing where the black ones were the minority in a sea of colors and patterns. Odd.

          3. Dave Wheeler*

            I would have to get a complete Avengers set myself, not one of my coworkers would even bat an eye though, it would be expected from me :)

        5. Lissajous*

          Luggage doesn’t even have to be a super outlandish pattern or colour to be noticeable!

          My luggage failed to arrive once on a relatively short domestic flight. Went up to the counter, and about six or seven others had the same problem. All the luggage descriptions were standard “black roll-on,” navy roll-on,” etc. Then it was my turn:
          Me: Light blue Country Road duffel.
          Employee: Oh, that we’ll be able to find!

          They got it on the next flight and it was waiting for me at my hotel when I got back from dinner.

      2. Evan Þ*

        Misread that for a moment as “I worked for the feuds.” Which would make the story a bit more sensible.

    11. Robin Gottlieb*

      The same thing happened to me (except the wannabe thief was a woman)! After telling me how comfy my chair looked, I told her it was comfortable and that’s why I was planning to use it every day. She never bothered me again.

    12. ss*

      I wasn’t physically IN my chair at the time for this one, but it was obviously an in-use chair ….
      Our office has a giant open floor plan. Our desks are a long set of tables pushed next to each other to form what looks like a giant full-floor table with monitors spread across it. My desk was the only one with plants, pictures, cords, and all sorts of paraphernalia that shows that someone sits there. All the other seats (40 or more seats) are flat empty tables with NO items on it. Most of those seats are unused.

      Along the wall next to this long desk are the glass-walled conference rooms. I came in one morning and my chair was gone. I turned around and saw a meeting going on in the conference room and I made direct eye contact through the glass wall with the one person sitting in the back of the conference room in my stolen chair. I looked at her, looked at my empty chair space, then looked at EVERY other empty space around my seat that had their chairs before obviously walking over to take a chair from an empty space so that I could start work.

  20. Deirdre*

    I bought my husband a cool multiple outlet / surge protector for his desk with USB and plugs. Over the Christmas break, someone stole it from his desk. No easy feat; the thief had to crawl under his desk, move the small file cabinet to unplug it, snake the cord up through the hole in his desk, unplug the USB chargers and plugs – all to steal a $10 surge protector. I think his USB chargers were more valuable.

    1. Meeeeeeeee*

      Similarly (in terms of crawling required), somebody stole my boss’ iPhone charger… and replaced it with a Blackberry charger.

  21. C in the Hood*

    At one of my old jobs, lunches were mysteriously disappearing from the fridge. Some of the guys, who played basketball during their lunch hour, had a suspicion who it was, but couldn’t prove it. Then one day, they booby-trapped a lunch with invisible ink (you know, the kind you see at the back of an old comic book that reappears shortly after touching it). During basketball time, the culprit’s hands suddenly had that ink on them! He knew he’d been caught & I think he ended up getting fired.

  22. I'm A Little TeaPot*

    Question/possible solution to stuff being stolen out of the fridge: why are you putting your food in the fridge? Get ice packs. My office doesn’t have a fridge, so we put ice packs in our lunch bags and keep them at our desks. It takes a LOT more gumption to steal out of someone’s desk than the fridge.

    1. AndersonDarling*

      Most people do this in my office because there are 4 people who have huge, diaper-bag sized lunch bags that take up the entire fridge. No one else can get fit their lunch in the fridge so we have some people with teeny-tiny mini-fridges and some who actually keep coolers at their desks.

      1. Something Something Anon*

        Yeah, I’m the jerk that would take stuff out of people’s HUGE lunchboxes, stack it neatly in the fridge, then put their lunch box on top of the fridge. I consider it countering their jerk lunchbox space entitlement. (But only if I was trying to fit my stuff in the fridge, not just because it was there.)

        1. DaniCalifornia*

          Lol I feel like I am constantly rearranging our fridge and stuff that is in it, and there are only 4 of us who use it regularly for lunches. But why do my coworkers constantly put their tiny takeout sauce containers on the shelves for tall things? Or their orange. We have a full size double door fridge.

          1. WellRed*

            The moms at my office put their kids sippy cups front and center. Put ’em on the door or tuck them to the side.

              1. Former Hoosier*

                I used to because the commute home was easier if my son had a sippy cup of milk to drink on the way home.

      2. Muriel Heslop*

        We have a mini-fridge and coffee maker in our “paperwork room” that has to be locked at all times to be HIPAA and FERPA compliant. 6 of us have a key so if anything goes missing, we know it’s one of 5 people. No issues so far!

      3. Michigan Sara*

        A lot of our guys (warehouse/logistics) bring huge lunch boxes, sometimes with multiple days of food. They aren’t allowed to put them in the fridge (space issues), so they leave them on the breakroom tables. Sometimes you have to shove them over to find a place to sit down and eat!

      4. Samiratou*

        This is a huge pet peeve of mine. Insulated containers belong at your desk. If you want to use the fridge put your stuff in a plastic bag or something that doesn’t take up 8x more space than your actual food.

    2. Brandy*

      I do this but I freeze my drinks in the freezer well before leaving my house so they are frozen when they get here. The ice packs work, but only so much.

    3. Brandy*

      I do this. But the ice packs only keep food soo cold. So I freeze my drinks when I get up so theyre frozen when I get here and are cold when im ready to drink.

    4. Breda*

      You would think so, but there are a bunch of stories here about people doing just that! In the “boss is stealing my lunch” story linked here, she even stopped bringing lunches that had to be kept cool – and the boss just started taking them from her desk.

      2. chocoholic*

        I used to have a boss who would just help herself to my lunch…..while I was eating it! I often brought chips with me and ate at my desk and she’d just help herself to some chips. I really liked her other than that very weird thing. I guess she did this to other people too.

        1. LN*

          I’d be tempted to keep lunch in an empty top drawer and close it between each bite. Just to see how committed she is to grabbing other people’s food. Would she open the drawer herself? Try to jam her hand in there real quick before you closed it? Then again, I’ve been working for myself for a long time and there’s probably a reason for that. :D

          1. Brandy*

            My moms boss, not due to stealing, but funny story, takes out her sandwich takes 1 bite seals the container again and puts it away. minute later takes out sandwich takes one bite and seals it again. repeat until finish.

    5. SJ*

      On days that I buy lunch and I don’t finish it, I leave it in the fridge for lunch the next day. I don’t feel like schlepping it home just to bring it back again. But I’ve never had my food stolen so maybe I’d do it if that were a thing in my office.

    6. Misspelled Forgery*

      But also… if you work with adults and have a shared office refrigerator, it shouldn’t be a huge ask to expect that your coworkers keep their hands in their own Tupperwares. I’d be pissed if I had to start bringing a cooler with ice packs to refrigerate my lunch because someone I work with and see every day isn’t respectful of my boundaries and doesn’t know or care to not steal food.

    7. Turquoise Cow*

      I have an insulated lunch bag I bring to work, with juice and a sandwich and maybe a few snacks. I’ve never put it in the fridge since it seems unnecessary. When I was a kid I brought a similar lunch to school and kept it in my (unrefrigerated) locker. No need for fridges now.

      1. MashaKasha*

        Same. My lunch seems to be doing just fine in the bag on my desk, for the few hours until lunch anyway. The fridge fills up too fast and is all around a pain to keep my lunch in.

    8. kittymommy*

      Well that’s assuming they can do that. I’ve worked quite a few places where I couldn’t habe anything at my desk/station or there simply wasn’t enough room.

    9. Another person*

      My desk is inside a lab, so I’m not allowed to store food at it (even if it was in a sealed bag). So I have to keep it in the lunchroom and no one has stolen any of my food on purpose–sometimes they take the wrong apple or something. My sister also works in a similar environment and once had her lunch stolen, but it was then returned 15 minutes later by a very apologetic lady who had an identical lunch box (I think she had taken her lunch to eat outside on a nice day). It should be (although clearly isn’t) perfectly normal to have your lunch where you left it in a workplace of adults.

    10. Starbuck*

      This is probably true for a lot of people, but I bring my lunch to work every day and yet don’t own a lunchbox. I make all my lunches so that the entire meal fits in one glass container (rice bowl, pasta, etc) that I put in my tote bag. This way I don’t have to lug a lunch box, nor deal with any extra dishes. I can’t imagine how pissed I’d be if I had to change my easy routine because people stole my food!! Plus, much more satisfying to catch the thief.

    12. AJ*

      Fortunately food isn’t stolen from the office fridge. Unfortunately people leave food in there rotting for months. Heaven up you if you dare clean it out, which only even happens when it the smell permeates the office. Never use it for food because it disgusting!

      Have a freezable lunch pack (the freezer packs are built-in and the whole thing goes in the freezer overnight, so the food doesn’t get ‘frozen’ from direct contact with the freezer packs) that sits on my desk.

  23. anonykins*

    My fork and spoon, all the damn time. People can’t be bothered bringing their own, so they’ll take whatever’s in the kitchen. I now have a second set I keep in the office.

    Once thought someone had stolen my plate, too – turns out they had used it and then placed on a shelf so high I wasn’t able to find it again. A taller coworker noticed it after I complained….

    1. Eve*

      That was an issue at my husband’s old company so one year for Christmas everyone got a set of silverware engraved with their name.

    2. TootsNYC*

      I once bought a set of 8 for my department to use and labeled the handles w/ a P-touch labeler.

      It took about 8 months, but they were all gone.

      1. AnnaleighUK*

        I use cutlery that’s for children and has cartoon characters all over it. Cutlery theft doesn’t happen from my desk anymore!

    3. Ol' Crow*

      They likely placed it that high up so it would remain available to them rather than be found by the original owner, and this way they can say if they’re found out that they didn’t steal it, they put it back in the cupboard. Coming from someone who, as a child, figured this was the best way to get at my sister’s stuff but not get in trouble for stealing.

    4. Trig*

      Hm.

      I assume silverware in the communal kitchen is communal. We have plates and mugs and glasses that are company branded, so definitely communal, and I just… assumed the few bits and bobs of silerware were too.

      I usually bring my own (and bring it back home), but on occasion if I forget, I’ll use what’s there, wash it, and put it back. SOMETIMES I am guilty of absentmindedly putting it in my lunch bag and bringing it home.

      But I am now thinking I’ve been wrong all this time, and perhaps unknowingly driving someone insane by using their silverware. Whoops.

      1. JeanB in NC*

        I would also assume any silverware in a communal kitchen is for everyone. If I bring in my own cutlery, I wash it after the meal and put it in my desk, and I guess I just thought that’s what everyone would do.

        1. Triplestep*

          Me, too. I typically bring my own real (not plastic) cutlery with my lunch, but if I forget it and I find some in the communal kitchen, I don’t think someone has stored her own there. I think it would be fine to use, wash, and put back.

    6. Telo*

      At a previous job we kept our personal coffee mugs on a shelf in the break room, but the news hadn’t gotten to at least one person that those were personal mugs and you were supposed to bring your own in. I discovered this when I found that someone had used my mug to eat 3/4 of a mugful of oatmeal and then stuck it back on the shelf without cleaning it. I discovered it after enough time had passed that it had hardened to almost the consistency of concrete. Kept it on my desk after that, once I’d managed to chip all the oatmeal out of it and washed it in scaldingly hot water.

      1. Delightful Daisy*

        This reminds me of a mug story at a long ago job. Someone stole a coworkers coffee mug and broke the handle off. Instead of owning up, they taped the handle back on and put it back in the cupboard. It was easy to figure out who it was. He did this not once but twice. Chuckling about it all these years later.

        This is seriously the best thing I’ve read online in awhile. I can’t stop giggling.

        Sorry that someone was so seriously thoughtless with your mug.

    7. MCL*

      I have a really nice camping set of silverware with its own case. It stays in a drawer at my desk so that I never have to hunt for a utensil at lunchtime.

  24. Antilles*

    My wife had a little glass jar at her desk that she’d keep candy in and people would grab a piece of candy as they walked by, which is totally fine and understandable.
    One day someone stole the jar.
    Nobody gets candy any more.

    1. CMDRBNA*

      I have a candy dish on my desk at my office, and I have to remember to put it away at night. I don’t mind the cleaning crew taking a few pieces, but I was coming in and it was being emptied EVERY SINGLE NIGHT. It’s not a damn grocery store.

      1. nonegiven*

        Cleaning person was bringing her kid at night. The kid was going through everyone’s desk drawers and eating their snacks and playing with the computers. They told her it needed to stop but it didn’t. She got fired and they hired someone to do the cleaning in the daytime.

      1. Happy Lurker*

        I was going wrapped candy only for the last 6 months, but it seems like we were going through too much. I have switched to clementines for a month and I cannot keep up with demand. But it’s getting to be sick season so…

      2. MyInnerDemonLikesCookies*

        I just had a reminder of why I need to be careful when I read the comments here when I’m at work because I just let out a laugh (and I’m in a quiet area). That comment about the Finger Licker is too funny.

    3. You're Not My Supervisor*

      These stories amaze me. I have a crappy trick or treating pail from a McDonald’s happy meal that I keep candy in at my desk. I once left it in the kitchen because I wanted all the candy to get eaten before a long holiday break… once the candy was gone, someone returned the pail to my desk. Not even sure how they knew it was mine. And I work at a big company where I don’t know people 2 rows over! How can people steal nice jars off another person’s desk??

    4. Adlib*

      At a previous job, I used to have a candy dish. Suddenly, it started being empty after every single weekend. Then one day the dish was gone (it was a ceramic Longaberger dish that a former coworker had given me). No more candy. And now I’m sad about the dish again. (I think the weekend cleaning crew did it as we didn’t have weekend hours.)

    5. Alli525*

      I used to buy gum for my team. They were absolute addicts (two pieces at a time, all day – I can only imagine what that did to their GI tracts), but they usually tossed me enough cash to cover it all, plus I didn’t mind anyway, we had a pretty strong family vibe going on between the 4 of us. I kept the drawer locked, though, because other people at my company did NOT give me money and therefore didn’t get to partake. Then one day I was out, and one of my team members was so annoyed that my drawer was locked that he BROKE IN and took the gum.

      After that, I refused any money he gave me and he did not get any more gum. It was actually a little heartbreaking because that permanently damaged our relationship/friendship.

        1. No more kisses*

          I had a bowl of Hershey kisses on my desk in grad school, which people (mostly me) would nibble at. Someone – a friend, and I didn’t really care – would take quite a few when he was working late and I wasn’t there. Well, I had this habit of crumpling up the wrappers and adding them to a little wrapper nucleus. One day, I ate enough for it to be the same size as a Hershey kiss and I molded it to the same shape and left it in the bowl, because the trash can was just too far away. Lo and behold I get a text from this friend saying “you are just evil! I thought I was going to get the last kiss and I bit into a ball of aluminum!” Apparently he hadn’t looked after unwrapping it before popping it into his mouth. Maybe some of your candy thieves could use this experience of being… foiled again?

    6. Rachel Green*

      I used to keep a jar of candy at my desk, to try to encourage people to come visit. But, people would just wait until I was away from my office to grab candy. Every time I returned to my desk after being away, more candy would be gone. I finally stopped buying candy.

      1. Anonymous for this comment*

        Hahaha, there is a VP at my company who has really good candy in her candy jar. I have no reason to ever go into her office to meet with her (she is over a totally different division), but I have to pass her office on my way to my desk. So anytime she’s not in there, I grab a piece of candy. I regret nothing!!!!!

      2. Sabrina Spellman*

        I have a pencil cup full of candy so people won’t be sad when they don’t get the answer they’re looking for from me. It seems to work! My office neighbour has admitted to taking a fair share of candy when I’m out though.

  25. AndersonDarling*

    There was an epic pie thievery a few years ago. Someone purchased pies to have at a meeting the following day and someone from the night shift took them. It was common for the late shift to grab some leftovers from morning events, but in this case, the whole pies were missing. People took whole pies. This led to a lock being put on the storage fridge. The lock was broken the first night it was installed.

    2. Solidus Pilcrow*

      When no one was looking, Lex Luthor took forty cakes. He took 40 cakes. That’s as many as four tens. And that’s terrible.

    3. Floundering Mander*

      They broke the lock? To me that would be a firing offense. I don’t care about the pie so much but damaging company property to satisfy your greed would have you kicked out of my imaginary company posthaste.

  26. anonykins*

    the pranksters in my office once stole someone’s water bottle and then sent ransom notes, including pictures of the water bottle in torture situations. victim wasn’t too happy about it….

    1. SNS*

      My boss likes to do that with a coworker’s bobbleheads, but cw thinks it’s pretty funny and will send notes back (“remember to feed him twice a day, tell him I miss him”)

      1. Elemeno P.*

        This sounds fun! My coworkers and I like to turn each other’s decorations upside down or backwards and see how long it takes them to notice. They once hid pictures of some annoying cartoon character all over my desk and it took me 6 months to find the final one. I like pranks.

        1. Your Weird Uncle*

          I worked in an office where (for some reason) we printed off photos of David Hasselhoff and put them in obscure spots in one guy’s office, like under his phone receiver, in the top right corner of a picture frame, etc. It climaxed one week he was gone in a map being turned into The United States of David Hasselhoff.

          1. Ramona Flowers*

            I worked in one place where we had this Everybody Loves Raymond DVD that nobody wanted so we used to sneak it into each other’s bags kind of like reverse theft and also do stuff like change people’s desktop wallpaper to match.

          2. MissMaple*

            Ha, I used to work at a SpaceX competitor and we’d hide pictures of Elon Musk in random places; on the backs of doors, in books, etc. Particularly that picture from some magazine where he looks like he’s going to single-highhandedly conquer space.

          4. Annie Moose*

            We have a series of increasingly zoomed-in pictures of my coworker’s face that we print off fresh copies of every once in awhile to hide all over the place. The best I ever did was to cut out my coworker’s head, carefully trim it to fit, and tape it to the bottom of another coworker’s mouse… with a hole cut out for the laser to get through. He didn’t notice for a solid week!

        2. Telo*

          A couple of weeks after I started at a former job, I had the evening shift and my coworkers handed me fake spiderweb and candy to decorate my supervisor’s cube with for his close-to-Halloween birthday, and told me to hide as much as I could. It was an exceptionally boring shift (my job was basically to be there in case the student workers had a problem, and to lock the door when we closed), so I festooned the cube liberally and hid the entire bag. Luckily he thought it was hilarious, but when he left the organization and I moved into his cube two years later, I still kept finding candy.

        1. Fiennes*

          I enjoy minor/victimless pranks, but something about the noose and torture photos makes this sound incredibly creepy to me.

          1. Esme Squalor*

            Same! Symbolically lynching your coworker’s possessions is not a hilarious prank. I don’t know, but it gives me the creeps. I would be genuinely freaked out if someone did that with my stuff.

            1. Floundering Mander*

              Me too, especially if there were any kind of racial/cultural/etc. differences between the coworker and the people pulling the “pranks”.

          2. nonegiven*

            I think I would show the pictures to my boss and say I don’t think I can keep working at a place that would steal my water bottle that I paid for with my own money and taunt me with it like that and if it wasn’t returned unharmed by x time on date, that date would be my last day and my last act would be a police report for theft and criminal intimidation.

    3. JD*

      Yeah. I frequently hide my coworkers’ coffee mugs when they leave them unattended in the kuerig. Just the people that I get along with though. But it’s fun to watch when they find their coffee-sicle in the freezer ;)

    5. Adlib*

      I used to have a boss who complained about not having an office. So we built her one out of cardboard (utilizing her cubicle walls as well) and drew decorations on it. It was pretty fantastic!

    6. Shelby Drink the Juice*

      At a previous job a coworker brought in a The Rock bobble head. It was kidnapped. The person was sent hostage photos some with The Rock holding a newspaper to prove the date. He was photographed being waterboarded, tied up, under a tire from a car in the parking lot. It was hilarious. People set up a memorial wall outside the guy’s cube with flashlights (candles), stuffed animals, lists of phone numbers for grief counseling, etc. It went on for a couple of weeks. Our senior manager would walk by and just shake his head.

      The ransom demand (done via letter cut outs from a magazine) was for two large pizzas and soda. The Rock was suddenly found on a break room table in a non-descript box.

      I knew who did it, I was an accomplice in the photo taking. The coworker found out a couple of years later and was a bit shocked who did it. It’s still a legend for the hilarity.

        1. Specialk9*

          Yeah. The prank was funny until you thought torture was funny. One shouldn’t have to explain why TORTURE IS NOT FUNNY.

    7. Rebecca in Dallas*

      Haha, I love stuff like this!

      One of my coworkers kept a stuffed dachshund at his desk. When coworker went on vacation, we took tons of pictures of the stuffed dog doing things around the office: drinking coffee with us, working on a spreadsheet, in a meeting, etc. Every day we would post a picture on Facebook and tag the coworker, so he could see that we found a replacement for him in the office.

  27. KHB*

    We had a book thief on the loose a number of years ago. Because of the nature of our work, most of us keep a couple of shelves full of college-level textbooks to use as reference material. One day, I noticed that two of mine were missing. (Actually, what I noticed were the two new books on the shelf that were definitely not mine – the thief had used them to fill the hole.) I sounded the alarm, and soon others were reporting books missing as well. The employer paid for replacements for all of them, which was nice – but then the replacements started getting stolen. We all keep our books in locked cabinets now.

    The thief had definitely done their homework, taking the books that had the highest value on the resale market. As far as I know, they were never caught.

    1. Construction Safety*

      That stirred an old memory. At my first job, I had an engineering textbook stolen. I chalked it up to someone ‘borrowing’ it & forgetting to return it, but still. . . .

    2. PB*

      My boss took one of my personal reference books once and put it in her office. I don’t think it was malicious; she just grabbed it for reference and forgot. I just took it back.

        1. ss*

          I don’t use bookplates because they can be stripped off. I write my name in ink on the cover (not the first blank cover page because that can be cut out). This way if the person tries to remove my name, they either have to be obvious with whiteout or cut the actual book cover.

          1. LibraryGryffon*

            At my last job with very expensive medical reference books, I’d mark the margins of several specific ‘random’ pages with the library property stamp.

      2. KHB*

        Yeah, we also have a low-level problem of people “borrowing” others’ books and forgetting to give them back. (Confession: I’ve occasionally been one of the culprits in that.) So my first reaction was to send an email around asking if anyone had borrowed the books in question, or otherwise knew where they were. Nobody had, but that’s when other people started noticing their own books missing. Including multiple copies of the same (pricey) book, from different people’s offices. So the thief definitely wasn’t taking them for their own personal use.

    3. Muriel Heslop*

      When my Dad taught at Wharton he could not believe the number of students who stole each other’s notes/books in order to gain a competitive advantage. Unbelievable

      1. Serin*

        When I was in journalism school, there was a story going around about a student who tore a page out of the classroom phone book so he could verify the spelling of the source’s name but no one else could.

        (On the other hand, the source for this story was the professor, who was an old crusty sort, so it could have been made up to communicate to us the kind of cutthroat competition that the prof approved of.)

      2. Elizabeth West*

        I loaned a fellow student my French book near the end of the year. He never returned it and ducked me after that. I think he may have sold it back to the bookstore. Boy, was I pissed–I wanted to keep it.

      3. Trillian*

        My test tube vanished from the hot bath during one of our tortuous 4 hour analytic labs in undergrad. However. I’d identified two ions in my mix, and the other two formed a unique colour. Rather than spend hours working my way through the flow chart, like everyone else, I got to leave early and still got full marks. Really hope whoever took it wasn’t one of the premeds.

    4. M-C*

      Ouch. Stealing to resell is beyond the pale. In the old days, when we still had paper books, people were sometimes negligent in returning reference books they borrowed, sometimes without asking. The big black initials on the spines in all 4 directions helped me get almost all of them back. I ‘d be chatting with someone in their cube, notice one of mine on their bookshelf, just pull it out.. But clearly that wouldn’t work with library books

  28. starsaphire*

    I’m not sure that this even counts, but…

    About three jobs ago, the new receptionist at my building took a serious liking to my then-husband. (We had the kind of office where it was common for family members to drop by, so it wasn’t weird that he came by a couple of times a month to take me to lunch or whatever.) She started flirting with him pretty outrageously, and frankly neither of us thought much of it…

    …until I started not getting my phonecalls put through, started getting calls for other people routed to me, and had a package mysteriously disappear. This was before most people had non-business email or cell phones, btw.

    So I started picking up my packages straight from the mailroom, and I advised people not to call me at work, but things were weird for a while until the receptionist got engaged… and somehow my calls started coming through again.

    (It was a long time ago, and no, I didn’t think it was worth getting her in trouble. I couldn’t prove anything, and it was really only a nuisance and didn’t impact my work, because it didn’t affect internal calls.)

      1. MashaKasha*

        I cannot understand what the receptionist expected to happen. “Hey, if I don’t put her calls through and misplace her package, her husband, who doesn’t even work here, might fall in love with me and ask me out and we will live happily ever after.” What even.

        1. starsaphire*

          Oh, no one would ever have accused this lady of logical thought, trust me.

          (And that’s not to demean receptionists in general. I’ve been a receptionist; in a busy office, it’s a hectic, demanding job.)

      2. AnnonaMouse Please*

        Actually ,at OldJob, I could have been convicted of “stealing” the one cute single salesman FROM the receptionist

        3. Marillenbaum*

          I hope that wench’s brownies never worked, and it was a continual source of sadness and discord in her marriage.

          1. Specialk9*

            Ha, yeah! Sigh… Ex wife used to make me moist chocolatey brownies. I’m not saying something is missing from my life, exactly, but…

    3. Anon anon anon*

      I got rejected for a volunteer job because the director thought I might be competition for a co-worker who she was interested in. He and I were both in relationships with other people.

      At least this is what I was told by other people who worked there. It matches what happened, but I have no way of knowing for sure.

    5. ss*

      I had a coworker pull a similar stunt. I found out that whenever I’d be out of town, she’d call my house and ask my husband if he wanted to ‘hang out’. He was honest enough to tell me about her calls. She and I weren’t social friends at all so there was no reason for her to ever call my house.

  29. AnonForToday*

    I used to work in a catty, toxic and cliquey marketing agency. One day, the entire office received a mass email from, let’s call her Ursula, complaining about a missing pork chop. While it was years ago, the email said something to the effect of:

    My food has gone missing and I can only assume someone took the liberty to eat it. I was really looking forward to having that pork chop for my lunch. No worries- I just hope whomever enjoyed it doesn’t get trichinosis from the slightly undercooked meat.

    I mean… what an ass! Her email became the inside joke of the century. I still laugh about it.

    1. BananaRama*

      Someone did something similar when we had a fridge clean out! We had emails a week before, day before, same day, AND reminders on the fridge to grab stuff between xx and xx hours – I think it was like 1 hour max the fridge needed to be empty. Anything left was gone. We cleaned house and someone sent out a email complaining about their food being thrown out. I still think of it to this day.

      1. Karen D*

        We did have someone scream “theft!” after a advance-scheduled and well-noticed fridge cleanout. What was obnoxious was that maybe a quarter of the food in the fridge was hers, most of it was in recycled containers like old cream cheese tubs and almost all of it was well past the “science experiment” stage.

        She argued that the containers should have been washed and saved for her, and was doubly angry because there were some expensive Pyrex dishes in the drainer that she thought the fridge clean-out crew HAD washed and saved (when in fact it was the owner of the expensive Pyrexes – Pyrexii? – who had heeded the posted notices and saved their own containers).

        Her white-hot fury was even more notable because other than that, she was a fairly unremarkable co-worker. She’s been gone a few years and all anyone remembers about her is that she was Fridge Meltdown Woman.

      2. Alli525*

        Well, reheating a pork chop would probably take care of slightly undercooked meat and any germs… then again it would also work for the thief, so it just wasn’t a very good point, maybe.

    3. Arya Snark*

      My cat once came running into the house with a baggie in his mouth that contained a cooked pork chop. Maybe it was him!

    4. OlympiasEpiriot*

      Her lunch was stolen and you call her an ass? Maybe she was, but having one’s lunch stolen is not the reason. Whoever did it cost her money and, hey, she was looking forward to it. So the trichinosis thing was silly, but, I’d have been tempted to say something similar.

      1. AnonForToday*

        I was referring to her approach. The entire thing was a knee-jerk reaction. The best thing to do in these situations is to have HR send out a non-targeted, non-specific email about refrigerator etiquette. The thing very well could have turned up after taking another look through the fridge. Not only was her email accusatory, but it was malicious. So, yes, sorry.

        1. OlympiasEpiriot*

          HR at my company wouldn’t do anything about this, and we’ve got about 150 people.

          And, being hungry and finding the lunch gone (and maybe not having money in one’s wallet to get something can make people have quite the “knee-jerk reaction”. Have a little empathy.

          1. Nervous Accountant*

            Yeah I didn’t get why having her lunch stolen and she emails everyone makes her an ass, BUT if she was also a really nasty person, then it makes sense in context I think. I can think of one or two people who are pretty nasty and I wouldn’t be sympathetic to them with this.

            1. Starbuck*

              Well, there’s no way to be aggressive-aggressive if she doesn’t know who stole it. That’s pretty much the only option in situations like this. As someone who can get in a very bad mood when I am already hungry and food plans fall through, I empathize with her need to communicate that displeasure in a way that makes it certain the thief will hear about it, even if everyone else in the office has to be dragged into it too.

        3. JB (not in Houston)*

          why does it need to be nonspecific? I don’t understand why, if your lunch gets stolen, you can’t send out an email that says “my lunch of [X food] is missing.” People complain about passive-aggressive notes all the time. Well, this one is pretty direct, which is what most people say they prefer. Are there facts that are missing from your story? I don’t understand why are you assuming the food was still in there rather than stolen, given that lunches get stolen all the time (see this thread).

          I don’t think her email was the best phrasing, but I really don’t see why it’s bad as you’re framing it as.

          1. AnonForToday*

            I’ve had my lunch stolen before. Yes, it sucks. But a simple, “My lunch has gone missing. In the essence of not making any accusations, I’d very much appreciate if we could all be mindful of one another’s personal belongings in the refrigerator,” would have sufficed. Instead, she acted out of malice with the trichinosis wish. Even if meant to be funny, it wasn’t.

            My point about HR is that they need to own their responsibility in handling employees’ complaints, comfort and happiness in the workplace. So if raised, it would then be their responsibility to at least attempt to address it. It wouldn’t be passive-aggressive, necessarily.

            Overall, the woman lost credibility with a lot of us with the snarky comment. I left the company shortly thereafter, but I believe she had a talking-to and I also believe there to not have been any additional lunch “thievery.”

      2. Floundering Mander*

        Hmph. So person whose lunch was stolen is an ass because she sent out a snarky email, yet others are cheering the idea of spiking food with extra hot sauce, hairs, etc. in order to catch a lunch thief.

        I don’t get it.

    5. Nervous Accountant*

      Wait, I don’t get wha’ts wrong with what she said why is she an ass? Is she also a catty, toxic cliquey person otherwise? I’m confused. I’d be upset if someone stole my lunch! (I didn’t take the trichinosis as something that was really in there tho?)

    6. MommaTRex*

      I was practically accused of stealing a coworker’s mug once – because I owned an identical one. She found it later. I never got an apology, of course. My very common Starbucks mug now has my name on it.

  30. Corky's wife Bonnie*

    Nothing was actually stolen, but a former co-worker called me on her way home in a panic that she left her Uggs out in her cubicle and asked me to lock them in her drawer. I told her nobody would think of stealing them (there’s only about 25 people in my office and none of them wear or even like Uggs), but she responded, “well, I don’t know about the cleaning people” (he’s a dude). She still insisted I do it, so I went to put them in her drawer and they were the ratty and dirty. Yeah, someone would steal those, whatever.

    1. Lady Phoenix*

      I could see someone stealing Ugg boots to resell them — same with any namebrand item.

      But if they are ratty as fuck, that would take WAY too much work.

  31. Snarkus Aurelius*

    Wannabe perpetrator here…

    I work in a not so great environment right now. A woman got the office next to mine when she got kicked out of her old one because no one wanted her around on her old floor.

    I don’t mind so much she took the office, but she also put her stuff in the empty common area next to it. One of the things I want to steal? A dry erase board where she writes “inspirational” quotes.

    I hate that empty nonsense in general, but it’s especially annoying when those quotes are in the middle of environment that’s the complete opposite! Oh we succeed together and we fail together? Then why is nothing ever your fault? Oh thinking outside the box will move us forward? You haven’t changed a single approach to anything in 15 years unless it was ordered by someone else. God forbid someone suggest automating anything.

    Anyway I want to steal the board. Seriously. Yes, I know the dry erase board isn’t to blame, but I want the stupid quotes to stop because they’re insensitive and clueless. I have no idea why she writes that garbage.

    (I also want to steal the ugly artwork in the hall that clearly came from the TJ Maxx discount bin.)

    1. Bow Ties Are Cool*

      Have you considered selectively editing the quotes to be snarky or bizarre? “We succeed together but we fail alone”, “Thinking outside the box will move our bowels”, etc.

      3. Princess Consuela Banana Hammock*

        Ooo, and I’d use Sharpie while doing it.

        (You can remove sharpie from a dry erase board, but most folks don’t realize that or know how to do it.)

            1. Rusty Shackelford*

              For what it’s worth, alcohol is the ingredient in hairspray that removes ink. You can just use plain rubbing alcohol.

          3. Alli525*

            In addition to dry erase marker, as MommaTRex said, nail polish remover and other acetone-based products will do this. Eventually it will damage the whiteboard, but once in a while it’s okay.

          4. Lady at Liberty*

            My guess is alcohol wipes- that’s how Sharpie graffiti got cleaned off the inside of a subway car.

          5. Sputnik*

            Ethanol dissolves Sharpie ink! It’s also good for cleaning whiteboards with really really old dry erase ink on them.

            (I work in a lab where we use ethanol to sterilize things, and we have to use special ethanol-resistant markers because labels in sharpie ink get dissolved very very quickly.)

          6. Specialk9*

            Write over Sharpie with dry erase, then erase. It’s weird but works. Though obv just on dry erase boards.

      1. Snarkus Aurelius*

        Sample ideas:

        If we succeed together, then I want a raise too because you got one.

        Failing together is when you blame the webmaster for not updating your part of the website because you never sent new content.

        Thinking outside the box and the mailbox. As in stop snail mailing registration forms and having an overworked program coordinator enter data in manually and start doing all of this online. (Seriously she picks on the lowest paid person and refuses to automate anything. We’re so technologically advanced now she has no excuses other than the manual way is the better way.)

        Ah I want to steal so bad!;

    3. Doug Judy*

      I hate those sayings too. I prefer sarcastic demotivators.

      On the topic of things you’d like to steal, I had a coworker who was in her 50’s that would spray this god awful cotton candy scented body spray occasionally. It was horrid. She kept it in her desk and every time she was on vacation I wanted to take it or replace it with water.

      1. beanie beans*

        despair.com has amazing sarcastic demotivators. I’d love to see one on snarkus’s coworker’s board! :)

          1. beanie beans*

            “If a pretty poster and a cute saying are all it takes to motivate you, you probably have a very easy job. The kind robots will be doing soon.”

            1. Clewgarnet*

              Robots are starting to do mine.

              Which is why I’ve become the company expert on those specific robots.

      2. Anon again*

        One time, Demotivators had a sale and I bought about 10. Then one night I came into the office and replaced all the framed motivational posters with Demotivators that were similar in color/orientation. It took over a month before the manager noticed and totally lost her mind. Not really theft though, I left the originals stashed in the plans file drawer.

        I kept quiet.

        5. Adlib*

          So “lost her mind” could go either way. I think I would scream-laugh. Did she laugh or yell? Also? Well done! I always think of doing that when I see those stupid motivational posters.

          1. Anon again*

            It wasn’t good. The witch hunt lasted literally 2 weeks, until the next !Outrage! occurred. And I can’t even remember what that was. Glad I don’t work for her anymore.

        6. TootsNYC*

          If at all possible, I’d have left the old ones in the frame, underneath the new one.

          This is my kind of prank.

            1. ss*

              Oh yes…. we once received an all-staff bitchy memo from the Executive Assistant complaining about all of our procedures. It was so poorly written (misspellings, sentence fragments, wrong words, etc…). I took a red marker, gave it a complete edit, and put it back in her mailbox. She was furious. LOL.

    5. Adlib*

      I’d draw on it. I used to work at a place (I hated that job, but I had some good friends there at least) where the engineers/CAD designers made notes or did design discussions. One day they were goofing off and drew animals and cartoons on it. To this day, thinking of that board makes me laugh! At the time, I laughed so hard my eyes watered!

    6. Serin*

      I had a co-worker who bought a motion-detecting croaking frog once. And set it outside her cubicle, which was right across from the restrooms and water fountains. It made noise all day long. Everybody wanted to steal that thing!

      1. Starbuck*

        Sounds like a great way to deal with anxiety if you happen to be in an exposed cube where there is a lot of foot traffic at your back. Hopefully people resisted the urge to steal it.

        1. annon*

          Oh gods, no. That’s no excuse. If you need an accommodation, find one that doesn’t torture everyone else. You don’t get some free pass to be an obnoxious jackass just for having anxiety.

    7. bohtie*

      we have a big empty dry erase board in my office. my grand-boss once drew a christmas wreath on it and no one has bothered to erase it since. my boss won’t do it because he feels bad about erasing a doodle that his boss is genuinely fond of and it’s not like we need the board for anything else. i won’t erase it because she’s not the world’s greatest artist and the bow on the wreath absolutely looks like a giant cartoony penis and it makes me laugh every time i go into the room

  32. Chocolate lover*

    What timing. Our office suite was broken into last night. Campus police have been going through for hours, taking pictures, talking to everyone , etc. At least one laptop and some money are missing. Looks like they only went through half the offices.

      1. Your Weird Uncle*

        Once the HR team in my old office building got broken into over the weekend because someone left the window open a crack – the squatters made themselves a lot of tea and presumably stayed there overnight, but I don’t think anything else was stolen. :)

        1. chocolate lover*

          Maybe that’s why the hot chocolate box was completely empty this morning!

          Honestly, it wouldn’t surprise me. When our house was burgled as a child, they stole food out of the fridge and toys from my little brothers.

          1. Chinook*

            My house was burgled as a child while we were away at family for Christmas. Turned out my sister’s “friends” remembered how she would get in the house when she forgot her key.

            Joke is on them, though. Nothing of value was left under the tree except for a bottle of bubble bath that was shaped like a champagne bottle. We all laughed at the thought of teens trying to get drunk on it only to get their mouths washed out with soap.

    2. Ama*

      We had that problem when I worked in a university building where we were a random floor of offices and cubicles sandwiched between floors of classrooms and a computer lab. There was no way to prevent access to the cubicles once you made it onto the floor — we had to lock off our stairs and have the security guard start locking off our floor on the elevator after 5 pm. (I actually think it wasn’t actual students, but people who knew that our building didn’t have the security gates that required you to scan your ID — it was very easy to slip past the security guard if you came in with a pack of students.)

      1. chocolate lover*

        Theoretically, our suite has locks on all doors, but someone may not have shut something completely, who knows. Then burglars managed to find the (flimsy) lock box with the master key and broke it open, and were able to get into individual offices. I don’t know if someone knew the key was there, or if it was just a case of “locked box on the wall, screams target.” I’m wondering if they got scared off by someone in the hallway or something, because they could have easily gone through all the offices, but clearly hadn’t.

        I ran off to class, so I’m not sure if they’re changing locks or what’s going on. They only just opened up the office again a bout 45 minutes ago.

    3. Code Monkey, the SQL*

      We had a theft a while back – the thief took several corporate (read pin-locked and worthless) laptops, a monitor, and seven bags of potato chips from our honor-system snack bar. Left potato chip crumbs all over our tech guy’s office, but didn’t take the money jar. Go figure.

    4. many bells down*

      My husband’s office – which can only be accessed by keycards – had a bunch of small electronics stolen a few months ago. Basically anything that wasn’t attached to a computer. Some people had left iPads, Mr. Bells had left his 3DS, stuff like that. They think a member of the cleaning staff might have had a badge “borrowed”.

      The company reimbursed people, which was nice.

    5. Elizabeth West*

      That happened years ago at a shopping paper where I worked. The thieves got in through the roof. They didn’t take much but made an unholy mess of the office. The cops fingerprinted everything and some people got the powder on their clothes, where it made marks. Not fun.

  33. You can Google it*

    When I worked at a very well known museum the visitor services manager was caught embezzling money. The assistant manager reported it so they did an audit and set up hidden cameras to catch the manager and discovered the assistant manager was also embezzling. The manager had stolen something close to $850,000 (yes, that’s right, $850,000) over the course of about 2.5 years. I think the assistant manager had taken around $30,000.

    I did the math once — assuming the manager worked five days per week for 2.5 years, she would have had to steal over $1,300 per day! Even ten plus years later, I still don’t understand how no one in their accounting department noticed that income was down compared to previous years or there were an inordinate number of voided sales.

      1. The OG Anonsie*

        Someone I know had this happen where she worked, and it wasn’t that he was just stealing cash straight up. He was in charge of ordering, assigning, and tracking use of some electronics including cell phones for the business. So he would order some electronic equipment that could be re-sold easily, create a paper trail claiming it had been stationed in a certain department or a certain person, then take the item and sell it. He had records of where everything supposedly was and since he handled this process for thousands of employees across an entire region of offices, it was easy to slip them in between all the legitimate stuff. Since he was in charge of the items and the paper trail, it was also easy to cover up.

    2. Carl Akeley*

      …I think I worked at that same very well known museum, though I left before it was discovered. But I suppose it might have another well known museum where a single front-end staff member stole close to a million dollars. :)

      (There were staff layoffs during the time the money was stolen, too – there are people who might still have jobs if that manager hadn’t been so free with the museum’s cash. That’s what really pisses me off.)

      1. You can Google it*

        If it’s known for its biennial and American art, and finally moved to a fancy new building, then yes it may be the same one.

        1. Carl Akeley*

          NOPE. Totally different museum, known for dinosaurs and mummies. That’s sort of bonkers.

          (Though, I looked it up – our thief took 8 or 9 years to steal all that money. Yours was more efficient.)

          1. NEW YEAR, NEW ME*

            If it’s the UWS one in NYC, I worked in the retail area for a new months. They counted everything down to the penny.

        2. Mockingjay*

          Can you imagine the cover letter? “Efficiently transferred funds at 50% faster rate at X museum than the competition at Y museum.”

          1. Bryce*

            I can get that, I totally would do the same (were I someone to embezzle) but once you report it you *stop*. That’s the point.

    4. tink*

      That the assistant manager was ALSO stealing actually made me crack up, even though this is really terrible overall.

    5. Ama*

      Geez. I had a boss who stole six figures over the course of a decade, but he did it by exploiting some big loopholes in my then-employer’s reimbursement system (turned out accounts payable never checked credit card reconciliations and cash reimbursements against each other, so he would charge something on his card and then also request reimbursement) and also being one of those “helpful” bosses who would do his own expense reports instead of handing them off to the admin “because you have so much other work to do.” He got caught because when he became my boss and transferred internally from the position where he’d done all the embezzlement, his successor at the old position spotted some red flags in the budget and triggered an audit.

    6. I did google it.*

      Holy mackerel, that’s insane. I’ve worked in arts nonprofits large and small, and this boggles the mind. How did anyone not catch this?

    8. LS*

      At a job years ago, our CEO decided to do some “community outreach” (as it was explained to us) and hired someone, let’s call him Bob, who was described by our very unhappy manager as a “gang member”. I’m not sure whether Bob had a criminal record or what his background was (but the police did show up at the office to arrest him one day, for domestic violence – he came back to work a few days later). Bob had none of the skills we needed and there was no plan in place to train him.

      My manager was afraid of Bob and didn’t know what to do. The problem was solved a few months later when we arrived on a Monday morning to find 3 of our computers missing. When security checked the access logs they found that Bob had been in and out of the building 3 times at 2am Saturday morning. Some agreement was reached whereby the company didn’t phone the police and Bob went away and didn’t come back.

      True story.

  34. NicoleK*

    Our office building was used as a get out the vote call center during an election year over a weekend. I had left a cheap blue zippered hoodie on the back of my chair. It was gone when I went in to work on Monday.

    I also had someone “borrowed” my coffee mug for an extended period of time. Eventually I got it back and started leaving it on my desk.

  35. Manders*

    One of my bosses at my last job was paranoid about stealing, to the point that I wasn’t even allowed to have a key to my own office. Most of the other offices didn’t lock, but mine did since I was working out of a converted storage room. The problem was that I often came in earlier than the person with the key, so I’d have to clock in on someone else’s computer and then just wander around doing nothing until someone with the key showed up to let me in.

    The weirdest part is that all the expensive portable electronics I could have run off with were kept in the unlocked offices. I don’t know why the pallets of books and the ancient desktop in my office were so much more valuable in his mind.

  36. Amy*

    Had an employee who complained her lunch was missing every day from the shared fridge and breakroom. (Employee’s had set lunch breaks due to the nature of our business- her’s was 1:00pm). She pointed at one of her coworkers so I sat the accused down and point blank asked her about it. She came right out and said “damn right I did it! She shouldn’t have been sleeping with my man!” Turns out the culprit’s lunch was at 11:00am and she would eat both lunches (not throw the other one away, but eat both). Apparently, these two 40 – 50 year olds were dating the same guy.

  37. Not Australian*

    I had a Box-and-Cox desk share thing with another worker; I worked until lunchtime and then she took over. We had a drawer each for our personal items, but I had to leave my bottled water on top of the desk because it was too tall for the drawer. One day I came in and my bottled water was missing. I was told ‘Oh, Pansy threw that away, she didn’t like having it around.’ Next time I saw Pansy I very solemnly warned her that we had a sneak-thief in the office and some mean so-and-so had stolen my bottled water. She didn’t fess up, but from then on my drinks went unmolested. And no, unfortunately, we didn’t have a kitchen or anywhere else that I could have kept it instead…

    3. Boötes*

      Before I looked up the reference, I imagined Box & Cox was a brogrammery nickname for either
      1) a one-room, all-male startup or
      2) see 1) but with 1 token female.

  38. DataQueen*

    A few years ago I held a barbeque at my house for all of my coworkers (we’re a very close company), and I lived with a roommate at the time who also worked there. I did the cooking, bought the booze, decorated – all she had to do was get the paper plates and forks and knives and stuff. She stole entire packages of them from our office – and they are really easily identifiable because we use these organic plant based disposables, and they were clearly from the office. And proceeded to put them out for our coworkers (and bosses) to use! I was mortified. No one said anything, but it was Not Cool.

      1. Fiennes*

        Certainly I can imagine the roommate believing this was entirely proper, even if that office’s particular politics made it look weird. It’s not de facto underhanded, so I’m reluctant to think of that as theft.

        1. Laura*

          No, DataQueen put in a financial and cooking contribution, while the roommate just nicked stuff. If this had been a work social event, DQ would have been reimbursed.

      2. DataQueen*

        Nope, it was a social event that we decided to hold, separate from the organization’s social calendar, as a purely social gathering in our home. The company shouldn’t (nor would i ask) pay a dime just because all my friends happen to be my coworkers!

    2. Your Weird Uncle*

      Obscure Simpsons reference:

      Bart Simpson broadcasting Springfield’s darkest secrets on the radio: ‘And schoolmistress Edna Krabapple has been stealing supplies from the school cafeteria….’

      Skinner having candelit dinner at Edna’s apartment, looking around in disbelief: Edna! How could you! Don’t get up. I’ll bus my own tray.

  39. Amadeo*

    I am fortunate in that I’ve never had anything stolen at work of any significance. I did buy one of those $5 Little Caesar’s pizzas once when I worked creative at the regional daily paper and stuck it in the break room fridge with my name on for subsequent lunches. The next day there was just one piece missing.

    I guess someone back in packing got hungry overnight.

  40. RadManCF*

    I once brought in some leftover pizza in its original box for lunch while working a turbine outage. This was a day or so after the nightshift had had a pizza party, with pizza from the same restaurant. I grabbed my pizza from the fridge, and noticed that a piece was missing. I noticed one of my coworkers eating the piece. I waited for him to finish, and then asked him “So, did you enjoy my lunch?”. I wasn’t that pissed; I hadn’t thought to put my name on the box to differentiate it from the other leftovers. I got a bit of a chuckle from using the line “did you enjoy my lunch”. And like I figured, my coworker had honestly thought my pizza was from the pizza party. He was pretty shocked to find out it wasn’t and he paid me for it the following day.

    1. JanetM*

      Recently, someone sent out an email to the group saying, essentially, “I don’t know who you are, but I accidentally ate your frozen turkey dinner thinking it was my same-brand frozen chicken dinner. You are welcome to the chicken, or I will buy you a new turkey dinner; your choice. Sorry!”

    2. Dust Bunny*

      I once knocked a Diet Coke out of our fridge and it sprung a leak, so I had to empty it and recycle the can. I sent out an apology email and offered to buy a new one but everyone swore it wasn’t theirs, even the office Diet Coke junkie. Never did find out whose Coke I ruined.

      My office doesn’t have a food-stealing problem, though, or at least my department doesn’t. Thank goodness. That kind of thing gets old really fast.

      1. Rebecca in Dallas*

        Haha, I did something similar! I was trying to get my lunch out of the (over-stuffed) office fridge. In doing so, I accidentally knocked over a takeout box, which sent the plastic fork onto the floor (for whatever reason, the fork was just sitting on top of the box). I felt terrible, I didn’t want to put the soiled fork back on the box and I didn’t want them to think that someone had stolen their fork. So I threw away the fork, got a plastic fork from my desk (I keep a box of them in case I need one), which was obviously different than the original plastic fork. So I attached a post-it note to the new fork saying, “Sorry, I accidentally dropped your fork on the floor, please accept this replacement.”

        They must have thought I was crazy.

  41. Temperance*

    At my last job, one of the receptionists from one of our clients (shared office space) stole my debit card out of my wallet and bought a bunch of stuff at Cabela’s. I noticed it was missing when I went to make an ATM run later that afternoon and caught the pending charges.

    She stole other stuff from other people, and stopped showing up 2 days later.

    1. MommaTRex*

      At least you weren’t accused of buying the stuff at Cabela’s yourself and framing her for theft! LOL

  42. BePositive*

    My work has teams and our team name is the Avengers. I had lego minifigure on my desk of the original characters. Someone stole the Iron man

    And one time. My sushi lunch

    1. Manders*

      Stealing desk toys is extra weird to me. The whole purpose of keeping them at work is to display them, so are you going to display your stolen goods? Are you going to give stolen toys to your kids? So odd.

      1. Decima Dewey*

        I’ve given up on desk ornaments, after losing a toy lizard, a Monsters University toy, and even a cast iron toy frog.

        Most recently, a patron asked to use my tape dispenser. I handed it over, she promised to return it when she was through, then walked out with it!

      2. BePositive*

        Yes, they only serve to be visually enjoyed. If I stole that I’d connect it to the theft I had to do to get it

      3. dappertea*

        You’d be surprised. I once picked up a little Halloween keychain beanie baby from Kroger when grabbing lunch, and I rigged it so it hung from my cubicle cabinet. My new coworker at the desk next to mine went nuts over how cute she thought it was, and she asked me if she could have it!

        I was a little surprised, but I told her no because I had just bought it, but they were really cheap at Kroger if she wanted to get one of her own. I came in the next day, and my little beenie baby was gone from my desk because she had taken it and put it on her own! She really just moved it over there like I wouldn’t notice when she literally sat right next to me.

    2. Mike S*

      I had a VP steal one of the toys off my desk, while she was working with another team over the weekend. The members of the team recognized the toy and made her return it to me on Monday. I even got an apology.

    3. kible*

      glad we don’t have thieves around here that i know of, as it’d be super obvious if someone stole any of my desk toys as they’re pretty unique (a japanese import figure and a “this is fine” dog)

    4. CMA1997*

      Not actually stealing – at my work quite a few people have desk toys. A couple of guys share(d) a couple of Sesame Street toys that ended up being taken. A Facebook page was created showing the toys travels and how much they missed their “parents”. Kept work colleagues amused lol.

  43. Amber Rose*

    At my last job, I couldn’t keep a pen to save my life. I’m not even kidding, the office manager would go out and buy like, 100 packs of cheap Bic pens, and they would be gone in a week. One night I had four pens on my desk, and the next morning every single one was gone. I learned to keep a couple in my purse at all times and take them home with me. Probably half our budget was friggin’ pens.

    At this job, oddly enough, people would raid my desk drawer for hand cream and/or the stash of OTC painkillers I keep there (chronic migraine sufferer) up until I started telling people to just go ahead if they needed them. Now they ask permission first. Also I have a roll of Hello Kitty duct tape that went mysteriously missing while I was on vacation, and then just as mysteriously returned a couple weeks later.

    1. Bridget*

      Ha, I too am the office drug dealer thanks to my migraines! People are always good about asking me though and won’t usually just go through my stuff to find the Excedrin, which I’m grateful for!

    3. Your Weird Uncle*

      I used to work in an office that decided they wasted too much of their budget on office supplies, so they announced they were going to completely stop buying paperclips.

      After that, paperclips became like some sort of prison currency. People would hoard them, and give them out in exchange for favors.

  44. Seven If You Count Bad John*

    I worked in a wood products plant and kept a pair of good workboots in a locker there. There were two shifts, and I worked the first shift. I left the locker unlocked one night and the next morning ONE boot was gone. Nobody ever fessed up. I can understand stealing a pair of boots but only taking one?

    1. Shrunken Hippo*

      I worked in a shoe store that only had the right shoes on display. You would be amazed at how many shoes were stolen. I still remember one time a woman was caught shop lifting in our store and mall security came and found out that she had a stash of stolen items in a little back corner of the mall. After looking at the stash they found 25 shoes from different stores, and all of them were just the right shoe. What was her plan?!? Mysteries of life.

      1. Decima Dewey*

        There used to be a store in Philadelphia that did the same thing. There was a guy with a basso profundo voice who’d call out “Who needs a mate to a shoe, ladies? Who needs a mate to a shoe?”

        1. Kvothe*

          I have one that’s almost as good…two competitors in my area display different sides of the shoes (ie. Store A displays the right shoe and Store B displays the left shoe) and they sell a lot of the same brands and what not so whenever they notice a shoe stolen they call up the other store and tell them to keep an eye out for shoplifters and its comically hilarious how many shoplifters they’ve caught this way

    2. President Porpoise*

      There were companies ages ago who would import all their left shoes through California and all their right shoes in New York and then marry them up somewhere in country and distribute them for sale. Somehow, this reduced the duties that they paid. CBP caught wind of it and stopped it eventually – but it was pretty creative.

    3. zaracat*

      That just sounds malicious.

      I work in hospital operating theatres and people’s work shoes are stored on open shelves in the change rooms. You wouldn’t think that people would steal stuff potentially contaminated with body fluids and god-knows-what-else but they do, especially the more expensive brands of clogs. I wear fairly cheap gumboots myself and when a single one of the pair disappeared I assumed they had gotten separated during cleaning of the change rooms and then later someone had thrown out what they thought was a single boot. Now I keep them together in a bag.

  45. Emmie*

    My former coworkers stole a manager’s mini-stuffed troll like doll. Each of the manager’s several reports then took turns taking pictures all around our major city of the doll, and one person emailed the pics to the manager from a dummy email address. This went on for weeks! :) A picture of stuffed animal at a rival football game. A picture of the doll at a local bar. At our office printer. On vacation at the beach. Camping. In our office lunchroom. Bike rides.
    At a staff meeting incognito that the manager attended. Doing touristy stuff in our major city. It was, obviously, for humor and VERY funny. The manager definitely saw the humor in it. The ring leader gave the doll back to the manager after a few months.

    1. Anon for Shame*

      This is great!

      Unfortunately this brings me shame. Over 20 years ago, I once stole a stuffed animal from a desk to do the same thing and then completely and utterly failed to complete the prank (before cell phones and digital cameras, this prank was much harder although not unheard of). Then a friend told me that he knew I stole it. I just returned it, but the explanation probably sounded like an excuse and I just seemed like a thief who got caught.

  46. Ms. Mad Scientist*

    I used to work in a hospital. EVERYTHING went missing if it wasn’t bolted down. Baby scales, blood pressure machines-we tried labeling them but they “wandered off” to other floors. The topper was a patient that left against medical advice and tried to take an IV pole with them.

    I also had my purse stolen once. My office was off the lobby so anyone-patient, visitor, or staff- could have walked in. I’ve made a point of locking up my valuables ever since.

    1. Snark*

      My wife used to work in a big outpatient medical center and, wow, this. Patients would just rifle drawers while waiting and clean ’em out.

      1. Archie Goodwin*

        My mother told me a story from her days as a university receptionist in the good ol’ USSR:

        A student’s husband came into the office one day to pick up some work for his wife, but the professor wasn’t available so he had to wait. He spent a couple of minutes poking around the reception area looking at things before announcing, “I could never work here. There’s nothing to steal.”

        I think this would have been a “does not compute” moment had there been computers in the office at the time…

        1. InkyPinky*

          That’s actually a very Soviet thing. No one survived without that type of petty getting of things, the black market and whatnot. An office with stealable stuff meant social stature but could also mean survival, depending on the “stuff” (ie. a medical clinic).

    2. Artemesia*

      I had a colleague whose purse was stolen out of her file cabinet while she was working in the office. Someone came in pretending to empty the waste basket and apparently used that cover to steal the purse.

    3. LoiraSafada*

      My dad still recounts a horror story when a patient stole an entire Rx pad back in the days before everything was managed digitally. Fortunately it was realized immediately and they were able to notify the relevant third parties.

      1. Manders*

        Ugh, I once worked for an absent-minded doctor who lost an Rx pad. Luckily, the guy who found it was so dumb that on the Xanax prescription he wrote for himself, he put his birthday (including his birth year) on the line for the date the prescription was issued. That was a fun call from the pharmacy.

      2. Someone else*

        I worked as an ER secretary and the person who trained me apparently stole a prescription pad and was selling off individual sheets. The people buying them would write something ridiculous like 180 OxyContin or something(ERs don’t prescribe more than a few days’ worth and don’t do stuff like OxyContin.) One of those people was caught and ratted her out, and she faced criminal charges. She had the gall to show up for her next shift! She was escorted out by security…

    4. zora*

      My mom worked in an elementary school where years ago someone got in at a time when most teachers were out of their rooms (I think lunch time?) and stole the purse out of every single teacher’s desk on the first floor.

      They then had all teachers lock desk drawers and classrooms whenever they left, but I always thought that was sad and mean, like stealing candy from orphans. These are just underpaid teachers trying to make the world a better place :o(

    5. Anonymous 40*

      I work for a big medical center. One of the nurses told me recently that they found a mobile workstation from the 5th floor of the children’s hospital all the way across the street at the psych hospital. There’s no tunnel between them, so someone had to wheel the thing down the elevator, out the lobby, and across the street for it to end up over there.

    6. nonegiven*

      How many people can take that IV out by themselves?

      If I decided to leave a hospital AMA, I might be wheeling that pole myself and I’ve come close to that. I’ve wheeled that thing out into the waiting room cursing a blue streak. Hospitals freak me the hell out, never leave me alone in one.

  47. AndersonDarling*

    My earbuds were stolen. Cheap $5 ear buds from the dollar store. And not to be gross, but they were in my ears and well, they weren’t pretty no more. I’ve convinced myself that they just got sucked up by the vacuum cleaner because I hate to think that someone else put them in their ears.

    1. Brandy*

      My jerk of a brother just throws his in the floor. At Work. Then they go in his ears. Of course the fool also has a wallet so thick (because he has everything in it) that its uncomfortable to sit on. So he takes it out and leaves it on his shelf in his cube.

    2. C*

      My mom’s ear buds get stolen every couple of months. She only uses cheap ones at work. But it is always at night that they disappear when the only people there are the cleaning crew. Maybe they want to listen to music on their phone while they work & forgot their earbuds?

    3. an anon*

      I thought that this had happened to me recently, and very reluctantly went to report it to the office manager, only to be told that there was a mysterious pair of earbuds on the table in the break room! It must have gotten hooked in the cleaning crew’s equipment or somesuch, and they didn’t know where to return it to.

      I put them in my ears without cleaning them. I probably should have reconsidered that.

  48. Nervous Accountant*

    I…just don’t understand people who steal things at work. Like….why? I don’t know, this just makes me so mad.

    1. beanie beans*

      I’ve read about a study that found that it’s typically managers and above because they feel entitled. So crazy.

    2. Iris Eyes*

      In a lot of cases for the adrenaline rush. It might be not about needing/wanting the object but more so about needing the thrill of taking the object. *see story of stealing only one shoe of a pair above

      Then of course their are people who have like zero sense of personal boundaries. Or are using it as a way to get back at someone for something.

  49. Zip Silver*

    The worst that’s happened to me was somebody stole my Crockpot after I brought it in for a Thanksgiving pot luck. I wasn’t very thankful for having given it away.

    2. Red 5*

      My crockpot was a birthday present that was pretty special so I would be _livid_ if it disappeared like that. I also tend to be overprotective of it for that reason though. It only leaves my house on very rare occasions.

  50. The ReFa*

    In Germany, there are legally mandated notice periods for employer and employee (usually, at least on month). However, theft is reason for immediate termination. Some companies want to get rid of people right away so they start looking for reasons to fire someone. One of my old managers tried to terminate someone because she ‘stole’ a post-it sticker to write a personal note on (during her break). Writing notes was always okay before. It was a big company and HR stopped the termination before courts and the media were involved. That manager was later caught embezzling several thousand Euro, fired, and tried to sue the company for unfair termination.

    Other German companies have made the news because they fired people for ‘stealing’ 0.5 Cent of energy when by charging their phone or because a cheap pen disappeared (it can be sufficient to suspect someone of a theft, you don’t always need to prove it.)

  51. Callalily*

    We once had a food thief at our grocery store – the owner dressed up like a homeless man and caught her shoving a salad into her purse at the end of her shift. It was insanity because we were all freaked by the frumpy homeless guy stalking the salad bar and ready to call the police.

    In my office we had people stealing the food of the pregnant receptionist (like really?). After posting a note shaming the thief, the guy doing it went into her M&M yogurt and stole only the M&M topping! She cried and the boss drove to the nearest store to get her some M&Ms since she couldn’t stand the taste of yogurt without them. To this day we never discovered the thief.

      1. Liane*

        Not just evil, but dangerous! A good friend of mine would not advocate violence over talking things out, and seldom even raised her voice. While sympathizing with pregnant-&-miserable me, she told me about someone trying to steal something off her plate while she was pregnant & she stabbed them in the hand with her fork! Ten years later and she didn’t regret it–she was gleeful, almost bragging. “It was just like Guinan and Q!”

        1. nonegiven*

          My husband did that. His brother was 6 years older. They were staying with grandparents and BIL kept snatching bacon off DH’s plate. DH stabbed him with a fork and left it sticking out of his hand. BIL stopped stealing food off his plate while he was eating.

      2. motherofdragons*

        Pregnant lady here. Definitely evil. Especially in the “Only 3-4 items actually sound good to eat, thanks morning sickness!” phase.

    3. JanetM*

      Many years ago, I was at a fast food place with a salad bar. I watched in horror as a man came in, grabbed the serving spoon out of the potato salad, ate several bites, and put the spoon back in the dish.

      I promptly told the manager, who (a) ejected the guy, and (b) removed and replaced (at least I hope he replaced!) the contaminated dish.

    5. Bess*

      *slow whistle*

      It takes a certain something to steal food multiple times from a pregnant person. Just…wow.

  52. Kara*

    A $6 bottle of EOS hand lotion from the bathroom. No idea who took it, or really when. Just notice one day it had disappeared and it was no where close to empty.

  53. exuviae*

    My coworker bought a KitKat on a Monday, in anticipation of a tough week ahead. Whenever things got a bit too stressful, she would remember the cold chocolate bar waiting for her in the fridge and push forward. Friday afternoon, she finally went to claim her chocolatey reward – and as you probably guessed by now, it had been stolen that very day.
    After an office-wide angry email (“I hope you’re happy, you’ve ruined my entire week”) an entire team of 5 suddenly got up and announced they were going to the shop downstairs to get “Friday afternoon snackies” (which they have never done before or since) and the KitKat magically reappeared.
    To this day, we don’t know who the real Spartacus was.

  54. InstructNotDestruct*

    I had a coworker who kept chocolate bars in his desk. He had tons and would happily share with anyone if asked. For a good six month period, he’d notice that a pack of four would go missing over lunch, but the next day the thief would replace it the next day over lunch. The total quantity would always be replaced, but it was never replaced with the same kind/brand of chocolate. For instance a four pack of Snickers would disappear and the next day there was a four pack of OhHenrys. Very strange, but also a fun opportunity for chocolate tourism?

      1. lonestarbrooklyn*

        When I did a European backpacking tour after undergrad, I did some real chocolate tourism. No matter how poor I perceived myself to be, I would allow myself one interesting/native candy bar or pastry per day. Over the course of 11 weeks in 8 countries and 11 cities, I was a pretty happy hostel-er. Good times.

  55. Serin*

    I have a confession!

    The summer I turned sixteen, I was hired to clean a kindergarten. It was closed for the summer and completely deserted. I was involuntarily on a diet as usual and I was hungry all the time.

    There was a fridge/freezer in the teacher area. In it I found a frozen tub of Cool Whip. Over the course of that summer I ate the entire thing, spoonful by spoonful, leaving an empty tub in the freezer.

    I wonder if it ever occurred to them that their mild-mannered janitor was the culprit? Or if they just thought someone had committed the lesser crime of using up the last serving and putting the tub back empty?

      1. BookCocoon*

        I took this to mean they were dealing with food insecurity, not a strict parent, but I suppose it could be either.

        1. OlympiasEpiriot*

          Damn. My mind went directly to only the one meaning. Yeah, easily could have been that. :-(

          I’ve dealt with both but ma used to use the word all the time, so, well, that triggered it.

        2. Serin*

          Nope, Olympias has it right — though when you’re a kid with little opportunity to make your own food choices, there’s not really much difference.

      2. Serin*

        [fist bump]

        And I don’t know about you, but none of Mom’s years of hard work succeeded in making me into a slim adult; I’m as fat at fifty as I was at five.

        1. Observer*

          No surprises. The kind of diet that keeps a kid hungry all the time tends to backfire, especially in the long term.

    2. Trig*

      I am really enjoying this image of you sneakily eating the Cool Whip. Take that, parent-who-forced-you-to-be-on-a-diet!

      (I am not enjoying the idea of an enforced diet, of course. That’s awful. But the Cool Whip eating image made me cackle.)

      1. Serin*

        I once ate an entire cake mix, too. I don’t mean I made a cake and ate it; I mean I discovered that the powdered mix was sugary and fatty, so I ate it with a spoon over the course of several months.

        If there are any parents reading, I can tell you that it would have been far better for my mother just to tolerate having a kid who wasn’t thin.

        1. Longtime Listener, First Time Caller*

          Ummm, I’ve totally done the same thing, except with brownie mix. I hid it under my bed and ate it covertly. My mom found it. I didn’t get in trouble; I just remember her giving me a really puzzled look.

        2. Sparkly Librarian*

          Oh, man, I did that with a box of cake mix when I was a kid, too. Until the day when I took the box out of the pantry, opened it, and saw all the weevils crawling in the opened package.

    3. Dorothy Zbornak*

      Ashamed to admit I did something similar, but in college. My freshman year, I was constantly on a diet, so I didn’t have any food in my dorm room. When my roommate went away for the weekend, I would raid her food drawer in the middle of the night because I’d be so hungry. I never took much, usually something like a couple of rice cakes. I’m sure she noticed, but she never said anything.

    4. StrikingFalcon*

      “I was involuntarily on a diet as usual and I was hungry all the time.”

      I’m really sorry you went through that.

    5. crookedfinger*

      I did that at my own house for the same reason. Growing kids really should not have their food restricted…

    6. Elizabeth West*

      We used to do this to the Cool Whip my mum kept in the freezer. Drove her crazy. We also ate all the chocolate chips and if she bought a bag of coconut, we whittled away at that too. But frozen Cool Whip is so GOOOOOOOOD.

      One time, when I was five, she got a thing of Jiffy Pop popcorn (the long-handled foil packet you popped on the stove). I stole it and took it into the hallway and opened the top, because I’d seen it puff up on TV and I wanted to see how it worked. Of course that rendered it inoperable. She was mad and refused to buy another one, and I bawled my head off. In fact, she NEVER bought one again, not ever.

      Thinking about it now, we probably didn’t have that much money back then and that was a special treat. Which I ruined. :(

        1. Bawab*

          There was nothing at all wrong about her mother being mad about something she knew she wasn’t supposed to do. It’s a completely normal and reasonable reaction.

    7. Radiant Peach*

      I was a staff member at a summer camp last year. It’s run by a private volunteer-based nonprofit so the camps take place in a local school that’s closed during the summer. The first time I went to the teacher’s lounge (which was contracted to be used by staff and counselors as our meeting room) I opened the fridge and was greeted with the smell of the MOST RANCID MILK I had ever encountered that kept stinking up the room even after the fridge was closed. It was the only thing in the fridge, which we were told we were free to use. Obviously I threw it away (far far away) but after we left the site and the teachers came back to the school the board 0f the local chapter of our organization received an email from the school administration complaining that we had stolen from their fridge. Almost lost our contract with the school for throwing out rancid milk!

  56. xoeric*

    I work in a university so it’s common for students to leave things behind or take other people’s things. I once had a pretty noticeable mousepad (won’t name exactly what it was, but it had characters from a popular cartoon on it) stolen straight from my desk, and I found it several months later sitting in an empty drawer in a shared student cubicle space. There’s also a student who has the exact same plastic container as me except theirs is cleaner than mine (I eat a lot of food that stains plastic containers!) but I guess they don’t notice that because they routinely take it from me. I stole it back once but they stole it again, so I just gave up and got new ones.

  57. CMDRBNA*

    I had a mug stolen at my last job, and the circumstances were weird – I put it on the counter in our kitchen while I went to the bathroom before I was going to come back and refill it, and it was gone. Vanished. It was just a mug, but it was given to me by a friend in high school so it had some sentimental value. I never got it back, either, even after emailing about it, and it was just a mug with a dumb cartoon cat on it.

    We had a lot of theft at my last workplace, even after we locked access to our floors, including stolen credit cards and purses. I am pretty convinced that some staff were in on it – somehow someone knew to go into one particular staff person’s office during a meeting who had cash for an event that day and go into her purse and no one else’s – and we also had a lot of embezzlement at that company. Really badly run organization, this was just one of the examples.

    We also held events at that office and would sometimes buy enough for a few events and store it with our department’s label all over it (stuff like snacks and sodas) and it would ALL be gone within a day or two.

    Kind of revealing of what kind of culture that place had, for sure.

    1. JanetM*

      I had just the opposite happen — I accidentally left my not-at-all-distinctive mug in the kitchen when I went on vacation, and found it in the exact same spot when I returned. I felt very fortunate.

      We’ve occasionally had people’s mugs picked up out of the kitchen by someone who thought the mug was one of the generics, but they’ve always been returned upon request.

      1. medium of ballpoint*

        Back when I was a receptionist, one of our staff left their mug on the reception desk. I sent out an email so they could come and claim it and got no response at all, which was weird in a small, closed office. When I was washing it out at the end of the day, I realized it had a subtle pattern of rabbits, erm, getting down to business. Super funny, if not work appropriate, and then the radio silence made sense. I always felt bad that the person had to abandon their mug.

              1. Call Me Crazy*

                There is an entire c0llection of these, can find them on ebay by doing a search for Taylor & Ng mugs.

                They are available with hippos, bears, giraffes, rabbits, elephants, donkeys, penguins and other animals.

                My grandmother worked in the housewares section of a department store the year these came out, and they flew off the shelves. The day after Christmas, lots and lots of little old ladies were lined up, appalled that the store would sell such horrible things for their precious grandkids.

                Same items, same Chrismas: My aunt and her sister exchange token gifts each year….this time, they gave each other mugs from this collection.

                And I had a few of my own, too. :)

      2. AwkwardKaterpillar*

        Actually earlier this week I caught someone using my mug – which, is kind of ridiculous since the cupboard is overflowing with company mugs. He proceeded to keep it on his desk for like 3 days.

        One of my coworkers stole it back from me. I was unreasonably fixated on this and didn’t want to confront him.

  58. Manders*

    At an old job, the company owner got into a fight with the woman he called his personal assistant. I’m pretty sure they were just dating and she was on the payroll for some reason, she never actually seemed to do personal assistant-related things but she did travel with him. He sent me home early so they could scream at each other in the office without being overheard. The next day, the personal assistant had disappeared, and so had the break room microwave. I never saw her or the microwave again.

    1. Iris Eyes*

      Possibly because the microwave was dented and blood stained?

      *I should probably not watch so many crime dramas…

  59. Rincat*

    In one of my former jobs, we didn’t have any kitchen close by so we had to wash our mugs in the bathroom. I had this really fabulously over-the-top mug with dancing cats on it, and I left it on the counter after washing it, whilst I used the bathroom. My fabulous mug was gone in seconds. I’m not sure who did it, as I thought I was alone in the bathroom, and it didn’t take me long to pee, so the thief must have been quick. I’m still sad about that mug.

  60. PB*

    On the petty side, I had a coworker who would always steal office supplies from my desk. We both floated between two locations, and our schedules were staggered so she worked at that location on the days I didn’t. We did have separate work areas, however. If she ran out of basic supplies like post-its or barcodes, she’d just take mine so that she didn’t have to walk to the supply closet. It took me a long time to figure out. I’d come in on Monday and SWEAR that there had been more barcodes when I left on Wednesday, but I thought I was just misremembering for the longest time.

  61. MK*

    Re the Pyrex dish, could it be that someone dropped it accidentally and it broke, and then instead of apologizing then did this?

    My trainer says that people often steal AC remote controls from gyms. What use could they possibly have for them?

    Sadly, in the only case of weird workplace theft I experienced, I turned out to be the villain: one day the key to my team’s staff restroom disappeared. More than a month later I found it in the pocket of a blazer I rarely wear…

    1. JanetM*

      We had a doorbell in my old office hallway, for reasons. The pushbutton was next to my door, and the ringer was at the end of the hallway, sitting up near the ceiling on a cable conduit box.

      Someone stole the bell, but not the button. We were all very confused.

    2. Dust Bunny*

      Pyrex is collectible. If it was a style or pattern they liked, they could easily have swiped it.

      I never, ever, bring dishes I don’t want to lose to public events, unless I know I’ll be right there to watch them. Always disposables.

      2. Charlotte Collins*

        I agree. I once had a cheapo aluminum tray stolen from me after a potluck. It was more the inconvenience than anything else that bothered me, especially since I wasn’t able to find that style again, and nobody wants to steal my plastic replacement tray that I like even less.

        Actually, I’ve had two stolen. The trays came in a pack of two. I should have bought more packs.

        1. Specialk9*

          It’s just so strange that they carefully dumped the food into a baggie, as they stole the Pyrex. You can tell they felt virtuous as they stole from a co-worker.

    3. Christmas Carol*

      We aren’t stealing the A/C remotes, we are removing them so that the ambient temperature of the gym can’t be reset to 57 degrees F, in January.

      1. Alli525*

        Hey, it might be cold outside, but I still hate getting sweaty in January. I WISH my gym were 57 degrees all the time!!

        1. Charlotte Collins*

          Agreed! I get warm easily, and I’ve nearly fainted in a gym that was too warm.

          But as long as everyone else is comfortable…

    4. W. S. Gilbert*

      This wasn’t a case of stealing; it was actually worse.

      My graduate research involved biological contaminants so it had to be conducted at a facility with high security measures. As a grad student, I was the low person on the totem pole, so when the facility made a new hire, my research and I were moved from a half office into a closet. Not kidding. A closet.

      My procedure required specific glassware, including a very large beaker. At the end of each experimental run I always sterilized my glassware myself and put it back on the shelf, so that it would be available and in the same place for my next run.

      Someone went into MY closet, used my big beaker, broke a slice out of it, and instead of disposing of it safely with the other (potentially infected) sharps, fitted it back together and turned it around so that the break was facing the wall.

      I was midway through my run, with infected water flowing, and I grabbed my beaker. The broken piece slid through my glove and into my palm and all of a sudden I had a much more exciting biological cleanup to deal with.

      Fortunately the Cranky Technician wasn’t mean to me when I stumbled in asking for help, I assume because I was bleeding. (That was the one time he was nice to me.) I had to go to the med center and get shots.

      No one ever admitted to breaking my beaker. I’m still certain that it was the new hire.

      1. zora*

        That is AWFUL, and sounds so scary! I can’t understand people doing things like this when dangerous items are involved, ugh.

    5. Tathren*

      I’ve turned out to be an accidental thief too! I once pocketed the key to one of the merchandise cages at my retail job while I carried something up to the register and forgot to put it back. Luckily I found it two days later when I grabbed my (company) jacket for my next shift. I didn’t hear the end of that one for awhile. I’ve also almost gone home with radios from my retail job, but those I usually remember by the time I get out to my car.

      1. You can Google it*

        At a different museum, I once accidentally took the key to the craft supply closet. It was a Friday evening and snowing heavily when I got home and realized it was in my pocket. Because I didn’t want to trek all the way back, I called in to tell the security department I had forgotten to return it. It was a Smithsonian museum, and the security officer (who took his job _very_ seriously) told me I would be written up for taking Federal property. Like I had intentionally stolen a key from The Government. Really? After arguing about it for a minute I said, “Fine, but can you also put in your report that I called YOU to inform you I had said property and told you I would return it on Monday?” I don’t think I did get written up by HR, but maybe the security department had a file on me because of it.

        1. DArcy*

          The way my office handles it is that mistakenly taking a key home is not a serious offense if you bring it back as soon as you realize you have it, but you get written up if you insist that you’ll only bring it back “on my next shift”. We’re a 24-7 security company, clients generally issue us only one key to their property, and not being able to respond to a client because an employee is too lazy to fix their mistake promptly is not okay.

          1. sstabeler*

            Yes, but that was a 24/7 security company, and the key is vitally important. This was a key to a craft supply closet, and the museum employee could be reasonably certain said key would have been absolutely unnecessary until Monday- when said employee was planning to return it. I’d be legitimately cross if they insisted on the immediate return of an unimportant key when it would quite likely mean needing to drive in the snow- aka, risking getting into an accident unnessecarily.

            Also, there’s no need to go straight to threatening a writeup when an employee is being co-operative. “We really need that key back ASAP, not waiting until Monday” would be a far better initial approach.

      2. stitchinthyme*

        My first job in high school was in retail, and I got promoted to head cashier a couple years later. One of our duties was to do periodic “pulls” from the registers — when a cashier got more than about $200 in the register, they were supposed to call a manager (or the head cashier) to take out some money, so that in case of a robbery there would never be a huge amount of money to steal. I was supposed to take the money I pulled right to the office so the manager on duty could put it in the safe, but if they weren’t in the office at the moment, I had to just stick it in a pocket until I could find them. (You can probably guess where this is going…)

        So one night I totally forgot to give $200 to the manager — I realized it after I got home that night and it was still in my pocket. I brought it in first thing the next day; thankfully, I did not get into trouble for it, although the manager was miffed because she had wondered why the receipts didn’t balance the night before.

      3. Annie Mouse*

        I’ve taken radios home before. My old company didn’t have 24 hr vehicles so we wouldn’t have anyone to hand them over to. I’ve been known to hang my trousers over the back of a chair and hear the thud of the radio on the back of it. Not good at 3 in the morning when the next crew’s out at 8!!

    6. Amy*

      When I worked at a bank people would drive off with the capsule from the drive thru in their car. Sometimes they would make it back sometimes they wouldn’t. I found one sitting outside the front door when I was opening once.

      1. Rebecca in Dallas*

        Haha, once my dad drove off with the capsule! What’s funny is that he’d been arguing with the teller about something (I can’t remember what), so the teller thought he’d driven off with it on purpose! Really, he’d just been agitated about whatever the issue was and drove off with it on accident. So my mom got a phone call from the bank, “Ma’am, your husband has stolen our drive-thru capsule.” She was like, “Ummmm, ok well he’s not home yet, so IDK what you want me to do about it?”

        He only got a couple of blocks away before he realized he had the capsule, so he drove back to the bank and returned it, clearly after they had called my mother to tattle on him!

      2. Specialk9*

        Ha ha I can just imagine that sheepish feeling.

        Oh wait, don’t have to imagine. Drove off once with the gas filling thing still in my gas tank. Apparently they’re detachable, but cost $150 to reattach. (I’m guessing one pushes it together and it goes ‘click’.) But hey, my boneheaded mistake, so fair enough.

      3. JayeRaye*

        My branch was once gifted with a capsule from a totally different bank! But they’re all made by the same company, and that bank was our arch-rival, so…we slapped a new label on it and kept it as a spare.

  62. Kali*

    The Spicy Lunch Thief was the post that brought me to AAM; I saw someone talking about it on another site.

    The only thing I’ve ever had stolen was a library book that I left in the crew room. Oh, and my phone, but that wasn’t a coworker, it was while I was sitting just outside the building, eating lunch.

  63. CMDRBNA*

    Oh, back when I went through a brief soda drinking phase during my first office job, I would leave an entire case of Diet Coke with my name written all over it in the refrigerator, and every single can would get stolen. I probably made the least money of every other person at that office. Also indicative of the type of place it was!

    1. Anon today...and tomorrow*

      I leave a few cans of soda in the ‘fridge here and about six months ago a new employee helped herself to two. I didn’t notice. Another employee pointed out that the soda had belonged to me. The new employee felt so bad that she went out and bought me a case of soda. I cannot imagine having a whole case stolen.

      1. CMDRBNA*

        Right? The first time it happened I figured that people had assumed the soda was up for grabs because there was no name on it, so I Sharpied my name on the box, and every.single.soda was taken.

        Honestly, I think you can tell a lot about an office by smallish stuff like this. That company was run by a thieving, unethical megalomaniac, so it kinda trickled down.

    2. Alli525*

      Yup, I learned my lesson this one… I only put one Diet Coke in the fridge at a time, and the box lives in a secret drawer at my desk.

    3. Adlib*

      We have communal sodas in our fridge that I assumed belonged to someone. I found out I was incorrect when the Diet Coke I brought from home got taken. My name wasn’t on it (small office) so I can’t really blame the taker.

  64. Here we go again*

    My coworker’s lunch was stolen from the fridge once… It was leftover mac and cheese from a small chain restaurant we had gone to where they have “Hello, I Belong to…” in a style similar to the “Hello, My name is…” name tags. She wrote “Lucinda’s Stomach” and when it was missing, a couple coworkers commented on how funny they thought the labeling was. She ended up getting candy out of the vending machine for lunch, but I felt so bad, I bought her a $1 thing of Easy Mac.

  65. Anon today...and tomorrow*

    At my last job I used to keep snacks in my desk drawer. I had bought a box of Devil Dogs and stuck them in the drawer on Monday morning. I ate one. The next day the box was empty. I shared my cubicle with another employee but he hated sugary foods so I knew it wasn’t him. Turns out a cleaning person was helping themselves to stuff from people’s desks. A lot of stuff went missing but it was all small, weird stuff that went largely unnoticed for a while: a glittery stapler brought from home, a rubber band ball that was 4 years in the making, candy, hand lotions, a small plastic keychain from Hawaii, and some decorative magnets…and that was just from our department. Our company ended up changing the cleaning company we used and the thefts stopped.

    1. Essie*

      At an old job, I used to keep a roll of quarters in my desk for emergency snack machine moments. Right after the company cheaped out from FT in-house janitors to a night contractor, the money went missing twice. Multiple people started complaining about theft left and right, but were told there was “no proof” that it was the contractors despite the exact timing.

    2. mh_ccl*

      As someone who no longer lives in the Northeast and cannot convince her family of the importance of mailing her boxes of Devil Dogs, you have my deepest sympathies. If I were a judge, I might be lenient if you faced assault charges once you found the perpetrator.

  66. PB*

    On the flip side, at my old job, we had one person who was incredibly paranoid about thefts, even though nothing was ever stolen. She wanted to put security cameras above our individual desks, pointed at us while we were working, to make sure we weren’t just taking state property and putting it in our purses. It never came to pass, fortunately.

    1. twig*

      My mom was an architectural drafter (she’s retired now) starting in the early ’80s when they were still drawing by hand. There was a guy in her office that was so paranoid about people stealing his tools (triangle, French curve, various templates etc) that he had his name and Social Security number engraved on all of them.

      I guess identity theft wasn’t such a worry in the early ’80s…

      1. Charlotte Collins*

        In the 80s, this was actually the recommended way to label expensive personal items and equipment.

        SSNs were on first driver’s licenses in my state and were used as student ID numbers in many colleges.

        1. Floundering Mander*

          This is how my sister got my driver’s license confiscated at a bar. It was her bachelorette night and she managed to forget her ID. I happened to have two (one from another state) and never got the old one cancelled, and we look very much alike, so I handed her my old one so that we didn’t have to go all the way back home. Well, the bouncer asked what “her” SSN was, and of course she didn’t know my number.

  67. all aboard the anon train*

    People here steal iphone chargers and nice headphones frequently enough that after I had mine stolen, I started locking up the new one when it wasn’t being used or I wasn’t at my desk.

    Someone stole my S’well water bottle a few weeks ago which really annoyed me because those aren’t cheap.

    At my last company people had their winter boots stolen and since we’re in New England, they were a lot of expensive winter boots. People started wearing them all day instead of changing to regular shoes, management said it was unprofessional even though we’re not customer facing, and people protested taking them off because they didn’t want them stolen. It was a mess.

    1. Dorothy Zbornak*

      I bought myself a pair of Frye winter boots last year and I’d lose my mind if they got stolen. So expensive! I don’t blame anyone at that company for wearing ’em all day.

      1. all aboard the anon train*

        A lot of what was stolen were LL Bean and Sorel boots, which is bad enough, but to do it in the middle of winter when people are the forced to go outside in flats or heels they use inside? Awful.

        1. Wait, what?*

          I’m a High School teacher in a cold climate. A few years ago, when Canada Goose jackets were at the height of their popularity, one of my students managed to sweet talk his mom into buying him one. He was so proud of that jacket. He refused to ever take it off because he was afraid of it getting stolen. So he would sit there in class with sweat dripping down his face because down-filled coats are not meant for the indoors. I asked him once why he didn’t just leave it in his locker, or even on the back of his chair. He said, “No way, Miss! Someone might boost my Goose!”

    2. Rainbow Hair Chick*

      I love my S’well water bottle! I’ve had it for two years and its well loved. Id be so angry that someone stole it. I drag that bottle all over the place – even on vacation.

      1. Elizabeth West*

        I buy cheap water bottles because I take them everywhere and sometimes I leave them (for some reason, the place I lose them most often is the doctor’s office). Same with sunglasses. But I would still be unreasonably angry if someone stole them.

  68. CitiGirl*

    Once, a few years ago, I was working in a call center on Christmas Day from 6:00am-10:00am. I had brought a bologna sandwich (just two slices of bread, mayo and a slice of bologna) to work just in case I got hungry during my shortened shift. Around 9:00am, I went to the fridge in the break room to get the sandwich, and it was gone. Who does that on Christmas Day, for god’s sake?

  69. Snickerdoodle*

    Someone stole/misplaced a projector where I work. We have multiple conference rooms and each one had it’s own projector. Went in to use one one day (I think we were going to watch World Cup over lunch) and it was just gone. The power cord, the cables, all of it. No idea if someone left it at a conference or just straight up jacked it, but it’s a running joke now.

  70. Shoe*

    I used to keep a bunch of bananas at my desk. A couple of times, someone had stolen one, but not neatly–they tore the banana off the bunch so violently that it ripped the peels of the other bananas! It was like an animal had done it. (I don’t think it was actually an animal. I am not a park ranger or anything like that!)

  71. Ayla*

    We had an recurring lunch thief for several months. Sometimes whole lunches, sometimes just elements of the lunch. The notices from HR got more and more serious, saying that thefts will result in firing and prosecution, but it didn’t faze him. Never caught the sneaky guy redhanded, but I first got suspicious of him when the time of the thefts changed when he switched to an earlier shift. Circumstantial maybe. But then the thefts stopped when he left the company.

  72. Antilles*

    This is a story I heard from my dad in the late 80’s:
    People kept stealing lunches from the break room fridge where my dad worked. Nobody ever caught the thief, but he wasn’t very discerning; he’d basically eat anything that was in there. People complained, but management just sort of ignored it. After a few weeks of this, my dad took matters into his own hands by putting dog food in a typical container and leaving it in the fridge in the morning as his ‘lunch’. It disappeared, so he repeated the next day. After a week, they had their next office-wide meeting and asked if there were any issues. Other people were reporting their lunches still being stolen and food disappearing from the fridge and as usual, the management just sort of waved it off. My dad stood up and mentioned that he’d been leaving dog food in the fridge to feed his dog after their post-work walk (well established and known throughout the office), but that had also disappeared from the fridge. Stunningly, the thefts stopped the next week.
    (Note: I don’t recommend this. Back then, it was called justice; today, it would probably spark a firing and/or lawsuit)

    1. neverjaunty*

      Over what? “I stole your lunch thinking it was people food and it turned out to be dog food, which while perfectly edible is not appetizing” is not likely to make a manager blame the guy with the stolen lunch, much less a jury.

      1. SoCalHR*

        did you read the Spicy food story? the guy got fired and he didn’t even put the spicy food in there as a trap, that’s just how he liked his food. So it would worry me nowadays to sabotage a lunch to fend off a lunch thief

        1. Fiennes*

          Did you read the update? Spicy Food Guy had legal grounds, and when he let management know the whole story and that he’d obtained legal counsel, he was hired back with a huge range. It was the HR lady who wound up out of work, for overreacting so ludicrously.

          2. stitchinthyme*

            It wasn’t just that she overreacted; apparently she was in a relationship with the thief, and that’s really why she took his side.

          3. Specialk9*

            He was hired back at twice his salary, and got put on more of a fast track!

            I love this update. They’re usually more depressing. This one is like a movie.

      2. Perse's Mom*

        A jury is likely to be amused at the story and angry at the food thief… who is the one who did the illegal thing by stealing someone else’s property. The dog owner wasn’t endangering anyone (and clearly the food thief ate several days’ worth of dog food to no ill effect); it’s just the ‘ick’ factor of eating dog food that stopped it!

    3. RVA Cat*

      I’m wondering how many lunch thieves are consuming the off-white milk in the little vials without knowing it literally is their co-worker’s….

      1. Close Bracket*

        Ewww…

        But seriously, pumping that stuff out ain’t exactly a walk in the park, and a baby can’t just go get something from the vending machine. I hope that doesn’t happen often.

  73. Snark*

    Once, an older, universally disliked coworker stole my fairly distinctive, orange, bluetooth headphones. And then proceeded to openly wear them in the office, brazenly claiming they were his when confronted. The thing is, they were still in “my devices” on my phone. And one glorious day, I walked past his desk, seething, and noticed that he was restarting his phone. While still wearing the headphones. So they weren’t actually paired with his phone.

    So I turned up the volume and pumped some death metal into his skull. He levitated.

  74. I'd Rather not Say*

    One day we had Mc Donald’s single cheeseburgers, Mc Chickens, and fries bought for us as a small thank you. Not knowing this, I’d stopped on my way and gotten a Mc Donald’s grilled chicken wrap (I still miss them…), so I decided to save it for later. Of course, someone helped themselves to it. Right, so a couple dozen small sandwiches are brought in, leftovers loose in the fridge, and someone thought one single chicken wrap in a separate bag was fair game – RUDE!

    1. Alli525*

      I mean… that’s not egregious. In the same scenario, I might have thought the chicken wrap was in a separate bag because it was a different kind of item from burgers or fries, and my other coworkers had just grabbed the other dozen wraps so this was the last one and fair game.

      That still sucks though.

  75. Michelle*

    Mentos gum and pens. I used to keep Mentos gum on my desk. A small container, behind my computer monitor. Someone had to be snooping at my desk to find it. They took all the gum and left the empty container.

    I like a particular brand of pen so I buy my own and take them to the office. Every once in awhile, I would l come in and my pens will be gone.

    I have to lock up my gum and my pens. The gum is $2 at the local Walmart and the pens are $5 for 3.

    1. DArcy*

      Pens CONSTANTLY go missing from the front desk because our security officers always have to have a pen for their field notbook when they’re out on patrol. They always “borrow” one from the desk when they forget to bring their own, and then forget to return it.

      This gets everyone yelled at when the Boss needs to borrow a pen for the same reason and there aren’t any in the tray.

  76. ThatGirl*

    At my last job, someone’s mug went missing (presumably it was drying by the sink and someone snatched it) and there were pleading notes of varying urgency until it was returned two weeks later.

    I once accidentally stole some cleaner – we often had samples and product overruns sitting around for the taking, so I grabbed a spray bottle of whiteboard cleaner for my desk, and later a sign went up saying “these are for department use, please put them back when you’re done”… oh well.

    I also knowingly stole small amounts of flavored creamer, I admit, but only in desperation from nearly full bottles and only a couple times… I didn’t use half someone’s bottle or anything.

  77. KG, Ph.D.*

    One of my coworkers in grad school constantly stole my beloved Pilot G2’s, so I started putting dots of pink nail polish (Sharpie always rubbed off) on them. That helped.

    He also hoarded our lab tools, which was really frustrating. For example, a lot of the equipment in our lab needed a 9/16″ wrench, so we had two of them, so that two people could work simultaneously in the lab. I can’t tell you how many times I found BOTH wrenches stashed in a drawer under his experiment. WTF, dude? These are communal tools, they live in the toolbox, *I* always put them back so that you can use them, stop it. Our lighters also kept disappearing (we studied combustion, so we needed to light burners on a nearly daily basis), and I found like, 5 of them stashed in the same drawer. He was an atrocious coworker for a million reasons, but his hoarding of communal tools was probably the worst part.

    1. Manders*

      Some grad students not only have sticky fingers, but no shame at all about wandering off with things. My boyfriend’s carrol-mate stole my nice metal water bottle off his desk, lost it, and then casually admitted that he lost it and refused to pay my boyfriend back for it.

    2. Snark*

      We had an undergrad doing an honors project in our lab who did this. I was the lab manager. After two weeks, I told him that if communal lab equipment kept finding its way into his locked drawers, his access to the lab would be revoked. It happened again, so consequences occurred. His project adviser called me demanding to know what my problem was, I told him, and he was like, “Oh, shit, I’d do the same. Sorry that happened.” Then I started getting calls from the department head, the dean, a random board member, his parents. Amusingly, all of them were like, “Oh god, that’s not what he told me. What a dick. Sorry that happened, he had a whole nother story. I’m so sorry to bother you.”

      1. Marillenbaum*

        There is a special place in hell for that weasel. Bad enough to keep thieving, but to continually escalate it up the chain by lying about what happened? Trash.

        1. SignalLost*

          Ha ha. It’s not about thieving, but I had a student once who was angry I didn’t approve her concept for her final project. I later heard she escalated it all the way to I think the lieutenant governor (community college). I didn’t hear from anyone above the dean of students though. Still annoys me.

      2. Falling Diphthong*

        My husband started wearing a Leatherman in grad school because his advisor was always wandering off with the tools.

  78. RT*

    A former coworker used to walk into my office and start eating my snacks IN FRONT OF ME. I also once came back from vacation and found a box of my candy on his desk. Dude made three times my salary.

    1. Henrietta Gondorf*

      I used to label my Diet Coke in our communal fridge, and pointed out to my boss that she was holding a can with my name on it during a meeting. She at least had the grace to look abashed.

  79. sometimeswhy*

    I’m in a building that we share with a bunch of other organizations. All the furniture comes from the same source but it was purchased by each individual org. The non-shared spaces are also key-card controlled. We needed two additional tables so made a special order.

    The day after we received them, a staff member from another org got a staff member from our org (but not our department) to let him into our controlled area after the staff in my group would normally be gone so he could take them.

    Someone had stayed late to kill time before a dinner date and intervened. Other Org Dude started with “I’m just here to get these tables” and eventually muttered his way into “I thought these were ours” after getting pushback from my staffmember who kept pointing out confusedly that it wasn’t even his org’s space and that Other Org Dude would need to come back and talk to me DURING OFFICE HOURS. He never did.

    We still have the tables.

  80. snarkarina*

    My last year in school, I was also working second shift at the phone company and to keep going used to drink the pre-bottled Frappuccinos which I kept in the communal fridge. Someone during first shift was drinking them. I tried the whole passive-aggressive “stealing from a poor college student” note thing to no avail. Then I opened each one and took a sip, still no good. Finally, I bought some beef bouillon (so there wouldn’t be any discernible color difference and it wouldn’t make anyone sick) and dropped a cube in each bottle. No one touched them after that.

  81. Delta Delta*

    I had a pair of black pumps stolen out of an office once. I had 3 or 4 pairs of shoes lined up by the wall. I had a couple of pegs on the wall for hanging coats and then shoes lined up on the floor below. One Monday I came in wearing snow boots and expected to change into the black pumps. Gone. I checked various coat closets and other spots in the office where shoes might end up – not there. The cleaner had been in over the weekend – he was a man in his late 50s who cleaned offices as a side hustle to save up for retirement, and he’d been doing the office for years, so we were all pretty sure he wasn’t the shoe thief. Nothing else was missing anywhere in the office.

    These were not fancy. They were plain, black 3 1/2″ pumps. If I remember right they were a pair of Candie’s, so not some fancy expensive brand, either. This was about 15 years ago and remains a mystery.

    1. BigSigh*

      Something kind of similar happened at an old job of mine. We had a locker room and in rain or snow, we’d leave the boots in the space underneath the lockers. This led to some people leaving their flats or sneakers under the locker when they went home. One day we came in and everyone’s shoes were gone!

      After a few hours they were all found in a big pile in a locked storage room. Guess someone in management didn’t like us doing that and instead of saying something or posting a sign, did that instead…

    2. MissGirl*

      I like to imagine the janitor stole them so I can picture a big burly guy vacuuming in high heels and rocking out to music.

    3. Jan*

      Was this a private office? If not, I probably would have stolen them to send you a message. No one has the right to use a common area as a personal closet for five pairs of shoes!! My neighbors across the hall leave multiple pairs of shoes out in the hall and it drives me crazy. I’ve taken a left shoe here and a right shoe there hoping it would make them take them in, to no avail!! Just rude!!

      2. zora*

        Um, this sounds like a very immature way to deal with your problem. I would either talk to your neighbors about it or ideally just learn how to ignore it and let it go.

        The space outside someone’s apartment door is usually considered to be theirs. My neighbor leaves some dirty crap by his door all the time, it annoys me but it’s his space, not mine. I wouldn’t do something equally rude like stealing his stuff just to ‘make a point’.

        1. Charlotte Collins*

          Yes, as long as it’s not in your way, or in your “space” what does it matter?

          Also, are the shoes neatly lined up? If not, who cares? Some people have cultural reasons not to wear their shoes into their home, too.

          Somebody stole my sister’s snowman welcome mat from outside her apartment several years ago. Was that you?

      3. Jules the 3rd*

        Wow. You steal people’s shoes? And admit it?

        Couldn’t you just leave them a note or something?

      6. Anion*

        …because it would be too reasonable and adult-like to just say something to them, or MYOB if their shoes aren’t tripping you as you try to get to your door.

        Who are you, the Hall Police?

        On the scale of social crimes, theirs is minor, whereas stealing one or two of there shoes here and there is, well, an ACTUAL CRIME.

        I cannot fathom in what world this behavior is okay, or why you feel justified in calling them rude when you have literally stolen from them rather than using your words like a grown-up.

    4. ReanaZ*

      My friend works at a gym. One day, she left her (sweaty) trainers outside of a dance studio that had nice floors that you weren’t supposed to where street shoes on. Someone stole them!

      They were nice shoes when new but she works out a couple hours a day– they were 2-3 years old at this point, broken in to her specific feet, and of course dirty/sweaty/a little smelly. Who does that??? She was pretty pissed, because even though they had zero resale value, she still had to spend a couple hundred bucks to replace them immediately so she could work, when she’d been saving to replace them at the end of the year.

      My best theory is someone took them by accident and was too embarassed to return them. But they never showed up again (and she never saw anyone wearing them).

      2. Wait, what?*

        After my first class at a new yoga studio, I was halfway to the subway before I realized I was wearing someone else’s sandals. I went back, mortified, to find their proper owner. Luckily, she had a good sense of humour about it. I mean, I know I’m at a yoga studio, but DAMN, that’s a lot of Birkenstocks.

  82. Carly*

    I worked for a company that had a really sweet office kitchen setup and someone stole the sparkling water maker, cutlery, bulk size bags of sugar, paper towel, toilet paper, towels etc. Nothing was ever done but it mysteriously stopped when an after hours employee quit.

  83. Otter box*

    When I worked in a retail store, one evening after we’d closed, I had just left and noticed that the really nice cashmere scarf I was wearing – my favorite – must have fallen out on my way out of the store. I thought about going back for it, but I figured since the store was closed, the door was locked, and only a couple coworkers were left, I could leave it till the morning when I had an opening shift.

    Wrong.

    When I got in the next day, the scarf was nowhere to be found. I asked around, and after a bit of hemming and hawing one colleague admitted to having taken it, saying he thought it was okay to take it because he thought it was a customer’s. Which makes no sense – it’s still not okay to take something from a customer! When I asked for it back, he said he didn’t have it anymore. I said “WHAT” and he explained that he’d worn it out clubbing the night before and lost it. This all happened in the span of like 12 hours.

    Because this was my favorite scarf and it was really expensive to replace, I asked him to pay me the cost of the replacement. I think he eventually gave me about 2/3 of the amount I asked for before he was fired for stealing a product from the store and using it WHILE HE WAS AT WORK.

    He then sued our manager for discrimination and wrongful termination because he was a member of a protected class. I left before that was resolved but I can’t imagine he was successful.

    1. beetrootqueen*

      that is crazy also majorly disrespectful. I would have lost it at him. Was he apologetic or just brazen about it?

      1. Otter box*

        I think he sort of pretended to be contrite when he realized no one was on his side but still seemed annoyed I was making such a huge deal about it. He never gave the impression he was actually sorry.

  84. beetrootqueen*

    at family members work someone broke in and stole 5 empty laptop bags, two packets of crisps, stack of cups and a stockpile of postit notes. It was so bizarre

  85. Lisa*

    I had a $1 winner lotto scratch off ticket stolen from my cube years ago. I had push pinned it on the wall so I would not forget it the next time I went to the Deli I had bought it from(to cash it in). I left on Friday and it was still there, it was gone on Monday, along with the push pin. Hope the thief did not spend it all in one place.

  86. Muriel Heslop*

    In my last job someone stole a bag of M&Ms from our admin and then sent a ransom note made of letters cutout from a magazine. The M&Ms were returned unharmed.

    Now, I work in a high school and everything is fair game for theft. I keep the breakfast food/snacks for my students locked up in a cabinet with my good scissors, map pencils, stapler and tape dispenser. The only thing I keep on my desk are pencils, notebook paper and a huge bottle of lotion. The lotion disappears every once in a while but my students love it so much that they police each other pretty well. (A lot of the students use lotion sort of like a shower so I am happy to provide it.)

    I only had to have my phone stolen once (now it’s locked up all day.) Other things I have had stolen from schools where I was working: six pack of Diet Coke, copy of Top Gun on VHS, SMU baseball cap, stapler, tape dispenser, Carmen Sandiego soundtrack on CD. Several cardigans and sweatshirts. And I had to move the tampons and pads to the locked cabinet this year after a bunch went missing. Kids today! Nothing but a bunch of good-for-nothing tampon thieves.

    2. many bells down*

      About 20 years ago I was hired at a newly-opened childcare facility. It was SO new that they hadn’t even really stocked the classrooms yet. So like many teachers do, I took myself down to Lakeshore and bought a bunch of art supplies out of my own pocket.

      The next day all of my gallon jugs of paint were gone. Another classroom had helped themselves, apparently thinking that for some reason administration had decided to store supplies in my classroom and not in the empty supply closet. I locked all my stuff up after that.

    4. B*

      My mother taught high school in very rural south Georgia. I remember when her cd of medieval music was stolen. She figured if a kid liked that genre of music enough to steal it, she wasn’t going to fuss about it.

    5. ReanaZ*

      I never stole tampons from a teacher, but did discover a vending machine at my high school where you could jiggle it just right to get a whole bunch for one coin. I made liberal use of that.

      I was poor and from an abusive home, and feminine products were hard to come by until I could drive and work.

      I hope the students who stole yours needed them and weren’t just causing trouble.

      I used to keep snacks in my desk drawer when I was a teacher for the same reason. They were frequently “stolen” by kids I knew were hungry. State law prohibited giving kids food in the classroom or I would have just been open about it.

      1. Muriel Heslop*

        I know they needed them – that’s why I have a drawerful. But I keep them locked up when I’m not in the room – I put them back in the bottom drawer every morning so people can help themselves. I want to be sure to have them when they’re needed.

        I would be really bummed if I couldn’t give my kids granola bars and dried fruit every day. Everything I give them has to be individually prepackaged (per law) but again, I want to be sure to have it when someone needs it. We have so many hungry kids and no one can learn on an empty stomach. The hidden costs of education.

      2. Wait, what?*

        I keep a box with pads, tampons, bandaids, hair ties, dental floss, pens and pencils in a shelf in my classroom. If you need something like that, not having it makes learning really hard.

  87. Spills*

    A SLICE of an avocado!! I had brought in 1/2 an avocado to eat for lunch, and when I went to go eat at lunchtime, I pulled my avocado out of the fridge only to find that someone had taken a small slice out of the half and put the rest back! I was so grossed out I tossed the whole thing. Who does that? If you really wanted an avocado that badly, just take the whole half!

      1. zora*

        I would do the same thing. I don’t trust someone who steals food to also be the kind of person who follows basic food safety and cleanliness procedures. :::Shudder:::

      3. Joie De Vivre*

        You don’t know who touched it.

        A woman where I used to work was infamous for not washing her hands after using the restroom.
        Eewwww.

        1. Charlotte Collins*

          I worked at an insurance company where one of the medical directors (read: M.D.) didn’t wash her hands after using the restroom. Ewww!

  88. Samiratou*

    I’ve been here 15 years, and am very grateful that I don’t seem to work with thieves.

    The only time we had issues was someone on the janitorial staff, apparently, went around and lifted a bunch of small random things from desks. I lost a pair of wrist-supporting gloves. A coworker went around and catalogued the losses and we got reimbursed. I have had a trinket clearly get broken & repaired, but it was a silly baseball game giveaway, so no big deal.

  89. INeedANap*

    After the eclipse this year, I stuck my eclipse-viewing-glasses on the cork board outside of my office. They had a cool little design on them that said: ‘Solar Eclipse 2017!” – the whole department trooped outside to see the eclipse together, which generated a lot of excitement across campus. I thought they were a fun little professional/personal memento to decorate the cork board which usually only hosts boring notices like “Submit your time card!”

    Literally the next day – mind you, there won’t be another eclipse for SEVEN YEARS so it’s not like they are even useful – they were stolen off the board.

  90. A.N.O.N.*

    Perp here.

    Somehow, at my last company, I ended up with an x-acto knife in my pencil holder. No idea how it had gotten there (I don’t even know why the company had one; there weren’t any others in the supply closet), but no one ever said anything and it was useful to have. So, it remained on my desk for over a year.

    When I finally left the company – bitter and fed up with its toxic environment – I took the knife with me. And you know what? I use it all the time. Completely guilt-free.

    1. NLMC*

      I have one in my desk from some project I had to do once. Someone recently asked to borrow it so of course I let them. Well when it hadn’t been returned in a few days I asked for it and it was returned to me without the blade. I went back and asked for the blade and they told me they would look into it. They later came back and said the blade was nowhere to be found. They offered to replace it but I said no, I have other blades, but why?

  91. NoMoreMrFixit*

    Sharpies. I’m serious. People would walk in and steal sharpies off my desk. Leave all the electronics, books and various other valuables. But I had to lock up sharpies. Even had one winner walk in and take it while I was sitting at my desk. Had just put the marker down they walked up, grabbed it and headed out the door. When I chased after them their excuse was my department could afford to lose a couple of markers and I had no right to complain. I got it back but it took several minutes of yelling and a manager getting involved. The problem continued until we got moved to a new building a year later.

  92. Legalchef*

    I had a big soup bowl/mug that I used to make oatmeal at work. One of my coworkers had the same one so I wrote my initials on the bottom. One day I left it soaking in the sink and got distracted and forgot about it until the next day, and it was gone! Along with the spoon inside it. The coworker didn’t take it. It just disappeared! I even walked around the office looking on people’s desks and couldn’t find it.

    And also I used to keep a package of string cheese in the fridge when I was pregnant and had gestational diabetes, so I had a low-carb snack on hand. One day I went to get some and the package was there but it was empty, when there had been a few left the day before. I was one grumpy hungry pregnant lady!

    1. Murphy*

      When I was pregnant, on the last day before Christmas break, they had announced they were going to clean out the fridge. I had assumed they would wait until after lunch so there would be less in the fridge, but nope! I went for my usual morning snack, and my string cheese and pudding had been thrown out!

      1. Ramona Flowers*

        I would expect them to wait until after lunch so they didn’t, you know, throw away anyone’s lunch!

        1. Murphy*

          I know, right! I complained (fairly mildly considering how pregnant and hangry I was) and they said that they figured since it was right before Christmas there wouldn’t be that many people in the office so it wouldn’t matter when they did it.

    2. Lily Rowan*

      I’ve worked in multiple offices with signs above the sink that say, “Anything left here will be thrown away,” but no where that actually followed through with it!

      1. many bells down*

        The break room at the museum has a sign on the fridge that says it’s cleaned out every Thursday, but the same half-empty bottles of Pellegrino water have been sitting in there for months now.

  93. Lady Russell's Turban*

    My sister was as a junior associate attorney at a top NYC law firm in the 1980s. She did her Christmas shopping as time allowed and put the store-wrapped gifts in her office closet. Two days before Christmas she went to gather up the gifts to pack them for her flight back to our hometown. The contents of every single box had been emptied, and the boxes carefully re-wrapped and replaced in the closet.

    10. Sally*

      My sister did this my Christmas presents once when we were kids. Unwrapped my presents under the tree, took out the toys, hid them in the closet, re-wrapped the presents. Terrible behavior, but at least she has the excuse of being a child.

    12. Michelle*

      This year, one of my daughter’s Christmas presents turned out to be an empty box. My grandparents had bought her a harmonica for Christmas. We opened the plastic package and inside was nothing but an empty harmonica case. That’s a sad gift for a 4 year old.

  94. Sonja*

    This isn’t exactly stealing…but it’s in the communal kitchen category…at my last job we had a dish rack next to the sink for cleaned dishes, pretty standard, right? On occasion I would forget to bring a fork or something with me so I would just grab one from the rack and wash it afterwards…until the day I watched a coworker lick off her fork and place it in the rack. Never used anything form that dish rack again.

    2. JD*

      Oh yeah. We have communal cutlery and if I forget my own personal cutlery, I was the communal stuff BEFORE I use it… We don’t have thieves in our office, but we have a bunch of germy lazy people.

      1. Typhon Worker Bee*

        Same – I always wash any communal cutlery before I use it. Even if people aren’t doing anything really egregious like licking a fork (WTF), you just never know how carefully they’ve washed it.

    3. OlympiasEpiriot*

      Well, it is a communal rack, not communal cutlery and dishes. That was disgusting because it could cross-contaminate, but she must have come in to get something of hers and found it missing…due to someone “borrowing” it.
      o_O

    4. Sylvan*

      Ew. I read this again to see if she was doing it to all of the forks or just one that she made “hers,” but I don’t know which would be better or worse.

    5. Elizabeth West*

      This reminds me of the sponge. At Exjob, we had sponges at each sink in our break room. Nobody would throw them away until they were practically black (I used a paper towel if I had to scrub my dishes, because eww). One day I threw a damn sponge away because it was grossing me out.

      Several hours later, I went into the break room and found the same exact sponge back on the sink. Someone had fished it out of the garbage so they could use it. And put it back on the sink. >_<

      1. Floundering Mander*

        I have bought packs of cheap sponges to put in break rooms before, even as a temp who was making nothing. I’m willing to sacrifice a dollar or two so I don’t have to deal with that. Yuck.

  95. Henrietta Gondorf*

    I used to be in the Army and in training, stuff goes missing all the time (in part because it all looks the same and because if you lose gear, you pay for it). While in basic training, a friend of mine wrote her name all over everything she owned with a Sharpie, including her underwear that had her (very unusual) last name in big letters across the butt. A load of her laundry disappeared from the dryer one day and efforts to locate it were fruitless until she spotted someone in the locker room with the underwear saying [unusual last name]. In the ensuing scene, the thief insisted it was a coincidence and then that the last name had some sort of personal meaning to her.

  96. Stranger than fiction*

    One time last year, I had a takeout container- clearly marked with my initials – with a half eaten order of beef noodle soup in the fridge. Next day went to get it to heat up for lumch and it was gone…well, almost gone. There was like two bites left and it was put back in the fridge. Um, thanks for leaving me two bites?

  97. BeetleJude*

    I think the best (worst) instance I ever came across was the time someone stole part of my managers lunch. It was a pre-packed/shop bought boiled egg and ham salad box; someone opened the box, ate the egg and ham, and returned the remainder to the fridge. Like, if you’re going to be awful and steal things, maybe just take it all?

    1. Phyllis*

      A coworker at oldjob went to get her lunch from the fridge one day to find someone had taken a big ole bite out of the chicken leg she’d brought.

    2. Liz in a Library*

      At the same job (and almost certainly by the same thief), I had one coworker find that a thief had removed all the meat off of his deli sub before carefully wrapping it back up, and a second coworker who had someone finish off her half-eaten quesadilla from lunch (when there was another whole quesadilla in the same box). Why?!

  98. beanie beans*

    I had a piece of paper tacked to my cubicle wall that said “There’s a time and place for decaf. Never, and in the trash.” Went on a leave of absence for a month and came back and it was posted on my coworker’s cubicle. I never confronted him on it because it just seemed so weird.

    1. FCJ*

      After a small event at my school yesterday, the Community Life person cleaning up tried to get some of us who were standing around (we offered to help clean but she said no) to take the rest of the decaf coffee home.

      We are PhD students.

    2. fposte*

      Did he know it was your sign or had ever remarked on it? I’m wondering if maybe it had fallen to the floor and he just appropriated it.

  99. Karen D*

    Thank goodness nobody steals lunches around here. In fact, for awhile we suspected that at least one young employee didn’t have money to buy lunch and somebody made sure there was at least a loaf of bread and a jar of peanut butter in the fridge, labeled something like “No time to go get lunch? Help yourself.”

    My desk is nearest the conference room, so I do keep a small basket of pens and notebooks stocked on the credenza in the conference room because I got tired of people coming into my office and saying “I need a pen, please give me one!” At one point, someone tried to snatch my Dad’s antique Cross pen out of my hand – I’m sure they would have given it back but oh heck to the no.

      1. Karen D*

        My industry is notorious for low wages, so there were others in the same straits.

        The weird thing was that, while there were a few core people who made sure there was communal food in the fridge, most everybody contributed at one point or another, and very little was said about it.

  100. BC enviro gal*

    I just moved to a new office. Turns out there’s a lunch thief here. Everyone labels their lunch (it’s a big office, and because it’s a construction site with a camp, a lot of them are brown bag lunches), but every week someone will be sitting at the table eating their vegetables and grumbling about it, as their sandwiches and cookies have been stolen. Or lunch meat. The thief also just stole lunch meat one time. During the last office meeting, the manager stood up and said “I can’t believe I have to say this to a room of adults, but stop stealing other people’s lunches. Seriously, just stop.”

  101. Deadly Pepa*

    At a former job we had someone who would throw out the salt and pepper shakers that staff brought in to share if anyone accidentally left them out on the counter or lunch table. Never bothered to tell people why they were doing it, or asked people to stop doing whatever it was that was triggering, just chucked them out.

  102. L.*

    I once had a coworker I thought of as an inveterate thief, but much of it was misunderstanding. I bring my lunch in an unusual sort of Tupperware, then put it in the office dishwasher, picking it up later. My office throws out people’s clean dishes every Friday (ugh), so when some disappeared, I blamed my office. But then this person, who sat very near me, started accumulating a large stack of what looked like MY Tupperware, in plain view! I couldn’t believe the nerve — the stuff was cheap and replaceable, but it was the principle, dang it! I finally confronted her in friendly way: “hey, I notice your Tupperware looks a lot like mine, did you buy a bunch of the same kind” and she said that was indeed the problem. Still, my stuff kept disappearing, so I started writing my name on them all in big black Sharpie, which I should do anyway. Then, one Monday, a random piece of Tupperware turned up on my desk — it didn’t belong to me, so I picked it up and took it back to the dishwasher. Guess who it belonged to — that same coworker, who saw me walking by with it and probably thought I’d stolen it. I realized our office receptionist, who is sweet but doesn’t think things through, has for a long time tried to save employees’ property from the office trashing policy by putting dishes where she *THINKS* they belong, inadvertently sowing suspicion among the entire staff. I guess we all should break out the Sharpies!

  103. MeanieNini*

    I work in an office with about 35 people with my sister. We frequently visit Trader Joe’s and bring snacks, lunches, etc to keep in our company refrigerator to use. We bought some chipotle raspberry sauce for some lunch items we bought … and the next day the sauce was gone. It was so unusual because there is no way someone was mistaking that for their own sauce. We never figured out who took it or what happened to it.

  104. Been There Done That*

    I had a large lunch of pasta with shrimp and I put half of it in the fridge for lunch the next day. When I opened the box the next day someone had eaten all of the shrimp out of it. I considered eating the pasta, but then realized that the thief’s grubby little fingers were in there so I had to throw it out.

  105. That Would Be a Good Band Name*

    We had $200 go missing once that had been collected to give another coworker a gift. One day the money disappeared and the next day a coworker that was notorious for always asking if he could borrow money showed up wearing a new leather jacket. We never found out for sure what happened to the money but the timing of those events didn’t go unnoticed.

    1. Eleven*

      We had someone steal gift cards from an admin’s office. They are given out to certain people on their birthdays and she kept them in a hanging file inside of a file drawer (a place where valuables are typically not stashed). Someone had the gall to accuse the evening cleaning staff…

      We never found the culprit either! By the time it was discovered that they were missing they had already been cashed in.

  106. Stranger than fiction*

    Back in my restaurant days, theft of tips and your “bank” was pretty common, sadly. One place in particular, on a busy weekend you might be carrying a few grand on you by the end of the day. Thank god I never ever set down my book with all my money in it, but one time another server set hers down on the bar (thinking surely nobody would take it with the bartender just a feet away), and another server stole it. My coworker was distraught, of course, because not only did she lose her tips, but all the money she owed the house. I believe the policy was you could lose it once, then if it ever happened again that’d be considered suspect. They later somehow figured out who it was and she was promptly fired.

    1. Karen D*

      Oh! We had a tip-kiter at one of the restaurants I worked at during college. Several times I’d see my customers leave a tip and then come back a few minutes later to bus the table and it was gone.

      A lot of suspicion fell on one particular busser who was developmentally delayed – “Chad” was a sweet kid but prone to get frustrated and loud in stressful situations.

      But it turned out that the real culprit was “Paul,” one of the most experienced waiters — he was hired almost as a mentor/team lead for the wait staff and paid more because of it. Paul was extremely deft about grabbing cash off tables, but finally got caught red-handed. Once things fell into place, management realized the scheme was actually pretty elaborate (Paul only stole on shifts when Chad was also working, to give people an obvious target for suspicion, and had suggested to several people that Chad was the likely culprit). Paul was also stealing expensive food items and kitchen equipment for re-sale. They actually did prosecute, which is kind of rare in a restaurant setting, especially since Paul had clearly been management-track before that.

      2. Here we go again*

        What a little POS, especially with trying to frame a sweet kid who happens to have development delays. Glad they did prosecute.

    2. fposte*

      One of our beloved local institutions had a well-respected manager who was siphoning off tips. Eventually the staff (almost all long-termers) put it together that their tips were so much lower only when this manager was onsite and went to the owner, who looked into the matter. Manager blew a longterm job that way.

  107. offonaLARK*

    Ah, the “Chair Incident!”

    So Boss was talking with Supervisor one afternoon and sitting in the guest chair at Supervisor’s desk. Young-Employee was supposed to train with Supervisor, so she tells Boss to get his ass out of her chair. (It’s a casual office and this type of phrasing/ribbing is common. Plus, Young-Employee is the daughter of Admin-Supervisor who has been here over 20 years, so gets away with extreme unprofessional behavior.) Boss says it’s his chair and he can do whatever the hell he wants with it. Joking banter and cussing ensues, with Boss getting a bit annoyed at Young-Employee.

    That should have been the end of it. But Young-Employee has to prove how awesome and sassy she is. So after Boss leaves for the day, Young-Empolyee takes all of the guest chairs from beside Admin-Supervisor’s desk, which is where Boss normally works throughout the day as he and Admin-Supervisor collaborate on projects. And then Young-Employee takes all the chairs from Boss’ office. All chairs are hidden.

    So Boss comes in the next morning trying to find out who stole his chairs. He asks around, but Young-Employee had not told anyone. (Yet, she certainly shared her “cleverness” later!) No one can find the chairs, so Boss eventually sends an email that his chairs need to be returned and he will not be putting candy into the communal candy basket in the meantime. His email says that we are now a dictatorship and get only one “potato” (candy) per person per day.

    So Young-Employee replies by photoshopping a pictue of Boss’ head onto a picture of Hitler. And printing it and taping it to his door.

    Yeah…

    By this point, after 50 emails back and forth about the chairs, most of which Boss is not copied on that are along the lines of “nobody tell him this is so fun we’re so awesome,” I was sick of it. I was working on a project and this was annoying and too far. Boss couldn’t concentrate and had nowhere to sit to collaborate with Admin-Supervisor, and no one was working. Luckily, someone else felt as I did and also knew where the chairs were. Annoyed-Employee brings the chairs back with much cussing and “can we please do some work now!” Boss is happy to finally be able to work. I am happy to finally be able to work. Admin-Supervisor had ignored the whole thing. But Young-Employee and her “this is fun let’s do no work!” cohorts shut out Annoyed-Employee for ruining their fun and returning the chairs. (They were pissed at her for days.)

    Moral of the story? I may need a new job…

  108. Anecdotal Anonymity*

    When I worked in hospitality, and was paid under the table, my boss’ relatives stole money from my wallet.
    I’m certain it happened more than once, but I couldn’t prove it!

    My shifts and pay would build up to over a fortnight worth (sometimes up to 6 weeks), and I’d keep track and get paid in full, but it’d be before a shift! So by the end of that shift, there would be less in my wallet, and at first I thought I was just spending more money, but then the boss’ relative must have gotten greedy, because they took everything – and it was over $500.

    To be fair to my boss, they repaid me the thefts that I knew about, but I’ll never forget that feeling of violated privacy.

    1. AJ*

      I reckon you were repaid because your boss knew it was the relatives but couldn’t say anything, because faaaaaaammmily.

  109. Anon today...and tomorrow*

    I used to manage a retail store in Boston’s Faneuil Hall. It was super busy with lots of money and we would routinely have to do “money drops” when the registers had too much money in them. Basically we would count out the drawer, take out the excess, have someone double count the money and then put it in an envelope which both counters then signed. The person who closed the store would open the envelope at the end of the night and add the funds to the days deposit with the whole double count / second signer thing repeated. I was closing the store one night, opened an envelope and it was $500 short. It was also only signed by one person. There was a lot of counting and re-counting that night, but the money was gone. Next day the person who signed was questioned – she was a new manager who was a former part-timer – who’s also recently moved in with her boyfriend and had no money because of it. She swore she didn’t take the money. Literally two days later she came into the store after a shopping spree for her new apartment. She had these giant bags of bedding and housewares. She gave her notice that day, effective immediately. All of the staff just looked at each other like “did that really just happen?”

    1. That Would Be a Good Band Name*

      I had forgotten about the money drop thief that I worked a shift with once! We did $100 drops. Our drawer was supposed to never have more than $100 in 20s or a $100 bill in it. The envelopes were always reused.

      So I’m working with a new hire and she gets her register set up and when she goes to make a drop she says “OMG there’s a $100 in here already”. The manager is the one who empties the envelopes after we drop them into the safe and she only does it when she makes the bank deposit. Clearly, she missed an envelope. Newhire goes on to say, “I really need $100 and this shouldn’t be here. It was meant for me to find!” She pocketed the cash and took it.

      I reported it to the manager and when she asked Newhire about it she said that she didn’t think it was a big deal since it wasn’t money in her register. Somehow she also didn’t get fired so she must have been pretty convincing.

  110. Hamsa*

    Long time ago, I worked at a car dealership an office lady had a large like 6 lbs roast in the fridge to take to a potluck that night, end of day she gets ready to leave looks at roast and someone had picked out the entire center of the roast & just left a shell she just burst into tears as she was responsible for the meat for dinner and it was ruined. We knew who did it but he was owners friend, so nothing could be done. Shameful

    3. Damn it, Hardison!*

      Similarly, I worked at an institution that had a staff Thanksgiving each year. They catered turkeys and sides, and folks brought in desserts. Inevitably there were leftovers which would go into the fridge for the next day. One year there was almost an entire turkey left, along with lots of sides. Came in the next day and it was all gone. One small hitch – you had to badge out with the security guard when you left, so it was pretty easy to track down the person who walked out with a turkey and 3 large catering trays of food.

  111. E.T.*

    I worked in a pre-school where a teacher left one Friday and never came back – not a shock since she was very disgruntled. However, she took the vacuum with her! Did she think no one would notice?

  112. vubusaze*

    I heard about this one…

    Years ago, a young airman at the Pentagon wanted to take home some government licensed software to install on his home computer. My guess is he thought he could do this over the weekend (take it home, install it, & bring it back) and no one would be the wiser. But he was evidently worried about getting it past the guards. So he put it inside of a “burn bag” which is used for classified documents that need to be destroyed and is very distinct (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Burn_bag#/media/File:Burn-Bag.jpg). Yep, the guards definitely pounced on someone attempting to sneak that out. Poor kid.

  113. Neosmom*

    A few weeks after hiring a director of operations at our software company, money began disappearing from purses and wallets, and small electronics vanished from desks. The company president tasked the new director with tracking down the problem and implementing better security. After no improvement, the director resigned. And all of the thefts immediately stopped. Nothing like putting the fox in charge of the hen house security!

  114. Suzanne Lucas--Evil HR Lady*

    In graduate school, I had my computer (a desktop) stolen out of my office, as well as about 20 CDs. (Late ’90s.) Turns out that my office had been the undergrad TA office the previous year and 10-15 people had keys to it. When they changed it to a grad student office, they didn’t collect any of the keys from the former TAs.

    When I pointed out that they had told me to bring a computer to campus and knew that the office was not at all secure, they bought me a new one.

    I’m not a thief, but I will eat more than my fair share of candy if you have a candy dish on your desk. I just can’t stay away. But, two or three pieces at a time.

    2. Artemesia*

      I am the one who takes the second donut or lots of yummy candy from the communal jar. Knowing that about myself, I would occasionally stop at the really good donut place and bring in a dozen, or buy a bag of candy for the jar.

  115. lavender sugar*

    Someone stole my son’s fundraising forms for Boy Scout popcorn from a table in the break room. This table was commonly used for offering freebies (conference swag), Avon catalogs, Yankee candle catalogs, sign-up forms for race sponsorships, etc. As an experiment, a few days later I put out his cookie fundraising forms for his school and those disappeared, too.

    1. Kathenus*

      I’ve been burned by people pretending to sell fundraising items door to door – they have real-looking forms, take the money, and you never get the product. Luckily the last time it happened to me I had written a check to the organization so they weren’t able to cash that. It hasn’t happened often, but enough that I only buy things from people I know now. They could have stolen the forms for a reason like this, unfortunately.

  116. Betsy Bobbins*

    My husband works for a large software company, quite a few years ago he received an e-mail to a building wide distribution list telling the following story: A guy had left a Wendy’s Frosty in the freezer, when he came back it was missing. In the e-mail he went into a lengthy tirade about how he was suffering from a bout of strep throat and included very descriptive details about his condition and how he was feeling. Then he went into a lengthy story of purchasing the said Frosty in anticipation of how it would feel on his throat later that day (again, full descriptions). He went on to say how he left it in the freezer never suspecting that any co-workers could be so horrible and disingenuous as to steal from their colleagues. This was a really long 3 paragraph rant that was incredibly detailed, meant to induce maximum guilt in the would-be Frosty thief.

    Cut to an hour later and another e-mail comes from the same guy, much more sheepish and humble in demeanor: After his initial e-mail went out he received a reply from someone with knowledge of the mysterious disappearance. This person had gone to put their lunch in the freezer and the said Frosty fell to the floor splattering across the entire room. This poor person was left to clean a huge mess off the breakroom floor and cabinets only to be rewarded with the accusatory e-mail. For years my husband would periodically send this to me for a giggle, but at some point he lost track of it.

    1. SoCalHR*

      I feel like that employee who spilled it should have sent out an email saying “oops, I spilled someone’s frosty, I’m so sorry” and that would have prevented the whole issue.

    2. Allison*

      To be fair, it wasn’t ridiculous of him to think it may have been stolen, and the person who knocked it over really should have offered to buy him something similar since they did deprive him of ice cream, even if it was an accident.

    3. Betsy Bobbins*

      I wasn’t clear enough in my post, but he had left the Frosty on the edge of the freezer and it had fallen out when the other person just opened it.

  117. Boo*

    In an old job of mine, people used to steal pot-pourri out of the bathrooms. Who even wants their house to smell like the work toilets?!

    1. The Other Katie*

      Maybe they were just throwing it away so the work toilets didn’t smell like cheap potpourri either.

  118. EddieSherbert*

    I worked at a cafe in high school that just treated employees awful – I never got a raise in two years, you had to memorize ALL the ingredients in all the food and take your “ingredient quizzes” outside of work hours, I would often have to close one night (11:30pm) and open the next morning (4:30am), etc.

    I quit when I was leaving for college, and spent my last two weeks stealing ceramic mugs and small ceramic plates to stock my dorm room. I also stole my apron, I don’t know why? I never used it again….

    But one of the mugs has survived moving seven times and still lives in my cabinet today!

    1. EddieSherbert*

      No that them being awful is a good reason to steal – I just liked the mugs/plates and was bitter and decided to “stick it to them” by taking things. I was kind of immature…. *sigh*

    2. Temperance*

      I totally stole my Denny’s workshirts and aprons when I quit, because that was the worst job that I ever had. I forgot about that until I read your comment.

      I tried to use the apron, but I couldn’t get the syrup/friend food stink out of it.

      1. EddieSherbert*

        It’s such a funny thought process! “I hate this place so I’m stealing memorabilia of it!” …in hindsight, what? why?

    3. zora*

      Ha, I stole a couple of aprons and a couple of towels from my catering job when I left. I also just remembered. They weren’t branded, just standard white linens. I don’t even know where they are anymore!

  119. peachie*

    Our CFO got so fed up with dishes in the sink* that she collected all the dishware in the office and hid it from everyone. That was about a year and a half ago. I don’t think we’re ever seeing those dishes again.

    *I get it, but it was not egregious–think a rinsed mug or two left in the sink overnight, not gross tupperwares collecting sink water for weeks.

    1. JD*

      Yep. Our office manager did this too. It was so childish. She actually went office to office gathering up any dirty dishes and hid them away until there were no more forks or coffee cups. Everyone just brought their own rather than negotiate with her.

    2. President Porpoise*

      My mom kind of did that to us once. She was tired of our toys around the house, collected them in a black trash bag and hid it in a closet to provide a consequence for not keeping our areas neat and tidy. My dad threw the bag away because he thought it was full of trash. Very very sad for us 4-12 year olds…

    3. R2D2*

      My college RA resorted to this method as well! Some of the girls on my floor were disgusting when it came to kitchen cleanliness. I remember removing a communal bowl out of the cabinet, only to notice it was caked with barely-rinsed-off batter. Yuck!

  120. nnn*

    I had an injury, so I brought one of those first aid ice packs to work. I’d ice my injury, then put the ice pack in the freezer to refreeze, then ice my injury again, then refreeze the ice pack again, etc.

    Note that there were no other ice packs in the freezer, just mine.

    A couple of days later when I went to get my ice pack from the freezer, I saw that there was still only one ice pack in the freezer, it was the same brand as mine, but it had my co-worker’s name written on it.

    So I used it anyway.

    My co-worker never said anything to me. The ice pack was always in the freezer when I went looking for it. No other ice packs ever materialized.

    To this day, I have no idea if my co-worker blatantly and knowingly wrote her name on my ice pack, or if we had some misunderstanding like the Douglas Adams cookie story.

  121. Poo-Pouri Poor*

    Someone stole the $10 bottle Poo-Pouri we had in the bathroom. That is just a crappy thing to steal (pun intended). No we all have to smell everyone’s business.

    1. Ice Bear*

      Someone stole the air freshener from the bathroom. I bought a replacement at the dollar store because it’s worth it not to inhale someone else’s stink.

  122. Outing myself*

    I was once the lunch thief.

    It was long ago at a Navy training site that was in the remote Idaho desert. We had to ride the bus to work and if you were on the graveyard shift rotation, there was only bad vending machine food.

    I went to eat my lunch one zero-dark thirty, only to find I had forgotten to bring it. I had money for the machines, just didn’t want anything in there. So I prowled others’ lunches in the fridge, taking a sandwich here, a yogurt there, a candy bar over there.

    Unfortunately, it was a bit of a thrill – I was young – and it became a habit; at least once a week, I ate something that I didn’t bring.

    I’ll go hang my head in shame now.

  123. Solidus Pilcrow*

    Not so much a theft, but rude.

    I keep a box of tissues on my desk. It’s great for small spills or using as napkins in addition to blowing your nose. I have no problem giving a tissue to someone who asks for it. However, after a while, people would walk up behind me, *reach around in front of me*, and just grab a tissue without so much as an “excuse me”. The tissues got locked up after that happened a few times.

    1. Rusty Shackelford*

      Many years ago I had a low-level, low-paying job as a clerk at a university. The university didn’t provide tissue, so I brought my own box to keep on my desk. One day the director of my department came into my office, took the box of tissue off my desk, said “we need some napkins,” and left. I found out later that he’d been meeting with one of my supervisors, eating lunch in her office, and decided my tissue would make appropriate napkins. They must have been eating something sloppy because they used the entire box.

      The kicker? I worked in the office of a dorm cafeteria. There were packages of real actual paper napkins just steps away from my desk.

    2. Millie M*

      This isn’t quite a theft because they weren’t my personal tissues, but one time I ordered a six-pack of tissues at work. We’re all responsible for requesting supplies for myself, so it’s not like I’m in charge of ordering for my department, and other people can order their own tissues if they need some. But logic is in short supply at my office, and one of my coworkers apparently saw the tissues in my office and told other coworkers to help themselves. I hid the tissues after a few boxes went missing so they wouldn’t all disappear. Now I resent sharing tissues at all–even one or two.

  124. Allison*

    My colleague literally took my stapler. He came by asking to borrow it the other day, I realized there was no stapler on my desk, and he said “oh that’s right, I already stole it.” He went back his office, got it, used it at my cubicle, then put it down and said “I’m going to need to keep using this, until I can order my own.”

    It’s now in his office, I suspect permanently.

    It’s not “my” stapler in that I own it, but it still feels like my boundaries were crossed. But at least it wasn’t like the time he snapped his fingers and said “Allison, pen!”

    I am not his assistant, but he keeps acting like I am. Why does this keep happening?

    1. Sevenrider*

      I worked in a law firm where one of the attorneys would constantly take things from desk (pens, paper, folders, etc.). When confronted he would say they are not YOURS, they are paid for by the firm. I told him when I walk to the supply room and load up on supplies to bring back to my desk for my use, they are MINE. He was just too lazy to go to the supply room.

    3. Ganymede*

      Ok this “Allison, pen!” thing is just sexist piggery. Next time shout back “Fergus, paperclip!!!” “Fergus, stapler!!!!!” etc., and when he looks puzzled say, “I thought we were playing some sort of word game….???” Then turn your back on him and go back to your work.

    4. Specialk9*

      I don’t understand. He stole your stapler, said he stole it, and now you’re annoyed but shrugging that it’s his now. So… That, and him being an utter ass, is probably why he is snapping his fingers at you like a dog. (Dumb move – people who swallow stuff habitually can snap with baseball bats.) So maybe therapy for making and enforcing boundaries with a creep?

  125. Anon123*

    One of our admins set up online access to a coworker’s bank account and started helping themselves to money directly from their account. Can’t say more though but it was pretty blatant.

  126. NewBoss2016*

    Any kind of cool snack in the fridge is bound to go missing. It is kind of a joke, because our office is in an area with no stores/shops, so sometimes late night workers raid the fridge when they are starving. No hurt feelings there. It did make me really bummed the other day when I went to get my own late-afternoon snack and my entire big container of fancy expensive yogurt was missing. I had just put it in there that morning! Someone stole (and apparently took home?) a big jug of partially-eaten greek yogurt. Just weird! Now I write threatening messages on my yogurt, and so far that has warded off the thief.

  127. AcademicHR*

    Someone was stealing my milk at work, so I put a note on it saying “I have a horrible communicable disease.” My milk stopped getting stolen.

    1. seejay*

      My partner put a note on his milk in the fridge that said “I drink from the container” thinking it would stop people from stealing it.

      He came in the next day to discover half of it was gone and a note taped under his with “I do too!” and a happy face.

      Like… what the hell?

      1. The Cosmic Avenger*

        I would have carefully replaced the “I drink from the container” note with one in the exact same spot (above the other note) saying “I have mono! And now….”

  128. Anonymous Poster*

    At my last job, every time someone resigned I would join the other people in my office to lay claim to items in their cubicle, up to and including the cubicle itself. IT wouldn’t provide additional monitors and being engineers, 2 monitors make us more productive than one. Management refused to pay the IT rent per monitor, and told us since we had laptops we would be fine. Monitors were usually the first to go.

    Things I acquired this way:
    – My second monitor
    – Laptop docking station
    – Computer mouse and keyboard
    – Several pens and dry erase markers (our supply cabinet was not restocked, only managers were able to get these office supplies)
    – A new cubicle location
    – A cubicle dividing wall, since there my cubicle was missing one
    – A telephone headset
    – Documentation on a particular software program I used a lot
    – Coffee mugs

    I don’t feel bad.

    1. Manders*

      For some reason this reminds me of the scenes in Orange is the New Black with the inmates divvying up the stuff of people who leave the prison.

    3. AliP*

      We are deeply into raiding abandoned cubes when people leave. When our CMO left, my coworker showed up late to the party and there wasn’t anything good left. So she took a random (unopened!) thing of moisturizer; “I might as well take something”.

      I got my second monitor and a cubicle next to the window this way. It’s like A Thing we do.

      1. SallyAnn Howes*

        I have basically the opposite situation. Someone leaves our office and they usually leave behind all kinds of junk that I have to clean out. The unused office supplies I can deal with, but the mugs, baseball caps, knickknacks, books, calendars, etc. are endless. Even a potted plant at least once (you’d be surprised at how uninterested people are in other people’s orphaned plants!) I’ll put things out on the file cabinet for folks to take but that’s not often effective. I usually end up boxing it all up and donating it to Goodwill. And the food and pocket change! I toss the food if it’s opened and pocket the change.

        What really surprises me are the personal documents people leave behind. These were not employees who were fired, BTW. They left voluntarily. Bank statements, letters about raises, copies of their resumes, and most surprising, copies of their annual employee reviews! I shred them all but it makes for some interesting reading.

        1. zora*

          I actually got some of my favorite house plants from adopting coworkers’ orphaned plants! Why don’t more people want them, I love them!

          1. Elizabeth West*

            I adopted a bunch of plants from a workplace that was closing (a materials testing lab). The crowning jewel was a three-foot-high ponytail palm–this thing was enormous. And HEAVY. I was especially fond of it, because it had belonged to the boss’s wife, who had died not long before the job ended. Over time, several of them croaked due to old age, but the palm kept on trucking.

            During the ice storm in 2007, I could not take it with me when I evacuated, and it succumbed to the cold. :( That’s the only thing I lost, other than the food in my fridge, but I was inconsolable. I did buy another one in her honor. It’s very tiny still. They grow extremely slowly.

            The only plants that lived through that cold were the pothos. You can jump up and down on those things and they won’t die. I have two from the lab, and all the rest, except the tiny ponytail palm, are from OldExjob. I rescued them when they stopped paying the plant lady to come and water them and were just going to let them croak–another pothos, an umbrella plant, and two Chinese evergreens. Sadly, the peace lily died.

    4. Iris Eyes*

      I feel like this would not be out of place in some sort of office dystopian novel. Is it like an NFL draft? Or a an auction? What are the rules for laying claims?

      1. Anonymous Poster*

        Claims were filed with the person leaving, and usually that person would write who had what on their whiteboard before leaving. It was a bit of a free-for-all though, so dawdle and your claimed items would disappear anyway. Usually we’d wait for the person to leave for their last day and then snag things back to our cubicle; all the good stuff was gone by the next morning.

        We never got physical when fighting over things, but we definitely held grudges about office chairs and monitors. People would write in white-out on their chairs, and others would color over it with sharpie to retake their claim, and so on and so forth. People would even start dumping work on one another over these sorts of things.

        To be fair, I see this in healthy environments, but this was not a healthy environment, so it was worse than what I’ve seen elsewhere.

    5. fposte*

      Apparently this is a big thing in Antarctica! A lot of people are down there only for one season or a limited term, and when they go the inhabitants “skua” the left-behind stuff. A skua is the Antarctic scavenger bird :-).

    6. Rebecca in Dallas*

      My office does this, too! In fact, when someone gives their notice, they will start gifting their coworkers. “Here, you can have this blanket that I use for chilly days.” “Do you want my stapler? I know you borrow it all the time.” It’s pretty funny.

  129. I GOTS TO KNOW!*

    Someone stole my high school cross country fleece jacket. It was from a HS in another state from where I was working. It had my name embroidered on it.

  130. Detective Charles Boyle*

    My space heater and my ergonomic keyboard (still in its box!) were both stolen, at separate times.

  131. Typhon Worker Bee*

    We had a spate of small thefts in our office last year. One colleague lost the waterproof covers for her bike panniers; another had her earbuds stolen off her desk. Who uses someone else’s earbuds?! So gross!

    There was much speculation at the time, but then the thefts stopped. We have a lot of co-op students here for 4 month terms, so either it was one of them and they just moved on, or the thief was identified and fired (or referred for professional help, because the kind of stuff they were stealing suggested some kind of compulsion rather than a financial motivation).

    1. Typhon Worker Bee*

      Reading the comments, I see that earbuds are a frequent target. What the what?! I’ll borrow over-ear headphones from someone I know well, but I would never put random earbuds right into my ears. I won’t even borrow my husband’s (mind you, he produces more earwax than some small nations). I mean, it’s not quite as bad as sharing a toothbrush, but yuck.

  132. Eleven*

    Every few months or so we will come into the office one day and someone will have completely cleared out the silverware drawer! My boss keeps our kitchen stocked with silverware, glasses, coffee mugs, plates, etc. so that we don’t have to use disposable stuff. I just imagine someone’s apartment stocked with office silverware and company branded coffee cups….

  133. Malibu Stacey*

    I’ve worked two places where people had the gall to take leftovers home: one a company-paid catered lunch, and another an employee-paid lunch (it was a prosecutor’s office where they could not pay for food, so all the attys & paralegals kicked in $25 for an admin professionals day lunch) home without permission from anyone. Both people were very well off, trust me, and when confronted didn’t think anything of it. I hate when rich people are that cheap.

    1. Iris Eyes*

      Just because someone is well off doesn’t mean they are ok with seeing food go to waste. Perhaps you thought it was most appropriate to have the leftovers available for everyone in the office but perhaps they thought it was best to get it cleaned up by the end of the day. They might be in the minority but if they are it is a sizable minority. This is one of those cultural norm type things. Different people think about this type of situation differently.

      1. fposte*

        Sure, but you only get to do that if you’re in charge and/or you paid. You don’t get to decide that your principles rule over what happened to the food your boss or your co-workers ordered.

      2. Malibu Stacey*

        Wow, you made a lot of assumptions there. In both instances in the leftovers had been packed up and put in the fridge – it wasn’t taking the last piece of pizza left on a table in a dark conference room.

      3. Sylvan*

        Food is “wasted” just as much when it’s stolen by people who have enough to begin with, as it is when it’s thrown out. Unless you’re in a desperate situation like a couple of commenters who have talked about taking food when they couldn’t afford to eat, let’s be real: There isn’t that much of a justification.

  134. DevMama*

    During my first pregnancy, I worked at a very small software company. I was an absolute carb monster and during a particularly crazy carb craving week, I kept a bag of bagels in the office kitchen so that I had an easy breakfast when I got to the office each morning.

    One morning, when I was extremely hungry and very much looking forward to the last bagel that I had waiting for me at work, I found that the bagel was missing. I looked all over the kitchen then sent out a half joking/half serious (let’s be honest, mostly serious) company-wide email shaming the person who ate the pregnant lady’s food.

    Soon after, I got a very apologetic response from the company president, who confessed to eating the bagel when he was hungry the night before. His wife was the co-owner and controller of the company and was quite upset at him for it, which I didn’t intend.

    At least no one at that company ever touched my food again.

  135. Nonameforthisadventure*

    Ok, I once worked for a hotel. Part of my duties were to sign for and deliver to guests or employees anything brought by Fed Ex, UPS, DHL, etc. Policy was to log all deliveries and then distribute accordingly. I would also hold items for conferences or guests that were in the future. One day I got a big box delivered to a supposed guest of the Hotel. But the guest was not registered at the time nor could I find a reservation or link to anyone registered or attending a conference, etc. I followed up daily on that package for about 2 weeks then monthly. All the time it sat in my locked storage area waiting to be claimed. After about 6 months with no guest registering, no one calling in asking if I ever received it, whomever sending it not calling in, I opened the box. It was a bike. Not an expensive one but maybe one that goes for a few hundred dollars. So after a few more months, I liberated it verses letting it sit unclaimed indefinitely.
    At the hotel, we had beef, fresh produce, seafood and the like walk out the back doors. We couldn’t really do much about fresh food since we were a 24 hour operation and the It got to the point that soda, beer, and the like was stored in locked rooms where only a few people had keys with a copies being with the Manager on Duty in case of an emergency or urgent need.

    1. Elizabeth West*

      We had a box for customer items left behind at the deli in CA. Typically, we’d let them stay in the box for a few weeks, and if no one claimed the items, they were up for grabs– usually sunglasses, or easily replaceable stuff like that. So one day somebody left a pair of Liz Claiborne glasses with big green frames. I claimed them. I loved those things and wore them for a year, before I laid them on the bed one day and accidentally sat on them.

  136. Anon for Safety*

    My files would sometimes get stolen. I kept new files in a rack on the credenza behind my desk, and a couple would go missing for days or even weeks and then mysteriously turn up again, right where I left them. No one claimed to have them, and I looked like someone who couldn’t do something simple like keep track of my own files. I joked that I had a poltergeist, but it was really annoying. I had a few suspects, including the guy I referred to as the IT Asshole (for many reasons) and the billing manager (who loved to enact psychological warfare against me over years). Both of these people were Boss’s Pets, so there was no way I could make any accusations about them. IT Asshole also claimed for himself a mug I had gifted to another coworker. So many jerks at that job. I no longer work there.

  137. Katie Fay*

    I once had a nice, cool screen saver of famous impressionist paintings – they would shift one to the next continuously; it was beautiful.
    And the box holding the disk from which you loaded the screen saver was sitting on the credenza behind my desk in full view. Someone stole it. Why? I wouldn’t loaned it and the person could have loaded it and returned the disk – it could be loaded endlessly. There was no reason to steal it. I waited, hoping it would be returned after being loaded. Nope. I still miss it.

  138. BritCred*

    Not directly theft but related.

    The company provided milk, tea and coffee etc, and sometimes bottled water or fruit juice but not soda. But we were encouraged to use the communal fridge for our own stuff.

    So I brought in some soda, stuck a 2l bottle in the fridge, plenty of room in there. A co-worker comes in who is usually on the road and starts drinking it too. No Biggie, he’s here for a day, what harm can it do right?

    Well after the 4th to 5th glass he starys whining, whilst pouring himself even more, that it’s the caffeine free version and how terrible it is. For hours.

    Eventually I turned to him and told him perhaps he shouldn’t drink someone’s personally bought stuff and then have the audacity to whine about it not being to his liking whilst still drinking it constantly… Got a fake apology and him still whining about how it tasted until I told him to shut the hell up and stop drinking it for real this time.

    He always was a rude man… (And nope he never even tried to replace it, not that I expected to. Instead I just stopped bothering to use the fridge.)

  139. Creeped out*

    I had a grapefruit spoon I brought in from home and would keep in my desk in a spot that you would have to open to drawers to find and one morning, it was gone. It mysteriously showed up months later, in the same spot, dirty.

    And not quite the same but at a different place, I would come in and the pictures on my cube wall, facing me (you couldn’t see them when standing in front of my desk), would be occasionally be slightly crooked or out of place. One day I found a note on my desk saying “your daughters are beautiful; are they legal?”. EWW. I no longer keep family pics up at work.

    4. DevAssist*

      I hope you reported that. Not that the perp (perv) could be found, but as just a general precaution. That’s horrifying.

  140. Sheworkshardforthemoney*

    I only liked bananas that were just past being green and still a little firm with no brown spots. One day I found someone had switched my perfect banana with a gross, soft brown spotted one. Turned out it was my boss and he did it as a joke. I got my banana back.
    In another workplace someone stole my bottle of Glucerna, a supplement for people with diabetes. A drink that was meant for people with a medical condition. It’s not like I could have a soft drink in it’s place.

    1. Typhon Worker Bee*

      This is hilarious! I like my bananas with just a hint of green still in the skin, but I have a couple of colleagues who like their bananas quite brown. I’ll often put my “gross” (i.e. with a few brown spots) bananas on their desks for them if they ripen faster than I can eat them. I could definitely see one of them pulling this prank on me some time!

  141. Finman*

    I once had a guy who was my and my boss’ least favorite person in the 600 person division (but was favored by his director and thus did no wrong) who one day announced he was cleaning out the floor fridge. The sign was up that at 5:00 Friday before Memorial day the fridge would be cleaned with everything tossed that was in there. I had brought my lunch and didn’t finish an apple and yogurt and had set a reminder on my calendar to grab my leftovers at 4:45. Time rolls around and the fridge is empty, my lunch bag is in the trash (was clean thankfully), and no yogurt or apple. Go over to his desk and he has 5 or 6 cans of soda, a few pieces of fruit and a handful of yogurts that he was planning on taking home. So not only did he do his cleaning before it was stated, but he went through the lunch bags to grab whatever he wanted to take home himself.

  142. JulieBulie*

    I worked in an office. For at least a month, someone was taking small amounts of loose change from people’s desk drawers. (Think a nickel and a penny out of a handful of coins… on the notion that a few coins out of a random jumble wouldn’t be missed.)

    The loss was first noticed by someone who was careful about keeping track of his change, and he discreetly warned others, who started counting their own change. The culprit was eventually caught in the act – the software engineer said she was “borrowing” change for the soda machine, but since she wasn’t returning any of the stolen change and was also stealing pennies, nobody bought her story.

    I don’t know if she was fired or only transferred, but I never saw her again.

    1. zora*

      This is another weird one that must have been more about a mental thing than need. Because there’s no way that a couple coins at a time was adding up to very much money.

      1. JulieBulie*

        There were a lot of desks, but even so, yeah, couldn’t have added up to much. It must have been some weird compulsion. I doubt that she needed the money, but maybe it was a kick to feel as though she was getting away with something.

  143. Jan*

    We had a temp start on a Monday. The person who trained her that morning had $100 cash stolen from her wallet that afternoon. We all thought NAH, can’t be the temp; too obvious! Who would steal on their first day of an assignment? The following week she trained with another person, and then $80 cash was missing from her wallet later that day. A few days later one of the secretaries couldn’t find the wallet in her purse to go to lunch. When she came back and checked her bag, there was the wallet. She thought it was just a brain fart until later in the day when she logged onto her online banking and saw a suspicious $200 charge. When she called the credit card company, she was told the temp (using her own name!) had opened an account for her daughter to make calls from jail. The weird thing was that our manager was defending the temp right up until the police arrived to take the theft reports. What the…..???

  144. One Fine Day*

    Someone once stole the water bottle off my desk that has our company logo. It boggles the mind seeing as there’s a storage cabinet in the back of the office that contains several dozen.

  145. RLM*

    My lunch got stolen a few weeks ago. I am pretty sure I know the person that did it. She just got fired yesterday for stealing time. She was using a app to clock in and out that shows your gps location. We discovered she was clocking in on her way to work and a couple of days she waited until she got home to clock out.

  146. SpinningYarns*

    The only time I ever telled at a co-worker… at Old Job, I lived on site and recieved a room in exchange for being after-hours security, emergency maintenance, and a presence before security got tightened up. It was a really sweet gig and I loved it, byt of course there was one co-worker who had very little sense of personal property.
    The place had no kitchen- only a microwave, hot plate, and a fridge the entire staff shared- so when I got to go to a friend’s house to use the kitchen it was a big deal to me and I made really good things. On the occasion in question, it was Latvian meatballs (kotletes) and meat filled pastry (spekķe piradziņi) and the homeowner friend made triple-chocolate brownies.
    I brought home leftovers for myself and the friend sent home dessert for my roommate… and in the morning all we had were crumbs.
    The co-worker had come in early for some reason and helped himself to my food.

    This was a problem because my food was gone, but also because it was the only space I had to store food and I was gonna be out a significant percentage of my pay, as well as my sense of security, if he kept stealing my meals.

    I (very maturely… *coughcough*) yelled at him, which was surprisingly effective because I have a reputation as very gentle and friendly- and I am, but we all have our limits.

    1. Anion*

      Recipe for kotletes and spekke piradzini, please? :-)

      I’ll give you my recipe for authentic St. Louis Gooey Butter Cake in exchange!

    2. DevotedToPaperwork*

      You have to admit, those particular pastries are hard not to eat ( even more so, if they are made by grandmas and stuffed to the point of bursting).

  147. MerelyMe*

    I had one younger coworker who was constantly borrowing my phone charger from my cube without asking me. Most of the time I didn’t notice it was missing until she returned it, but once I came back from a week of vacation and found it gone. At that point I told her that the answer was Yes, but only if the question was asked first. It seemed that it never occurred to her to ask; she just assumed that what was mine was hers. (Including my lunchtime; when she was pregnant, she would call me from across the open-plan office and ask what I was having for lunch. That meant “I want you to go to the Chinese food truck for me.”)

  148. Peter the Bubblehead*

    Last year during the Christmas holiday, the office where I work was broken into.
    Nothing major was stolen, but things like loose change was taken out of people’s desks and food items – including a tin of sardines – were taken and eaten.
    One item stolen was a gift card to a local restaurant that had been a prize in an office raffle. The person to whom it belonged went to the restaurant to report the theft and see if a replacement card could be obtained, as he still had the receipt with the card’s serial number. While he was there talking to the manager a twenty-something man and his girlfriend walked into the restaurant and asked if they could cash in a gift card without purchasing any food. The manager quickly realized the serial number matched the one just reported stolen and told the man she needed to go in her office to make arrangements to cash out the card. Within minutes the local police were on scene and arrested the man, who was known to them for numerous drug-related crimes.

      1. Jules the 3rd*

        One of my dad’s college students had his car stolen. It was an old beater – they had to push it to start it. When the student was at the police station nearby reporting it stolen, a cop overheard and said, ‘wait, what’s the license? That car is outside.’

        The thief had come to the station to pay some fine. Got more of a receipt than he expected.
        (not really a foaf story – the student Chris told me about it himself.)

  149. Fake old Converse shoes*

    Soon after I started in my last client, I left a bag of tomatoes in the office fridge. Two days later I went to grab them for lunch, and the entire bag was gone. I asked my coworkers and people sitting near us and no one knew. Later that day the head of HR passed by and admitted that she had eaten them when the entire HR department because in her opinion “they belonged to no one”. Apparently she asked all her coworkers, but not the contractors, because to her they weren’t “one of us”. She bought me roughly the same amount I’ve left in the fridge, but never explicitly apologized.

  150. MistakenlyaLunchThief*

    I was the lunch thief. A coworker was running a weekly lunch subscription program where you paid in and she placed all the lunches in the community fridge and then you picked up your lunch for the day. She made everything homemade so it was really good.

    Well one day, I took a late lunch so I grabbed what I thought was my lunch. When talking to my coworkers who also subscribe I realized I had taken and eaten someone elses’ lunch who wasn’t part of the subscription program. I ate someone elses’ home cooked leftovers! I worked on an entirly different floor so I never found out whose lunch I ate. I stopped subscribing to the program because I was so embarrassed. ack.

  151. Eccentric Beagle*

    I have had several items stolen at work:

    Someone repeatedly stole my bathroom key, my lunch was taken from the fridge on numerous occasions, my loose leaf tea ball with an adorable tea cup charm, two starbucks mugs, a postcard from an art museum; my favorite sweater and a pretty ceramic dish that had paper clips in it.

    My coworker’s wallet and cell phone were stolen off of her desk when she got up to the go the copier and no one saw a thing. She was a wreck, as she had no home phone, no cash and lived alone, and had no way to reach her family or vice versa. She had just purchased the phone, too- it cost her $700! She had to call the police and HR opened an investigation. The culprit was never caught, though we suspected who it was, but without proof, nothing could be done.

    1. Story Nurse*

      I don’t understand people who steal communal bathroom keys. I mean, sure, sometimes you accidentally walk away with it in your purse or you leave it on the shelf in the bathroom, but just return it when you realize!

      At one office where I worked at a receptionist, this was such a big problem that I bought big brightly colored rubber dog toys and used them as bathroom key fobs. My boss made me take them off because he didn’t think they looked professional. I just wanted something that no one would accidentally put in their pocket or purse because I was so tired of having to get the keys replaced.

      At my current job, the bathroom key fobs started out small and have grown into enormous WOMEN and GENTS signs for the same reason.

    2. Observer*

      By the way, it’s just not true that nothing can be done without proof. Of course, you don’t want HR going off without some solid information. But, if they have really good reason to believe that someone was the thief, they COULD act on it. And, if they have good information, in the case of a phone, you could also go to the police, because they COULD get the proof.

  152. LKW*

    Many years ago I worked at a pizza & sub-shop. They’d take $2 out of your paycheck per shift and you could get fountain drinks, food at your break, & take a sandwich home at the end of your shift for free. Given that a regular sandwich was about $4 at the time, it was a good deal. I worked 3 days a week and maybe bought myself one or two meals a week tops.

    The prep guys would slice up meat and put it between sheets of waxed paper. About 25 or so portions were then wrapped up in plastic wrap. Pretty standard. Co-worker’s boyfriend was visiting. Instead of just bringing him a sandwich, she brought him 25 portions of turkey, ham and cheese and a couple of rolls. That was her last shift.

    1. irritable vowel*

      A friend who used to work in kitchen prep as a college student told me they would make sandwiches for themselves and hide them in the giant tub of lettuce in the salad prep area.

  153. stitchinthyme*

    My company provides free food – a catered meal once a week, plus various drinks and non-perishable snacks (little bags of chips, cookies, etc). They buy the snacks and drinks in bulk from Costco about once a month or so. Twice in the 4 years I’ve been here, management has had to send out emails to the staff asking people not to take whole cases of food — they’d buy a couple of cases of something and find that an entire case was gone the next morning. (There are only about 40 people here, so there’s no way an entire case of something gets eaten that quickly in the office. I assume that whoever did it took it home.)

    It’s not like we are minimum-wage workers, either. Everyone here can afford to buy their own food to take home. (I will admit to occasionally taking an extra bag of Doritos and keeping it in my desk so that I’ll have something to munch on near the end of the month when the pickings are slim because they haven’t replenished supplies yet. But that’s ONE extra single-serving bag, not a case!)

  154. puzzld*

    I usually lose a bottle or two of coke out of every six pack I bring to work. I keep the full six pack locked up, but put one in the fridge to cool? That’s a dangerous time.

    Also tools. I have bought and lost so many small tools, hammers, screw drivers, pliers, tweezers and the like. Then when you need to open up a pc to replace a blown card? Well I guess I can use my nail file. They even disappear out of locked offices, which makes me think it’s usually custodial staff as they are the only ones with master keys… but can’t prove anything. The worst was when they stole my hot pink battery powered screw driver…

  155. Madeleine Matilda*

    We had someone claim her engagement ring was stolen after she left it by her keyboard. We were kind of suspicious of her claim though because she was constantly losing things. Everyone wondered if she just said it had been stolen because she didn’t want her fiance to know she had lost it. She was the last one to leave our office the night it happened and the doors were locked when the first person came in the next morning. So either a security guard took it over night or a co-worker early in the morning if it was stolen. Her cubicle was tucked in an alcove so someone would have had to walk back in there and snoop around to find the ring. A few months later she was fired due to performance issues which is another long story for another day.

  156. The One Who Burned the Popcorn*

    Oh boy.

    How about that time I left my Crazy Horse Memorial mug out to dry on the kitchen drying rack and someone stole it *that day*? Fortunately, I found it a year later in another kitchenette clear across the office complex.

    I was an unpaid intern at the time amd only owned 3 mugs. Plus, I value my vacation souvenirs! So uncool.

  157. Names Are Hard*

    I have some glass pyrex for lunches that has my last name engraved on it (A unique wedding gift–it was definitely a regift, but with thought and glass! They admitted it to us and made us promise to open it. :) We love it!) Someone stole it and then kept bringing it back with their food in it. It was hilarious. I finally stole it back when it was empty one day.

    1. SoCalHR*

      How is a personalized pyrex a ‘regift’? I didn’t understand that whole part. Anyway, kind of a cool gift I think – considering all of the lunch thievery that is going on.

      1. Seven If You Count Bad John*

        It came from a relative with the same last name, so it was personalized to the relative once upon a time. Then the relative gave it to Names Are Hard.

  158. Philly Redhead*

    In a previous job, I had two phone chargers stolen. I would leave it plugged in, since it was a pain to crawl under my desk to reach the outlet. Come in on a Monday, and it’s gone. Look on a few nearby desks to see if anyone borrowed it, no luck. Figured the janitor unplugged it so it wouldn’t get damaged by the vacuum and forgot to put it back. Go buy another one. Next Monday, gone again. Stopped leaving my charger plugged into the wall after that.

  159. Acx0106*

    Oh man… I had a boss at OldJob that stole everything he could. He stole cash, gift cards, coins, medication, food, etc from my desk. He stole my lunch on multiple occasions. He even tried to steal my company credit card, so I eventually shredded it so he couldn’t. I had to carry all of my belongings around with me or lock them in my car. He also stole computers and a tv out of the office. Additionally, he actually closed a couple of satellite offices and stole all the furniture, equipment, etc out of those. HQ thought the offices were still open! He had to have been a drug addict or something bc his behavior was so bizarre and erratic. I was young and wasn’t sure which aspects were “adult life” and which were unacceptable. Luckily I figured it out eventually!

  160. RPL*

    Chairs. I came into work one day after I’d been working there a few weeks to find that my chair had gotten incredibly squeaky overnight. We’re talking screeching, dying mouse sounds every time I shifted. I said something to a coworker about not knowing what had happened to my chair, and she told me that someone had switched out my chair for The Chair. Apparently there was just one chair in the department that got passed around because it was so atrociously noisy. “I always steal [coworker she notoriously didn’t like]’s chair and give him The Chair when I get it,” she said.

    “That’s childish,” I thought. “I’m not going to participate in something like that.”

    Which lasted maybe a day and then I was staying late so I could steal the chair of someone I hadn’t had much contact with and giving them The Chair.

  161. FidgetSpinnerGone*

    My fidget spinner was stolen and replaced with an inferior fidget spinner that didn’t spin as well. A week later, the replacement spinner was stolen.

  162. Madeleine Matilda*

    A co-worker kept a large bag of candy in her file cabinet that she used to fill a candy jar outside of her office. Someone stolen the large bag of candy from her file cabinet. It made no sense to us since there was a full jar of candy outside of her office for anyone to take. She figured out it had to be a security guard because her office was locked when it happened and only security had a spare key.

  163. Menacia*

    One of my coworker brought in large candy bars and put them on the table for all to share, another coworker decided to take them home for his kids. The coworker who left them went ballistic, and that’s always amusing to watch. This coworker was also notorious for putting his hands into boxes of (other coworker’s ) cereal, eat some, and put his hand back in. Whenever we had a potluck in the office, he would bring in something that no one would want to eat (except him) but would also partake of everything else that was brought. Whenever he was confronted for being his usual thoughtless self, he would threaten to go to HR…thankfully he’s moved on and is someone else’s problem.

  164. Ellen N.*

    At an office where I used to work the flatware kept walking off, especially spoons. Many times I was thankful that I knew how to use chopsticks as those were the only available eating utensils.

    Once I went to a sports event with a coworker and her daughter. The coworker took out some food for her daughter to eat. I saw that the fork her daughter was using was one of the office forks. I commented that now I know why there was never a fork at work when I needed one. She said that the flatware was bought for the employees so it was her right to take the fork home. Her logic was even funnier as in this office everyone who used the kitchen had to be in the rotation to clean it. This coworker went home for lunch every day, didn’t clean the kitchen and wasn’t supposed to use the kitchen.

    One time an employee quit. When we cleaned out his desk we found about ten spoons.

    1. EddieSherbert*

      Not going to lie, I’m the desk drawer silverware hoarder at my office…. But to be fair, I “turn them all in” to the dishwasher when I realize I have gathered up like 5 or so!

      1. Bryce*

        I do that at home. Eat at the computer, take the bowl back and forget about the spoon sitting behind the keyboard. Which then becomes “I should take care of that” land, and amasses friends.

  165. MyInnerDemonLikesCookies*

    Where I used to work, I had two mugs stolen — right around the same time that my husband found his mug at his office had vanished. I wound up getting myself a tumbler, washing it out, drying it and then locking it in my desk.

    I got my husband a new mug off of Etsy — it’s ceramic and covered in little spikes. Very distinctive and also a big tricky to use if you grab it the wrong way. No more issues.

    1. Typhon Worker Bee*

      A left-handed friend at one former job had a mug with a little hole in it that would spill your drink on you if you tried to use it right handed. I think it said something like “FOR LEFT HANDERS ONLY” on it, too. Someone stole it once, and had the gall to complain to her when he spilled tea on himself!

  166. BadScalper*

    A stack of concert tickets (meant for giveaways) went missing off a managers desk. Fortunately, because they were supplied direct from the venue, he was able to get the tickets voided and re-issued.

    The day of the concert – the stolen tickets were processed as such that they wouldn’t scan, but show a particular error code. These people were pulled aside and questioned as to where they got their tickets from. All pointed to the same name – the son of the office custodian (who helped his mother clean the offices).

    Not only did he put his mother’s job in jeopardy (management was firm, but allowed her to keep working so long as her son never set foot on the premises again), he now had angry friends and acquaintances looking for their money back from the tickets.

  167. Elizabeth*

    Our office had a rash of food thefts earlier this year, culminating in a night where a man came into our office after hours with a key and my coworker working late asked if she could help. He said no and left quickly. That night not only food but money and trinkets disappeared. I was one of the first hit and filed a report through the University police (we work on a college campus) and after that last night we all filed again. Turns out there were tons of reports of after hour thefts in locked offices and office suites in areas students would have a hard time accessing. It pretty much narrowed things down to the night cleaning crews. They even found a bright purple bag on surveillance that matched the description of my lunchbox. The officer who followed up with me couldn’t openly tell me everything, but said they were keeping these petty crime cases open past the standard 1 month and the university was hiring a new cleaning company and ended the old contract. Sure enough, all thefts stopped.

  168. AliP*

    I had this GIANT water glass from IKEA that I kept in my cubicle. Like, silly giant. My coworkers called it “the flower vase” since it was this oddly shaped gigantic glass. It was with a set of four for like $5. I was in the kitchen filling it and left it on the counter while I quickly ran to pick up some items from the printer. Came back and it was gone. Months later I’m walking through the office when I see it perched on top of someone else’s cube. It was this guy who always had a filthy dirty workspace with trash and old manuals stacked up to the top of the cube wall. The glass was super greasy and smeared with I-don’t-even-want-to-know so I decided he could keep it if he liked it that much.

  169. irritable vowel*

    I used to work in a small college library where people would steal anything that wasn’t nailed down and didn’t have a security strip that would set off the alarm. The cans of air freshener in the bathroom were constantly being taken. One time someone stole our flatbed scanner, then apparently had a change of heart and brought it back – we found it stashed on top of a row of books in the stacks. The worst was when someone stole credit cards out of my wallet in my office – I’ll never know for sure, but I’m pretty sure it was the locksmith who had been there that day to fix the lock on the door…

  170. Canadian J*

    I keep simple groceries in a box in the communal fridge at work (butter, milk, salad dressing, loaf of bread, jam, etc…). My commute by bus is over an hour, so it’s easier to keep stuff at work. I’m not the only person to do this.

    One day I made my lunch in the kitchen, and as I was putting some butter on a piece of toast, a coworker (someone senior to me) walked in, and started making their lunch. I brought everything back to my desk, and realized I had forgotten my water bottle in the kitchen. I walked back in, and the coworker was using my butter to make her lunch. I paused at the door, and they looked up at me and said “Oh! I, uh, thought this was communal.” Yeah, right – especially when it was said in a sheepish voice with guilty eyes. I brushed it off, but it made me mad – this person makes twice the amount I do, and they’re stealing food?!

    I also had a different coworker come in to the kitchen while I was washing my dishes, and steal my newly-cleaned metal fork (my only one, as I kept a set at my desk). They left the kitchen before I could say anything, and then kept it (still dirty) at their desk for 4 days. I didn’t want to make a big deal of it, but as soon as I saw them go to wash it in the kitchen, I “stole” it back. Now, I have a special hard-plastic set that no one takes. However, people are always commenting that metal cutlery never survives in the kitchen – it’s too valuable.

    1. Neosmom*

      Which is why, when I pack my lunch every day, I include in my bag the metal silverware I need. And I pop it back in my lunch bag for the trip home (for a spa treatment in the dishwasher).

    2. zora*

      I had a set of silverware I kept in my desk drawer when not eating, but I forgot it in the kitchen One Time for the afternoon, and it was gone. Still haven’t seen a trace of it and I haven’t gotten around to bringing a new fork in yet, sigh.

  171. Goya*

    An ex-employee “stole” so much during her last year here. She ordered extra office supplies and never made it to the supply room. Not just small stuff like pens/highlighters, but bigger stuff like laptop stand (there is not a single laptop in our office), shelving unit for a desktop, etc. She conned the new guy into picking up a piece of machinery for her house with the company blanket purchase order. Not a lot of personal stuff went missing because most in the office didn’t trust her to begin with and didn’t keep much around. I have no proof, but our deposits were never correct while she was here, so my guess has always been that she pocketed money sporadically. Of course because she used to be such a “stellar” employee (according to our boss) before she started going through some personal stuff, nothing ever came from any of this – and none of us had any proof according to the boss.

  172. RabbitRabbit*

    At a previous job, you couldn’t even leave petty stuff like change or “free soda” winning bottle caps on your desks, or the night-time cleaning staff would steal it. This was apparently a known thing that no one did anything about.

    Not petty: At my last office (in a clinic building), it was located in a somewhat isolated area of the building, and people (patients, people accompanying patients, random people) would sometimes go into our office suite and steal stuff. Usually wallets (even out of purses tucked into drawers), but sometimes random crap like small wrapped presents (joke’s on you, it was a bar of pretty soap), old PDA devices used for controlling equipment we didn’t use any longer, that kind of thing.

  173. It was me!*

    I took a highlighter home the other day because I needed it for my personal use. I also have not and do not plan on returning it! X-(

  174. anon for this one*

    In my first job, we were so underpaid that I used to steal toilet paper and paper towels from the supply closet because there were weeks where I had to choose between groceries and utilities. Sometimes I’d steal coffee packets or empty the baskets of fruit they left out for visitors.

    I was so mortified it had come to that, but years later I found out several other entry level employees were doing the same thing, so at least I wasn’t alone.

  175. Nicki Name*

    At a previous job, my boss’s boss would periodically order a few boxes of snacks which were available to all teams working under him, and kept in a filing cabinet in his “territory” (open workspace, so we didn’t have rooms with walls). Word started getting out and people from other parts of the building would show up and carry off complete boxes when a new shipment had arrived. The snack stash had to be moved to a spot right by the boss’s boss’s desk so that he could vet people taking snacks, and locked up at night. Eventually he was pressured into not providing snacks at all (I guess other bosses were being asked by their underlings if they could have a snack supply too?).

  176. LuminousSap*

    I will admit to being a food thief also. I had just moved to a new city that was way more expensive than what I had planned. I had a permanent job but was let go shortly after moving. I then proceeded to work temp jobs off and on for about six months. Money was very tight and I ate one meal a day. Mostly rice, beans, day old bread and pastries. I temped at an office where all the employees had been there a long time and were very well off. I hate to admit but I sometimes took things from the office refrigerator. They had bagels and donuts every Friday and I would squirrel those away at my desk to take home for the weekend. I was so ashamed when a couple of times the manager commented very loudly that people must have been very hungry that day. The office also provided coffee and it was noted a few times that someone was becoming a very big coffee drinker. I drank at least 4 cups a day. In retrospect, they probably knew it was me. I wore the same clothes every week and lived in a shady part of town. They went out to lunch a lot and I never went with them. I am guessing it was not a problem before I started there and stopped after I left.

    1. Turtlewings*

      Pretty rude of them to keep remarking on “someone” taking the free stuff that was there to take, especially if they could tell you were suffering financially. I can’t condone you taking people’s lunches, but bagels, coffee, etc. provided for everyone? I officially absolve you of all guilt.

      1. CMDRBNA*

        I think this is one of those things where it’s the perception of what’s happening – like, we have a lot of leftover food from functions in our office and it’s put out for everyone to help themselves, but if the same person were to start doing stuff like taking all or most of the free food, we’d probably start hearing snarky comments about it.

        But yeah, agreed that it’s pretty nasty to make comments like that when the food is ostensibly for everyone.

      2. LuminousSap*

        To clarify, I didn’t take things directly from lunches. A few times I took fruit that had been left in the frig for awhile and was nearing it’s expiration. I know that it did belong to someone and it was wrong of me to take it, even if they didn’t plan on eating it. The bagels and donuts I waited until late afternoon to take some of the leftovers. I guess the whole incident still bothers me even though I am financially stable now. I bring a nice lunch for myself everyday and sometimes things go missing. I like to assume that whomever took items from my lunch did it out of hunger and not cheapness or greed. I can afford a few dollars to replace my apple or cookie or whatever was taken.

        1. Turtlewings*

          Ah, that is a more than a little different than just opening someone else’s lunch and eating it. I’m really sorry you had to go through that. I don’t think you should let it bother you too much — like you said, it looks unlikely that the food’s real owners intended to eat it anyway. I’m glad you’re doing better now!

    2. JulieBulie*

      Four cups of coffee is not an unusually large amount! We have a few people here who drink six or more.

      2. Former Hoosier*

        I agree. I have no doubt my husband drinks that much some days. And if it is out for everybody, what is the expectation? That you have to leave some leftovers? It is different if you get in first thing and take a dozen. Late afternoon when others are done, seems fine.

  177. Catalin*

    This is more hoarding than stealing, but we had to lock our supply closet because people would say, need a pen, and go take a box of pens. The full box. That box went into their desks, never to be seen again. I don’t care who you are, you do not need a dozen red pens at one time.

  178. Michigan Sara*

    My mom worked in a small office that was shared with another woman who ran her own business. All told, there were three people who worked there: my mom, her boss (who always went out to eat), and this other woman. My mom would bring 2-3 Lean Cuisines and put them on the freezer door. The other woman would bring 10-15 Healthy Choices (or whatever non-LC brand) meals and stack them in the main part of the freezer. At least once a week, my mom would go to have her lunch and find that one of her meals had been taken. My mom’s boss was out a lot of the time, so she would know that it wasn’t him that nicked the lunch. They didn’t have a cleaning crew, so it wasn’t them.

  179. it_guy*

    The most hilarious thievery story that I can think of involves a police dog!

    At previous “Awful job of all time”… We had a break in overnight and they called the police to file a report. They brought in a police dog to search the area and when the dog found the actual bear skin rug in the owners office, the dog got… well…. ‘frisky with it.

    I snort whenever I think of it.

  180. 9to5yeahright*

    At a previous job, my grandboss had very high-end pens he liked. He never made a show of them, and would simply say “Thank you” when someone would notice him using one of his pens. One day, he left one on a side table in a conference room after a meeting, and when he went back, it was gone. He sent out a couple of nice emails, “Hey anyone notice a greenish pen? If you’ve seen it please let me know!” but he didn’t get a response. A day or two later, word started going around that if the pen didn’t reappear, security footage would show who took it, and that the pen value was so high that whoever took it could be facing felony grand theft charges. The pen reappeared later that day, and I don’t know if it was related, but another manager left soon after for “other opportunities.”

  181. JoJo*

    I had a small baggie of change and an umbrella disappear from my desk a few months ago. At Old Job a brand new microwave oven mysteriously disappeared from the break room. Security claimed they saw nothing. I guess someone just put it in their pocket.

  182. MissGirl*

    A coworker lost an expensive earring. Fell out in our warehouse. A week went by and she tells me she found her earring, in another coworker’s ear.

    Which meant that this woman found ONE dangly earring on the ground and put it in her own ear.

    3. Jules the 3rd*

      Back in the 80s / early 90s ‘one earring’ or mismatched earrings was a fashion thing – could be a hold-over; I *still* have to remind myself that the fashion has changed. Picking it up off the ground part is pretty weird.

      1. nonegiven*

        I think they actually matched, the same stones and/or a matching shape and metal, just that one was usually a stud and the other a dangling one

  183. skeptic analyst*

    I think the most outrageous thefts was at one of my temp jobs working for a bank in the mortgage servicing area. We had a large warehouse which had been converted into a cube farm, so there were tons of people. The bank provided (free!) really crappy coffee. Problem is, there were so few times that the bank ALSO provided creamer or sugar or sweetener. It tasted like sludge without it. Folks would bring in their fancy Coffeemate or Starbucks or Caribou coffee creamers, slap a sticky note with their name on it on the bottle, and put them in the fridge so they could doctor the free coffee to something palatable. I can’t recall a week without an email going out about the coffee creamer thefts. People would steal the whole bottle and leave that sticky note behind. There were big signs on the fridge which also got the sticky note added. My solution was to buy my own shelf-stable creamer and keep it in my desk drawer, then watch the comedy at break time when folks couldn’t find their fancy creamers.

    I’m personally guilty of keeping a stash of sweetener in my desk drawer at that job. It went with me to my next job, where folks were always stealing my nice pens… but I think office supply theft is pretty common.

    1. SheLooksFamiliar*

      Your last comment reminds me of a non-theft related story. My workspace was near a conference room, and a fellow going into a meeting realized his pen wasn’t working. He asked me if he could borrow a pen. I handed him a Pilot G-2 pen, a really nice gel pen. He said, ‘Thanks, but we’re in this meeting till late this evening. Do you have a crappy pen that works, but you may never see it again?’

      I still think that was nice of him. And I insisted he take the gel pen.

  184. Emi.*

    My mother had a friend who was the only woman in a mechanical shop (I think car repair?) where people had their own tools. Her coworkers kept borrowing hers and forgetting to return them, so she took them all home and coated the handles in candy-pink rubber.

    2. Seven If You Count Bad John*

      I used to put Hello Kitty stickers on mine. Works a treat, except the dudes won’t touch them even to hand them to you :D

  185. MasterOfBears*

    Oh man do I have one. When I was in grad school, all the student offices had the same lock. One weekend a charming individual went through every office and stole thousands of dollars worth of stuff – laptops, headphones, hard drives, monitors, anything that didn’t have a university serial number…including, for some reason, a little figurine I had on my desk of a little blue dragon hatching from an egg. (I was super bummed about that – it was a present from my dad, and came from a craft fair he went to in Portugal…not likely to see another one like it any time soon.)

    So come Monday, we’re all frantically comparing notes amongst ourselves, trying to make a list of what was missing. One of my office mates is down in another student office in the basement…and notices that one of the newer students has a little blue dragon hatching from an egg on his desk. She veeeeery casually comments that it’s cute and asks if she can take a look…sure enough, there’s a Portugese name and “Lisboa 2015” carved into the bottom. Guy claims he got it on ebay.

    The police took that story and a few pictures that showed the dragon on my desk as reason enough to talk to the guy and search his apartment: lo and behold, about a dozen laptops and headphones and hard drives matching the descriptions we gave them.

    Guy claimed he got those on ebay too.

    Short version: my doofy baby dragon tchotchky foiled a $10,000 robbery

      1. MasterOfBears*

        He kind of became the mascot of our office after that. We had a “Here There Be Dragons” sign on the door to warn thieves of our guarddragon

  186. animaniactoo*

    Office thefts:

    Old Company: Round about of 20 years ago, my shift came in and one person couldn’t get their computer to do anything. Barely booted up. Opened computer. Discovered missing RAM.

    Current company, old location: Engineer’s VCR goes missing. Later that day, one of the warehouse guys (small company, total of 60 people or so between office people and warehouse people) is selling a VCR. Um. Yeah.

    Current company, current location: Photo Studio camera is stolen overnight. Fortunately it was the older backup one they’d left out. 2 years later, camera is stolen while they’re out at lunch. In a surprising move, it’s no longer possible to enter the photo studio without a keycard or exit unless you know where the magic button is…

    1. animaniactoo*

      Oh wait, I forgot about the REALLY outrageous ones.

      Old company: Toilet paper theft is a constant issue. Company buys big industrial holders and therefore industrial size rolls of paper to fit in them rather than the regular can use in your own home style. Somebody PROMPTLY STEALS A HOLDER OFF A BATHROOM STALL.

      Current company: The missing metal bits. Just scrap pieces nobody would have known or cared about if they weren’t being used on premises to make a gun. No, I don’t know what kind of gun, just that one was being made and it was the brother of a current longstanding employee. The brother was very promptly fired.

  187. Turtlewings*

    I used to work at a library in a high-crime downtown area. We had a patron rifle through a coworker’s desk while she was in the bathroom, find her car key there (inside her lunch box), and use it to steal her car from the parking lot.

  188. NoHose*

    I had two lunch containers disappear after being washed in the dishwasher. I was in another branch when I asked a coworker at the main branch to collect my containers. She couldn’t find them, no one fessed up. They very likely looked like someone else’s containers (common brand) so whoever took’em must have felt they were theirs. My coworker bought me new ones out of guilt.

    Then years later, feeling smarter, I put my name on my container prior to putting it in the dishwasher overnight. The next day, my container was nowhere to be found. I left a note in the kitchen. Two days later, the container was returned to me by an embarrassed coworker. She had the same brand, looked at it quickly, assumed it was hers and took it home, confused as to why someone else would put their name on HER container! Then it hit her: duh. I got my container back!

    A friend of mine, the cleaning lady of a small office, kept having her specially chosen organic hummus eaten by someone else, despite notes, etc. She knew exactly who and that person just.didn’t.care.

    Not a theft thing but a no-one-fessing-up thing: someone put a can of coke in the freezer to make it colder faster. It exploded and the entire freezer was covered in coke. NO one would admit to it but someone who claimed he was innocent volunteered to clean it up.

  190. Rando*

    I steal my coworkers phones every now and then. Not to keep, more like a prank? Very tiny office and everyone knows jokes like that are likely me. Always interesting who notices immediately and who takes a few hours. Someone once stole mine back and I didn’t notice for so long the whole office was huddled near my desk expectantly. Finally someone had to give me a verbal nudge before I thought to look for my phone, lol.

      1. CMDRBNA*

        Seriously. I keep credit cards and my transit card in my phone’s wallet case, and if someone “stole” it at work as a prank I would freak out. +1 to your recommendation that Rando find some other office prank.

          2. Observer*

            And precisely do you think it’s so funny to freak someone out? Especially when the freak out is COMPLETELY legitimate?

    3. Liz2*

      Yeah, no. Coffee mug- quirky, but easily replaced usually. Phones- hundreds of dollars, plus possibly needing to keep checking for family emergencies or dr info? Not cute, not worth the risk if it gets damages.

    4. Jules the 3rd*

      You should stop doing that. There’s way better things to prank with, like pictures.

      Also: you should probably make sure you check in with people once in a while to see if this is ok, or if it bugs them. My new ‘across the wall’ cubicle person started pranking me (there’s Rats! under the floor! oh hey, that’s a rubber severed hand at my feet). I don’t like it – it triggers my OCD. He was nice when I asked him to stop, but I really wish I hadn’t had to ask.

    5. AnaM*

      Sorry to break it to you, but you’re the office jerk. The “pranks” are not fun and nobody enjoys them.

      2. Observer*

        No, not in any office. There are plenty of people who are laid back but would seriously freak out at something like this- with good reason.

        There are some pranks that are office / culture dependent. Others, there is just never a good place to do them.

  191. sunshyne84*

    Someone stole my tape dispenser and trash can and something else from my desk. Granted I kinda took over another desk in a completely different room, but that was still technically my desk and my things. When I did return I found a trash can from somewhere else and after someone left I took their tape dispenser.

    At another job, there was a jar for coffee donations which sat in a cabinet for a mighty long time so I took the lone dollar out and bought a soda from the machine with it. I’m glad I never had an issue with people stealing my lunch, but I did accidentally throw someone’s lunch away. I was cleaning the fridge and one section had old leftovers for awhile and apparently someone had put new leftovers in that same section. I just bought them lunch to make up for it.

  192. SheLooksFamiliar*

    My sister once sent a birthday package to my office because deliveries to my apartment were often stolen. We were both on tight budgets in those years, so we’d send inexpensive, silly gifts – a Wooly Willy puzzle, jacks, things like that. She always included homemade brownies or cookies, and I looked forward to her awesome goodies. I was at an off-site meeting when the package was delivered, and found the opened box on my desk. It was empty except for the card which was, funny enough, unopened. There were 10 people in that office besides me, and they were all there when I found my package. I demanded to know why they would open someone else’s mail, and said I wanted my gifts back. A few people looked sheepish, and one person said, ‘We didn’t think you’d mind, you shared her brownies with us before.’ Never did get my gifts back. They did this to other people so I wasn’t singled out, but still. I found a new job before my next birthday.

    1. sunshyne84*

      Ugh I hate people like that. I don’t care how many times I share you don’t get to take without my permission!

    2. EddieSherbert*

      WHAT. I’m flabbergasted and outraged on your behalf. That’s ridiculous! I’d probably have been very rude to them – I’m very serious about my sweets! …Also my mail. And common courtesy…

      1. SheLooksFamiliar*

        I know! You just don’t take things that don’t belong to you, and you NEVER open someone else’s mail. I never thought I’d have to spell it out, but I sure did that day.

        My sister was semi-famous in the office for her awesome brownies or cookies – especially her kolackys – because I had brought them from home before. Someone later told me I kind of brought it on myself for sharing in the first place. They weren’t normally jerks, but they sure made up for it that day.

      2. Artemesia*

        My husband wouldn’t open a package addressed to me. What kind of co-workers think helping themselves to someone else’s gifts is slightly okay?

    3. ss*

      Sharing implies that you get at least ONE of the brownies since they belonged to you. If they take them all, there’s not even the excuse of “sharing”.

  193. Kathenus*

    I worked at one fun, but odd workplace that frequently had late shifts during the busier season (it was a tourist-based organization). They instituted a “5 o’clock rule” for all food in the refrigerator. If you didn’t put your name and “No 5 o’clock rule” on it, it was fair game to anyone working late.

    Akin to an above comment with the water bottle held hostage, my boss once left her glasses in my office and I sent her a ‘ransom note’ by email, complete with differing fonts and sizes so it looked like one of those ones from TV with the cutout letters on them, demanding chocolate for their return.

    The only real odd thievery I remember was when I used to buy Bath and Body Works hand soap for the ladies room in our office at one job, and it kept disappearing. It was too expensive to continue so I had to make due with the wall soap dispenser after that.

  194. Janelle*

    We hired an accounting assistant part time once. I left my office to go to my partners to speak with him (mind you I am management) and when I got back my laptop is gone from my desk. I walk out of my office and she is sitting there with it. I question her and she says “oh I don’t like this PC I’m using this one”. I explained, um no, and she tried to get her way by saying “it’s company property”. I informed her that it actually wasn’t. Then she went to my partner to claim I was job searching as she saw it. Ya. Also known as posting a job. She had a nice talking to and they gave me the pleasure of firing her on the spot. She was so confrontational about it too. So weird.

  195. Statler von Waldorf*

    I have never stolen from work, but I did beat up a lunch thief once. I wouldn’t have done it if he stole from me, I had enough weight to spare that missing one meal won’t hurt me. However, he stole the lunch from my very pregnant co-worker who was struggling with morning sickness. This was in a remote work site, so there was no other options for her to get food from. She had never been stolen from before, and between that and the pregnancy hormones, it really shook her up.

    After the shift ended, me and the thief had a “private conversation.” The guy was a bully, and fully admitted to taking her food simply because he could. There was back and forth, things heated up, and the guy ended up needing to go to the hospital because I broke a few of his ribs in addition to the bruises and a concussion.

    We both got fired and I was arrested for that one, so please do not attempt this at home.

    1. CMDRBNA*

      Dang, Statler – seriously though, sometimes violence IS the answer. Personally I think a guy who steals food from a pregnant person just because they can is worse than someone who beats up that guy.

    6. Observer*

      I don’t know if I would actually APPLAUD what you did. But, I DEFINITELY have a lot less problem with it, than with your co-worker. He deserved what he got, and if it had happened because he fell down the stairs running away from you because he thought you were going to beat him up, I would be applauding.

  196. La Revancha*

    My boss was out of the country for a month and always has a specific kind of gym at his desk. I really wanted some gum so while he was gone, I took the container and told myself I would replace it before he got back. Karma bit me in the ass because I could not at all find that specific gum anywhere! I went to every store I could think of for a week straight during my lunch break to find it.

  197. Anon!*

    I once took a very small, outdated, and worthless object from a closet my former employer hadn’t touched in decades (seriously). No one knew what it was for except for me and pretty much everything in the closet was just thrown in the trash. I kept it because I thought it would be a funky decoration.

    I got an email about it like six months after I left asking if I knew what happened to “that thing” from the closet, they still didn’t know what it was but apparently they wanted it now. “Hmm, no, but maybe it accidentally got thrown out with everything else?” and I haven’t heard from them since. I should probably feel worse about it than I do, but they weren’t a good employer.

  198. Feltwright*

    I used to work at a stressful law office as a paralegal, and we had this running game between two of the other paralegals: when one of them would have their lunch at their desk, all ready to eat, and then had to step out in front to deal with a client (this happened regularly), the other paralegal would quickly hide the lunch. Usually someplace very obvious but easily overlooked (Like on the shelf with the law books right above the desk etc). And then one day, I stole and hid the lunch (I was always the innocent bystander) and the blame and confused denials flew around until they noticed me quietly chuckling to myself in the corner. Many wonderful ghatdammits were exchanged.

  199. overcaffeinatedandqueer*

    Someone recently stole my $9 fidget dice cube desk toy!

    But, I’ve also been the work thief, in a way. When I was in college, my parents paid but were totally linked in to my bank account- and mom thought I was fat. So she’d get mad and threaten to yank support if I bought myself a coffee or spent too much on food. I was working, but got paid in the form of a rent credit since it was property upkeep.

    Lo and behold, one semester I am basically out of cash a week before school ends. Mom snaps I can stand to miss some meals. Go to campus group that met at a nearby church for dinner, first time I eat all day. Told to go to industrial kitchen to find desserts, get left briefly alone there…yeah, I took some peanut butter, and found couch-change to buy bread.

    Thinking on it, I’m sure they would have given it to me if I asked. But most thefts from fridges are just mistakes, or pettiness, or even revenge if the person doesn’t like you.

    1. Katykat*

      Even if you are/were 5oo pounds overweight the way you mom handled it is terrible!

      I do think that it is underestimated just how food insecure college students are. I paid my own way (sometimes working two jobs plus mandatory volunteer hours) and I wish that I would have known that I could have gone to a food pantry or gotten food stamps or something. I didn’t starve, but I was definitely a pastatarian. The Easter Sunday I had to go home and eat ramen was a very sad day. (I was planning to treat myself to Arby’s but they were closed)

      1. Elizabeth West*

        I do think that it is underestimated just how food insecure college students are.

        Oh god yes. When I was in music school, we ate millions of those $1 hot ham and cheese sandwiches from Hardees. It was really easy to scrounge couch change for those things. One time, I lived on cheap bacon, toast, and hot tea for an entire WEEK before my mum showed up one weekend and took me to the grocery store.

        1. Artemesia*

          when I was a teacher and my husband was in law school we had just no money. I wore the clothes I had worn in college (and they were not all that) and became an expert at figuring out how to stretch one pound of hamburger to 8 servings i.e. 4 meals for the two of us. I still shudder when I think about the hominy/tomato/hamburger/cheese casserole.

          1. BananaRama*

            I’m confused, how much is a serving for hamburger? I commonly make meals that are 4+ servings on 1 pound of hamburger. In fact, I just made spaghetti sauce with 1.5 pounds and had over 12 servings packed up.

            1. nonegiven*

              According to one of the diet sites, one ounce of 85% lean hamburger has 5.5 grams of protein. 1 pound of meat split into 8 servings is 2 ounces each, so 11 grams of protein. I was told by my doctor to get 90 grams of protein/day

          2. nonegiven*

            There was the first year we were married, we had rabbit four or five times a week that winter. Fried, stew, potpie, etc. DH and his dog, the dog would flush them and DH would shoot them. Once in a while now, he’ll bring one home and fry it up and I can’t even look at it.

    2. veggiewolf*

      “Someone recently stole my $9 fidget dice cube desk toy!”

      I’ve attached my fidget cube to my lanyard for this reason. It now keeps company with my badge, my prepaid keycard for our snack system, and my RSA token. I now rattle when I walk, but it hasn’t been stolen.

  200. CanCan*

    I confess, I once stole something at work. I was 16 and it was my first summer job – cleaning houses that tenants had recently vacated. Once we came to a house that tenants had just been evicted from. There were a few half-packed boxes with stuff. I had no idea how evictions worked, so I thought that all this stuff would just get thrown out. (Actually, the tenant gets 3 days to pick up their belongings, certain hours of the day only, and probably supervised.)

    So I took a t-shirt from one of the boxes, thinking it was trash. It was a colourful “God Made Grass Man Made Booze” t-shirt. Gave it to my mom. Money was tight, so not having to pay $1 that the Salvation Army then charged for t-shirts was awesome. Almost 20 years later, my mom still wears it as a house t-shirt only. Neither she (nor anyone else in my family) consume “grass” , and barely ever booze.

  201. Tish the tester*

    I worked at a mall food store once where the district manager came in one evening and took $80 out of the $100 we kept on hand for change. He excused it as a “loan” since his travel reimbursement was late. Corporate was not happy.

    Another mall food stall, fired a new cook in less than 2 weeks after catching him stealing 40lbs of frozen shrimp. If he hadn’t got so greedy, the other cooks would have taught him their ways – cook a whole bunch of product 15 minutes before closing, declare it “waste” and buy it at 25% of retail.

  202. some people are gross*

    Not office-related theft, but creepy.

    OldApartmentCommunity never changed locks between tenants. And had a lot of same-key locks scattered across their entire sprawling multi-building complex. Another tenant figured out his key worked on my door and began waiting for me to leave so he could help himself to my landline phone for his 900-number calling adventures. He would exit before I returned, but did not lock the door behind him. This went on for a few months. One time I was home sick during the day and someone tried opening my front door, only to have the chain catch it. I was in other room so they were long gone by the time I got to the door; knob was unlocked but the chain was still on. I thought I was forgetting to lock my door, seriously started to wonder if I was having mental issues because I could have sworn I locked it but regularly came home to an unlocked door. Nothing ever missing, although sometimes the phone handset was not on the charger but was in an odd spot. Rig was up when I came home from visiting my mother, hit redial and got prompted for my credit card number. I had called my mother just before leaving my house earlier that day. Police got involved, started watching my door, caught the guy, and OldApartmentCommunity fell over themselves to make things right and changed locks throughout the entire facility. They also installed a new high-end door lock of my choice on my apartment.

  203. Punched*

    I had a free coffee punch card that was full and ready for redemption stolen from my desk drawer. I told several people about it, suggesting that we might want to start locking up our stuff when we are not at our desks. Two days later I arrived to work to find a $5 Starbucks gift card on my keyboard. I’ve always assumed whoever stole my punch card heard me telling people and wanted to make amends. Regardless, I lock up my desk when I leave my area.

  204. Honoria*

    I do a lot of travel/wfh due to travel, and people are always stealing the chair out of my workspace while I’m gone. To stop that, I started leaving a jacket or scarf on the chair when I’d be out for a few days. It worked for a bit, then the scarf disappeared. 18 months later, I still haven’t seen that scarf…

  205. Deirdre*

    I recalled another rather scary situation. Years ago, old job. New admin starts and first thing she asks for is everyone’s home address, puts in a document for “her records.” A few days later, I get home and realize that someone had taken my house key off my key chain. We were leaving that night for a trip (which was prearranged and vacation requests were collected by said admin). This was pre-email and I called the CEO and office manager furious – it was a lot of work to take one key off my key ring -keys don’t just fall off. Thus began a number of phone calls into the evening. Another coworker was also missing a key but it was the key to the pool house.

    The admin was a no-show the next day and never came back.

    1. nonegiven*

      Woman I went to high school with, she married well. Maybe not rich, but very comfortable. She was working as an elementary school principal. She found her keys missing from her coat pocket, coat being hung up in her office. She had a spare set and went home feeling bad. She was just walking into her front room from the back of the house when suddenly, two office workers from her school walked in the front door.

      She called and quit her job with no notice. The superintendent gave her the choice of any other school in the district to get her to come back.

  206. Kimberly*

    A coworker found her microwaveable meal missing. The principal found out and went off on everyone over the PA system – while the kids and some parents were still in the building. Embarrassed the poor teacher and the innocent thief who had already apologized for the mistake. The “thief” had grabbed what she thought was her meal. They had the same brand of frozen meals, both brought lasagna (one meat, one veg) and had labeled it with their initials which happened to be the same. They would have just switched meals but teacher who had brought the veg lasagna was observing Lent. That was the only reason she realized her meal was gone. They both said that a couple of times they could have sworn they had brought X but found Y in the frig, and now realized they were eating each other’s meals. (They were a K and 1st teacher so due to a quirk in the schedule sometimes their lunch schedules changed each week so sometimes the K teacher ate first and sometimes the 1st-grade teacher ate first)

    We also got hit by a professional ring of thieves. During our Halloween carnival, a new parent started screaming that her kids’ shoes had been stolen at the moonwalk. While the principal and AP were handling her, a bunch of other new parents and their family members left the area. A kid not related to them told the principal that Mrs. Thief had stuck the shoes up under the moonwalk so they wouldn’t be stolen. Well, a couple of Teacher husbands who were also cops heard this and took off toward classrooms. There they found the other family members stealing out of teachers’ purses (our locks sucked). They weren’t taking cash and cards that would be noticed – they were skimming the cards and putting them back. Turned out they had been doing this off and on for over a month coming on campus and getting into empty classrooms.

    A couple of weeks later I was babysitting my niece and nephew after they went to bed I was remotely updating the office slideshow of school event using my iPad. My sister and BIL got home and I put down the iPad. My sister glanced at it and recognized the parents and kids in the photo. The same ring had hit the hospital where she worked – visiting on the maternity floor. They had pickpocketed staff, stolen staff phones, skimmed cards, cleaned out the bassinets waiting for other mothers of diapers and onesies, stolen meals off carts, cleaned out part of the kitchen and stolen furniture from a waiting room. My school got off lucky.

  207. CmdrShepard4ever*

    I have had tupperware (I am using it as a generic term not brand name) “stolen” in my office, we are a small staff 5 people and many of us use similar ones. People usually wash them but don’t pick them up right away so they sit for a few days after a while it gets hard to remember what pieces belong to who. I have probably “stolen” some thinking they were actually mine.

  208. olive*

    This is actually hilarious, because not five minutes ago, a co-worker pulled her completely wrapped up lunch out of the fridge to find one big bite taken out of her pizza.

    3. NewBoss2016*

      He must work with one of my good friends. She used to buy multiple rotisserie chickens at the store, eat the skin off of them, then give me the skinless chicken. Weird, but I got free chicken so I wasn’t complaining.

  210. Miles*

    At my old job the client would hire short-term contract assistants to help the long term employees with fieldwork. Usually they did their jobs competently and well, but we had a couple incidents:
    1) I had one who was just terrible. He wouldn’t take direction, particularly from women, he used every chance he could to get out of work, and he constantly tried to get us in trouble with the client and the client in trouble with the authorities by making up “safety” violations that hadn’t occurred. I complained to my manager that he was disruptive and impossible to work with for my team, only to find out that he had worked with us on a previous project and had not only done the same thing, he had been caught leaving the site on his last day with several thousand dollars worth of our equipment! My manager had even been asked about him by the client before they hired him, but my manager hadn’t told the client about all of the previous incidents for fear of being sued for “slander”.

    2) We were working in a very small town when one of our contract assistants stole the keys to the company vehicle and drove it recklessly around town, doing doughnuts on the laws of the high school and the community soccer field. Since it was the company vehicle with our logo on the side everyone knew it was associated with our company. We never officially found out which of the assistants it was (we unofficially knew who it was, and years later one of the other assistants confirmed it), but it was years before our company could work in that town again without getting angry remarks from locals whenever they saw us.

  211. Student*

    I work in a lab. I’m short. So, I buy a ladder for every lab I work in, if it doesn’t already have one – a nice one; for this story, a very heavy-duty fiberglass step ladder. Things in labs tend to go missing, so I also label my ladder and other equipment clearly, with large letters in permanent markers.

    So, when my ladder went missing one day, it didn’t take me too long to find it. The label is big enough that I can identify it from 40-50 yards away. It was sitting in the middle of a nearby lab vault. There was no obvious culprit to yell at, so I stole it back, set it up in my lab, and attempted to use it.

    I got two rungs up before I realized something was amiss. The balance wasn’t quite… right. I got off the ladder to take a look, thinking I maybe hadn’t properly extended the spreader bars (the folding bits near the top-middle of the ladder that keep the legs rigid). I look, and the spreader bars are fine.

    However, one of support legs of the fiberglass ladder was creased (!), and a rivet had popped out completely (!!!). I’m not even sure how one damages a ladder like that. At the time, my best guess was that somebody from a nearby construction effort within the building had dropped an I-beam or similar on it. Perhaps somebody dropped it several stories. I never found out.

    I was livid that somebody had stolen my ladder, severely damaged it, and then not even had the decency to throw it away before somebody tried to use it in its damaged state. Ladders with damage like that are actually quite dangerous, and can maim or kill people.

  212. A.*

    During high school, my tennis coach stole all the money we raised at a fundraising event. He quit teaching at the school and stopped coaching us right before the start of the season taking all the money we raised that winter.

  213. BearThief*

    In my first office job I had a stuffed bear on my desk. One of my coworkers (Ron, who was a jokester) grabbed it off my desk while I was away and put it on top of a filing cabinet at the end of the row. Before I could retrieve it, the bear fell into the cubical at the end of the row and that coworker (Jane) assumed it was a gift for her. At the end of the day I realized that Jane had already left. I grabbed my bear back planning to explain the next day what had happened. Before I could talk to Jane the next morning she loudly declared to the whole office that someone had stolen “her” bear. …So naturally over the course of the next week I planted on her desk a sticky note, a ransom note with letters cut out of a magazine, a picture of the bear tied up and blindfolded, and a box with stuffing in it. All of which were demanding pie (Jane made delicious pies) in exchange for the bear. Jane did make the pie (which the whole office enjoyed) and got the bear back. I was never caught even though I sat in the same row as her.

    1. EddieSherbert*

      I love this one. Everyone in your office sounds really good-natured!

      (Besides Jane’s weird initial “this is my bear gift that fell from above” bit, but she handled his kidnapping well! haha)

  214. Althea*

    Our tiny non-profit used to have offices inside a law office. We shared a floor and a kitchen with a bunch of document review contracted lawyers. I was friends with one of them, and one day she said that the prior day, all but her and 2 others had been told they were laid off, and had to leave immediately.

    They had all left various pyrex and tupperware dishes in the kitchen. I kept on working in our mostly empty floor. After 3 or 4 weeks, I just thought to myself that those folks are never coming back. I took home all the nicest dishes. I still have them all. I always wondered if there was a lawyer who couldn’t recall why she couldn’t find her nice lidded pyrex.

  215. Roman Holiday*

    The only time my previous office had a problem with theft was during a serious heat wave a few years ago. The air conditioning was not up to task, and there weren’t enough portable fans to go around, so for a few weeks they become the most prized commodities in the office, and people became absolutely ruthless about stealing them for their offices/cubes. They must have been “re-distributed” a couple times a day, because as soon as someone left a fan unattended, someone else would swoop in and grab it. I shared an office at the time, so we started strategically timing our breaks so our fan would never be unattended – it became a little bit like an office version of “capture the flag”.

  216. Lily in NYC*

    Gross but funny: My coworker used to run at lunch and he hung his sweaty shorts on his office doorknob to dry (the knob inside the office). He came back from a meeting and they were gone and we spent lots of time trying to decide who would steal them and why. He was really handsome and I always wondered if it was someone who had a crush on him. The best part: on his last day of work, the shorts reappeared on the doorknob, but now they had skidmarks on them (they were definitely not there before). I am still friends with him and still tease him about it 15 years later.

  217. DCGirl*

    I worked in a department store in graduate school, and the amount of theft that took place was astounding. People would do things like open the other register in a department (you know, the one that was only opened during peak periods when you needed more than one register) on a very quiet Monday night and remove some of the money left there ($25 in small bills and change) and then be astounded when they were caught and fired. One high school age employee who worked in the jewelry department was caught because she was wearing the jewelry she stole to work and no one could remember ringing up the purchase for her (you couldn’t ring up your own purchases, for obvious reasons). We also had employees who would effectively rent clothes — they would buy something for a special date, wear it, then put the tags back on it with what we called the “feather gun” that was used to re-attach tags that fell off/got lost. I turned in one of the worst offenders and got a $200 cash reward, which I used to buy a nice new purse.

    2. zora*

      Actually, I used a tag-gun for my own purposes once. I had bought some stuff from Buffalo Exchange and taken the tags off when I got home, but then a couple of pieces I realized a day or two later, were not good purchases, I was never going to wear them. I worked retail at the time, so I found the tags in the garbage, took them to work and reattached them with the gun from my work, then returned them to Buffalo that day.

      Not exactly you’re supposed to do, but I never wore the items and I did pay for them, I was just returning them. And I’ve learned to be better about being picky BEFORE I take the tags off, not after!!

    3. Floundering Mander*

      Geez, I feel weird about wearing clothes that I obviously bought at a certain shop into the store when I’m shopping. I’m always afraid that I’ll be accused of having stolen them. I can’t imagine wearing that stuff if I actually *had* stolen them.

  218. SillyGosling*

    I had someone snatch a king sized candy off the top of my hutch in my locked office. I had looked at it before I left the previous day and thought, “I’ll eat part of that tomorrow.” When I came back the next morning, it was gone. No one seemed to understand why it unnerved me that someone came into my office.

    I also have issues with people eating the candy I buy for students and putting the wrappers back in the jar.

  219. Oryx*

    Ooooh boy.

    At ExJob, I was the librarian of a small career college and I kept a very distinguishable mug behind my desk, like back in the cubby area behind me. One day, I come in and it’s gone. I go to our IT guy and ask if I can view the security camera footage to find out if someone took it.

    Clearly on the footage is one of our instructors who just wanders into the library, goes behind my desk, takes my mug, and walks out.

    I track him down in his classroom and he’s been using my mug as a candy dish. So now the mug I drink out of has had multiple people’s hands in it all day. I wait until class is over and its just him in the room. I walk in and not once breaking eye contact, I take my mug and I dump the candy out onto the desk.

    He starts to say something but I just leave.

  220. A Nonny Mouse*

    No one will believe this story but I am not creative enough to make this up.

    I had two coffee mugs that I kept in the office breakroom because it was more convenient to just have them there. Lots of people kept their own mugs in there, and basically unless it was a dire emergency (no clean company mugs), you basically knew not to touch anyone else’s mug. One of the mugs in question was blue and covered in dreidels (a Hanukkah gift from a friend) and the other was a mug I got from my last trip to NYC with “Law and Order” on one side and “these are their stories” on the other. Everyone knew these were mine, as I was one of only two Jews in the office and the other one was on a totally different floor, and everyone knew of my obsession with SVU.

    One day, BOTH mugs went missing at the same time. I searched high and low, asked people if they had them, nope, nobody knew what had become of them. After a few weeks, I figured they’d been broken accidentally and were never to be seen again. I was sad, but, you know, they’re coffee mugs.

    Until one day, I was on the second floor of our office to deliver something to a partner, and lo and behold, my mugs were BOTH on his desk, one with tea in it, the other with plain water. When the partner came back, I asked if I could have the mugs back. His response? “Well I figured as a partner I’m entitled to use whatever mugs I want, so when I’m done with them, you can have them back.”

    The next day, the mugs were on my desk with an anonymous note: “Good thing I outrank him. Sincerely, Robin Hood.”

    I almost died laughing. Then I took my coffee mugs home.

      1. A Nonny Mouse*

        I’m gonna go ahead and assume it was a more senior partner, and I always suspected I knew which one it was – the one with whom NO ONE argued. He was the guy who, no matter how much the partner you were assigned to liked you, if he wanted you gone, you were GONE. He didn’t do that in the time I was there, but he had the power to do so.

    4. Close Bracket*

      “Well, I’m entitled to use whatever mugs I want, so when I’m done with them, you can have them back.”

      O.o

      What. A. Jerk.

  221. radiolady*

    I thought of another. A co-worker recently took some of our unopened office coffee, creamer and sweeteners to a local business’ grand opening. She is on the board of directors for the business. She brought the leftovers back very casually. Our office manger never said anything to her, but griped for a day.

  222. JSTarr*

    I have the misfortune to sit next to the community copier. I HAD a stapler at one point. I HAD extra paper at one point. I had pencils and pens and tape and white out and everything once. But after things got borrowed a bit too often, they were locked into my desk drawer that only I have the key for.

    Now people come by and wonder why my desk looks barren.

  223. Parenthetically*

    A former coworker of mine lives next door to our school building. Teachers’ kids often ended up playing in her yard with her kids while they waited for their parents to finish up after school. One day it was snowy and a group of them had brought sleds from home to sled down the hill behind the building, and then they all stashed their sleds in the garage and went into Former Coworker’s house for hot cocoa and to dry off. A few of them went home without grabbing their sleds. NBD, right? Just grab them tomorrow. Nope. She KEPT EVERY SINGLE SLED. She actually refused to return them. She stole a bunch of kids’ sleds.

    1. CMDRBNA*

      Did she later hitch one of the sleds up to a tiny, sad little dog and go around stealing Christmas presents from the children? Holy hell, that is bizarre.

      1. Parenthetically*

        I think it was a situation where the kids were so shocked that they didn’t tell their parents until later. I’m pretty sure Former Coworker eventually gave the sleds to Goodwill or something.

        This woman is a pretty major Missing Stair. She does such audacious, shocking stuff that polite people don’t know how to react. This is the same woman who once marched into my classroom and started screaming at me in front of my class about how I was undermining another teacher’s authority. Like… you REALLY don’t understand irony, do you.

        1. Anon anon anon*

          Wow. And what’s up with Missing Stairs anyway? I wonder why some people get away with such bizarre stuff while others are judged for so little. Not meaning to derail. Just musing.

    3. annon*

      Was there some issue where she didn’t really want the kids in her yard in the first place? That’s the only vaguely sensible reason I can think of.

      My mother used to live right behind an elementary school, as in her yard bordered its yard with no fence between. Kids would come and just play in her yard, take things that were left out (or things left in her car), and even parents would hang out in the yard or make free use of her driveway. Mum started setting boundaries – first asking people to stop, then going so far as putting up caution tape (idk why she couldn’t put up a fence, but there was some reason) and cones in her driveway, and it was shocking to me how furious the parents/kids got, and how many would just take down the tape/move the cones and make free use of her yard anyway. It’s not the only reason she eventually moved, but it was a major one.

      (There were other problems with that school, though – they’d steal her mail, food places wouldn’t deliver to Mum because of some shenanigans with the school, and once they cut down trees in her yard because they thought they were ugly. The poor yard workers they’d hired were horribly upset and embarrassed when Mum confronted them, but it was too late. The kicker? The secretary from the school marched over the next day to chew Mum out for still having the “ugly” trees in her own yard. I swear to God I am not making any of this up.)

  224. birches11*

    We went through a period where food in the fridge was being stolen, pretty normal office stuff, but then my silverware I kept in a drawer next to my desk also started to go missing. This isn’t nice stuff – just a run of the mill fork, knife and spoon. Someone stole my fork twice and my spoon! Weirdly, after our HR rep was fired for a general lack of doing her job, the food and silverware theft stopped.

  225. Flossie Bobbsey*

    This one is about petty theft of calendar pages.

    At my old job, I had one of those daily calendars with glossy color photos on nice cardstock. Each card has one date printed on each side, so each day, you move the top card to the back of the plastic holder; when you get to the end of June, you flip over the stack and work you way back through. The theme of the calendar was shoes, and each day was a photo of a different shoe that was notable in some regard from various eras, cultures, pop culture, etc.

    I came in one morning and found someone had taken 10 or 15 of the cards. I had an office, so the calendar wasn’t lying around in a communal area, and they took future dates, not ones that plausibly could have been obsolete. I have no idea why someone would have wanted to steal artsy/historical looking shoe photos. It also was annoying because it happened during the first half of the year, so I still needed the second side of those cards for the fall/winter dates! I love a good office mystery, but this one I never solved.

  226. Squiderous*

    My office has a kitchen stocked with healthy snacks – grapes, string cheese, etc. There’s a woman who comes in around 10am every day WITH A TUPPERWARE and loads up on grapes. She has also been known to lift entire pizzas or trays of cookies on pizza day.

    1. Rebecca Too*

      I used to work in retail, and every Black Friday our managers would treat us all to a huge potluck lunch. Think comfort food crockpot meals, cold cut trays, cookies, etc.. Because the shifts varied at the store, it was pretty much understood that you would be kind enough to leave food for the folks who were working later shifts. One guy who always worked the early shift (7am-11am) came in on Black Friday, ate lunch, and then began filling up food storage containers (which he brought in that day) with food! Our manager saw him doing it and asked him to stop. He told her that it wasn’t his fault that he was scheduled for only a 4 hour shift and it wasn’t fair that he’d miss out on “eating free food all day”, so he was taking his share home. Seriously. He ended up getting fired for stealing (!!) DVDs a few weeks later.

  227. LAF*

    Not a theft, exactly, but once someone was assigned to share my office at the mental health clinic where I worked (I did outreach a lot of the time so waa only in a few days a week), and she threw away a bunch of my stuff including my organizer that had pens, pencils, etc, and some loose change in it (she threw away MONEY) and a few pieces of art my clients had made. I was able to retrieve the office supplies but I had to explain to a few kids that theie stuff got destroyed.

    When I confronted her, she said she didn’t realize that stuff was mine (despite being aware that she was sharing the office with someone.) She quit after two weeks.

  228. CheeryO*

    I stole the stapler from my desk when I was done with my first internship. I showed my mom (because it was a REALLY nice stapler) and she was horrified and made me return it the next day, which was pretty awkward. I played it off like it was an accident. They definitely knew.

      1. CheeryO*

        To be clear, I didn’t realize I was stealing it! I was just utterly clueless about office norms and thought it was mine to keep for some bizarre reason.

    2. Delta Delta*

      My mother in law temped at an office in NYC … must’ve been 30-40 years ago. She had a desk next to a woman, who we’ll call “Belinda Murphy.” “Belinda Murphy” was very fond of her very nice Swingline stapler – so much so that she used a label maker and put her name on top with a bright orange label maker-made label. My mother in law is not at all above petty theft and swiped the stapler emblazoned with “Belinda Murphy” across the top. My husband (now in his 40s) took the stapler from his mom when he went to college and he kept it. Now we have a very nice, very sturdy, vintage Swingline stapler that we colloquially refer to as “The Belinda Murphy” whenever we need the stapler.

      I strongly suspect that “Belinda Murphy,” if still living, is probably still annoyed that someone stole her nice stapler.

      1. Miss H*

        I think it wouldn’t hurt to try to track her (or her heirs) down and return the stapler. If normal channels and searching Facebook don’t work, you could post a pic on Imgur and ask anyone who thinks they know her to message you privately with a way to contact her.

  229. Tracy Taylor*

    A Pandora bracelet with five charms on it and a Skagen watch, taken from my desk drawer in my office. Both had sentimental value, not huge financial value, maybe > $300. At least they were easily replaced.

  230. Kat M.*

    I began working at a preschool/daycare in September, and told them before starting that I had already made plans for Christmas week involving international travel. Otherwise, the school is only closed on Christmas day and New Year day.

    In some schools it’s common for parents to give small gifts to teachers around the holidays, where at others it’s not. Plus I was fairly new, so it wasn’t weird at all when I got back in January and didn’t have any gifts waiting for me.

    A few months later, I found out that I had actually received quite a few gifts … all of which were apparently stolen by my coworker while I was on vacation. She also seems to have stolen snacks and drinks donated for a classroom party. And after she was fired, a lot of other petty theft (mostly money from purses left unattended in classroom closets, but also stuff belonging to families, like infant formula) just … stopped happening. I felt bad for her, because I knew she’d just gotten out of a homeless shelter with her kids, but stealing someone’s Christmas presents was a whole new level of what the heck for me.

  231. LadyProg*

    Someone stole the box of dishwasher soap from our office kitchen a few months ago, I still can’t believe it!

  232. J*

    This isn’t a work story, but my freshman college roommate had some serious mental issues and would steal things from me. It started out as clothes, which seemed innocent enough with laundry mix-ups (it was a small dorm room after all), but then it started to get weird. One day I was looking for a pair of my shoes and found them in a bin under her bed. We didn’t wear even close to the same shoe size. Then one day right before finals, I came home from class and my computer was missing, along with my roommate. This was back in 2003 when you didn’t have to take your computer to class as an undergrad. She hadn’t moved out yet, but she’d left for a long weekend. While she was gone I went through all of her stuff and found SO MANY of my things, including a bunch of my underwear (ewww), random knicknacks, letters and postcards that people had sent me… it was creepy. SUPER creepy. I never did get my computer back my dad was so pissed!), and nobody believed me when I tried to report her because “she’s a straight-A student”… and then I heard she did the same thing to her roommates the following year.

  233. Fishcakes*

    My boss used to steal documents from me after hours. In the morning I’d get out my files to work on a project and my notes and partially filled out forms would be gone. She’d say I must have imagined doing the work.

  234. Metrocards*

    At my agency, we often keep a supply of Metrocards (subway fare in NYC) to give to clients to get to/from our programs. One department had over $5,000 worth of Metrocards stolen one day; they believe it was an inside job.

    My department had random office supplies go missing for awhile: tampons, loose change, pens, pads, notebooks…

    Can you tell I work for a poor nonprofit? :/

    1. Narise*

      Re Metrocards: Our church would give out welcome packets that included free large pizza coupon for a local pizza place. A lady was at our church during the week and took a dozen or more of those packets from the desk. After that they were all locked up until Sunday when they were passed out to the new people.

  235. Ciela*

    One of my bosses, Bert, had bought me a very nice pair of Fiskars scissors. I really need a good, sharp pair that does not snag. My other boss, Ernie, used them to cut metal strapping and they broke. :( So Bert said he was only buying cheap scissors. I did find one pair that was better than the rest, and kept them on my work table. We rearranged the office, and added more work tables. Every day, for a month, my scissors would be missing from my table each morning. Turned out Ernie was borrowing them every morning, and then forgetting to put them back. He’s like that, so I do not think there was any malicious intent, just forgetfulness. So I bought my very own Fiskars scissors (for a whole $8) with bright pink handles. It’s been over a year, and they’ve never been borrowed :)

    1. Nea*

      People think I love the color pink. I don’t particularly. I love that most other people won’t touch pink things.

    2. Narise*

      This reminds me a of a woman who worked as a welder. She would bring in nice rags or cloths to use and they would go missing. Finally she sewed lace around every one of them. After that no matter where they ended up in the building they made it back to her desk.

    3. Ice Bear*

      Aww I love that brand. I had a small part of them to cut coupons that went missing. I’ve yet to find a suitable replacement.

  236. OldJules*

    Not my story but recently, someone stole a box of tissues off our resident body builder guy’s desk. Seriously, just took them. Granted, we are out of boxed tissues and supply was on it’s way but seriously… we have those napkin dispenser at the little kitchenette. I just can’t get over the fact that of all the people to steal box if tissues from, they took it from the body builder. Someone who could fold someone in half if had a mind to do it. Granted he is the most easy going and mild mannered guy.

  237. Beautiful, talented, brilliant, powerful musk ox*

    Mine has been pretty petty: my mug disappeared when I went on vacation and reappeared two weeks later. I think it somehow migrated to our second office down the hall for awhile, but I was glad to have it back because it was a good mug. (I RARELY left it in the dish rack specifically because I didn’t want it to disappear, but I’d been rushing to leave, so I left to drying.)

    I’ve also had clearly labeled creamer used which wouldn’t have frustrated me because I don’t mind sharing…except when I expected to have creamer when I came into the office one morning and it had all been used up much more quickly than it would have been if I had been the only one using it. That was super annoying.

    The thing that really annoys me — and which has happened to me twice now — is people deciding to spontaneously clean out the fridge and throwing away my perfectly good, just-brought-it-in-that-morning food. As someone who has cleaned out many a fridge, I personally put up signs days in advance warning others to take their stuff home, and then I stay late and dump what’s left. In the one instance where the fridge got so bad something had to be done immediately, a coworker and I only threw out what we knew for sure had been there for weeks/months, was long past expired, or was covered in mold. If it didn’t obviously contribute to the smell and we weren’t sure if it was new, we left it alone. Because, you know, bringing lunch in and then being forced to buy your lunch because someone tossed your food is really frustrating.

    1. North Dakota Jones*

      Our college dorms had communal fridges in the common rooms, and I’d store leftovers from meetings/event that didn’t fit in my little cube fridge in them. One day I left the dorm for breakfast at 8am, went to class, went to lunch, worked in the library all afternoon, and returned back to the dorm, and finally returned to the dorm around 8pm, looking forward to my left over spaghetti. Which was in the trash, along with my tupperware. Because sometime after leaving and before getting back, the dorm head had decided to the clean the fridge and posted signs that everything needed initials and dates. I thought it was extremely obnoxious to do that with no warning, when my food had been in the fridge for less than 24 hours at the time it had been thrown out.

      1. zora*

        Yeah, less than 24 hours notice is not enough, that is extremely unfair. I think the best thing is a week’s notice: Start announcing Monday a Friday clean-up. But minimum should be 48 hours.

    2. Kelsi*

      At my job you’re expected to date your food (with a “okay to throw away on” date). This solves a lot of heartache!

  238. KClen*

    I’ve had 2 that were pretty hilarious:
    1. a cake ball. A co-worker had brought some in when she knew I wasn’t around yet so she very kindly took 2 and left them sitting on my desk… when I came in there was 1 cake ball on my desk which was delicious and wonderful, but when she asked me how THEY were I was a little confused- that’s when I learned she’d left 2 and someone came and took ONE of them. I mean, I guess I’m just thankful they left me one!
    2. my stapler was stolen by my boss’s boss. I was maybe 2 weeks on the job when I came in one day and could not for the life of me find my stapler. I looked all over, but just couldn’t find it- I borrowed my neighbors for a day or two thinking it’d come up and then finally told the office manager who ordered me a new one. About a week after my new stapler arrived my boss’s boss comes out of her office (which was right behind my cubicle) and says “oh good, you got a new one. I needed one so I just took yours!” what??? I mean, at least leave a note so I don’t think I’m irresponsible and crazy!

  239. Dove*

    I work at a company that makes healthcare software so we have access to all kinds of PHI (protected health information which is regulated by HIPAA). You have to have a key fob to get into the office, which I had assumed was because of HIPAA regulations. I eventually learned that the actual reason was that a former employee had come in after hours one time and stole the RAM out of all of the computers. This was probably a decade ago, but we still have the fobs and they regularly audit it when people come in after hours.

  240. Emi.*

    OH I just remembered one I heard when I was lurking on military forums during my “should I join the Navy?” phase: Young woman is deployed overseas. Her mother frequently sends her care packages with baked goods, which she shares with her shipmates. The PX doesn’t carry the kind of tampons she likes, so her mother mails her some. The tampon box doesn’t fit in the mailing box, so she just dumps them all in loose. The package arrives. The daughter leaves it on her desk while she runs some errand. When she comes back, she sees that the box is open, and all her (male) coworkers are pale and quivering with horror.

    She looks in the box: a sea of tampons.

    One of her shipmates says, “We thought … we thought there would be cookies.” Another says, “We though you were … like us … but with longer hair.”

    4. Leena Wants Cake*

      Have heard from military friends about much more…interesting…personal supplies arriving in deployment care packages. Or occasionally the intended recipient awkwardly opening these containers in public (thinking they were just baked goods to be shared with colleagues). But yes, this is why you don’t open other people’s mail.

  241. crookedfinger*

    (Okay, maybe not petty, but…) The controller at my last office used to come up to the front desk every day and get her parking validated before she left. No big deal. None of us questioned it because she was in charge of the corporate accounts, so we thought the bosses had okayed it. They had not. She got fired once they found out. I never did hear how much money she embezzled from the company that way, but she’d been working there for at least 3 years and did it every day, so…a few thousand, at least.

    There was another time when we started going through coffee way faster than we normally did, so my bosses got a lock for the storage room door and put me in charge of doing weekly inventory. After that, theft of whole bags of coffee stopped, but then the thief started stealing the pre-portioned coffee filters full of loose ground coffee (we had a container set up and would pre-portion scoops of coffee into filters for the next day so people wouldn’t make pots of nasty super strong coffee that no one else wanted to drink).

    There was another time when one of the ladies in the office was caught stealing whole boxes of tea from an unsecured storage area in our main conference room. I suspect she was the coffee thief as well, but that was never confirmed. She was also fired.

    And with all of this, there were people who would steal people’s food and any form of liquid cream/er they could find in the fridge. One time I had a quart of half & half in the fridge with my name on it, got one cup of coffee out of it on Monday morning, then found it empty the next day. I ended up hiding mine in a lunch bag, because we found the thieves wouldn’t bother going through people’s personal bags, just take whatever was visible.

  242. Liane*

    Forgot about this until just today. This happened at my cooperative education internship at the city water department lab. One of the secretaries in the downtown location sold Avon on the side and it was pretty common for people in other locations to order from her, putting the payment in interoffice mail. Money, even cash, always made it to her and purchases always made it to the buyers. Two or 3 times I ordered pairs of these lead crystal goblets with hummingbirds etched on them–I still have a set. They made good wedding gifts and cost about $30 in the late 80s–way more than many makeup orders, I am sure.
    One of those goblet orders, the cash disappeared! And of course it was the only time anyone stole the money or items, although I think we all paid with checks and money orders after that. She still got me the goblets, but I feel bad I never even offered to replace the money.

  243. Katie*

    My friend worked at a job once where food kept getting stolen out of people’s desks. (Like, from their desk drawers- not like they had a candy dish on their desk or something.) Then one day someone caught the thief in the act…and it was the organization’s president. Word got around, but no one actually wanted to do anything about it, so…everyone knew that the Grand Boss was stealing people’s food.

  244. JoAnna*

    I received a Starbucks travel mug as a gift, and apparently unwisely left it out on my desk. I ended up calling in sick to work the next day, but when I returned the following day, it was gone. :( I only got to use it once.

  245. Confession*

    I didn’t actually steal anything, but this is still not a story where I handled it well…

    At an old job, at a tiny company of about a dozen people, I had a corporate credit card. One of my colleagues needed to borrow the card for a business expense of some sort and promptly returned it. Instead of immediately putting it back in my wallet, I inexplicably just set the credit card down on my desk. And forgot it there. And then I was out of the office the next day. At some point in there, I remembered that I had left it sitting out on my desk, so I made sure to look for it as soon as I was back in the office… and it was gone. A few days later, my boss called to ask about a few unusual charges that the credit card company had flagged as suspicious. I feigned surprise, checked my wallet and said that I had no idea how it had happened, but the card was not in my wallet and must have been stolen.

    Definitely not my finest moment.

    1. BananaRama*

      But your card WAS actually stolen, just stolen from your desk and not your wallet. That’s like someone stealing things from your unlocked car and you thinking it’s your fault for leaving the car unlocked!

  246. Katie*

    Oh, and shortly before I started my current job at a small office within a large university, someone started stealing food from the kitchen (snacks they’d bought for the office, leftover meeting food) after everyone had left for the day. Possibly a custodian…but it might also be the campus police, who are also on our floor. I kept thinking how funny it would be if someone went to the police about the missing food and it turned out they were the snack bandits.

  247. C Average*

    I used to have a favorite cereal bowl that looked like a basketball and said “Wheaties” on the side. (Yes, I sent away box-tops to get it!) I kept it in the office kitchen to eat my microwave oatmeal in every morning.

    One day it was gone. I sent out an email asking about it–I really liked it, many people had seen and commented on it in the past, and it seemed reasonable to ask. But I got no response.

    A few months later I was working on the weekend in the mostly deserted office. A colleague was in as well. I saw a flicker of movement under his desk and stopped to look closer.

    “Oh, that’s my dog,” he said, pointing to a little grey schnauzer who was munching kibble out of MY WHEATIES BOWL.

    Which I promptly reclaimed, took home, washed thoroughly, and still use daily.

  248. Murphy*

    I forgot about this. I accidentally stoke 1000 index cards after I was fired.

    Long story short, I was fired (officially given no reason, but completely without cause) and asked to leave the building immediately. When I was allowed to come back and get my stuff, they’d gone through everything and boxed it up. I’m really short, so I had a printed cardboard box I kept on the floor to keep my feet on. When I brought everything home, I was reminded that I’d filled that box with index cards I’d found in a drawer in my office and they’d given them to me in a pile of “my stuff.”

  249. a girl has no name*

    Two of my coworkers have the same name, but spelled slightly differently (think Sarah and Sara). I am friends with Sara, and she told me that I could use her fancy coffee creamer. I absent-mindedly used the creamer that was Sarah’s, and she totally noticed. I felt terrible! Sarah’s last name has been added to the creamer. The full name is written in huge letters. I still feel like an asshole, and it was three years ago.

  250. zora*

    This was a kind of impressively elaborate embezzlement scheme.

    I started working as a temp admin in a small office, and due to construction the supply closet for the department needed to be relocated to a much smaller space. So they asked me to inventory, organize and move all the supplies for the department. As I started going through the closets I found the most amazing hoarder piles. 100s of boxes of paperclips/staples. Thousands of pens. Entire file boxes full of post its, envelopes, batteries, staplers, tape dispensers, light bulbs. This department had like 10 staff members and used VERY little paper, it literally would have taken them at least 10 years to use all of these supplies. And even more weirdly, huge boxes full to the top of all kinds of obsolete media. 100s of unopened VHS tapes, audio cassettes, mini-disks, and dozens of packs of jewel cases for mini-disks and CDs! An entire box full of unopened packs dictaphone tapes. Literally crazy amounts of stuff.

    I kept being astounded and showing people how much stuff there was and everyone was so confused. Finally someone who had worked there for a long time took me aside and quietly told me the story that the leadership had kept under wraps from the rest of the staff.

    An admin had worked there for over a decade (at this point she had been gone for several years), who used to place gigantic office supply orders every week, and in these orders she would include $100s of dollars of personal items. Mundane house stuff that she took home like cleaning supplies and paper products, but apparently she had managed to get some high ticket items in there like some laptops, other computer accessories, all kinds of things she snuck in there and then out again.

    He didn’t know how they caught her, but then she was fired and the company changed all of it’s purchasing and financial review systems, obviously, because no one had been noticing these crazy supply bills coming from this tiny department. The guy who told me the story said to keep it quiet, because they still didn’t really want it to get around what happened, but he just had to tell me because it was such an amazing story.

    The new director of the department, meanwhile, was just flabbergasted by all of this stuff and no one told him the story. I gave him the idea of offering to auction off the useful supplies to other departments in exchange for other budget needs, since there was literally no way they were ever going to go through that many supplies. He loved that idea, I really hope he did it! ;o)

  251. Clownbaby*

    Someone stole my mom’s birthday cake. :(

    I was planning to go to my parents’ house after work to celebrate my mom’s birthday. My dad asked me to pick her up a cake from Nothing Bundt Cakes (if any of you are near one of these wonderful stores…try it! They have delicious cakes and great customer service…not to mention free samples!)

    I didn’t want to get stuck in traffic after work, so I grabbed it on my lunch break. It probably would have been fine sitting on my desk for the remaining 4 hours of the day…but I was worried about the icing…and my mom likes a chilled cake anyway. So I wrote “Please don’t touch. This is my mother’s birthday cake” on the box. As soon as I stuck it in the fridge, an alarm went off…gas leak. We had to evacuate the building. 40 minutes later, when we got the clear to go back into the building, I thought I’d better tape the cake box shut to make sure no sneaky thieves try to take a piece, or a finger-full of the delicious icing without me noticing…The entire box was gone.

    I was upset. That was a $20 cake…clearly marked saying it was a mom’s bday cake…and I had to drive out in traffic to get another one after work. My boss refused to pull camera footage for such a “low-cost theft” and said my note was probably interpreted as being passive aggressive.

    5. Ice Bear*

      Your boss is an ass. Like it’s your fault for asking people not to take the cake that prompted someone to take it?

      Those are delicious by the way! The white chocolate raspberry in particular.

  252. Middle Name Jane*

    Well, this doesn’t really qualify as a theft per se, but here goes. 10+ years ago, I had a crazy coworker I’ll call Sharon. We did not get along well. She was in her 40s at the time, I was in my early 20s, and she talked down to me like I was a child (by her own admission, she said she couldn’t help it). There were times she screamed at me in front of others. She eventually left to take a job on the other side of the country. I was naive back then and never locked my computer.

    I was never able to prove this, but I know she did it because no one else in the office used this particular computer program. Also, did I mention Sharon was batsh*t crazy and computer savvy? At some point on her last day in the office, she got into my computer and deleted certain files/programs/etc. so that this program–which we used daily every morning–would no longer run. I didn’t notice until the next morning when none of my stuff would work. IT spent hours trying to fix my computer.

    1. Middle Name Jane*

      I wanted to add that while working on my computer, IT determined that a bunch of stuff had been deleted from my computer and that’s why the program wasn’t working properly. It wasn’t that the program was simply malfunctioning or whatever. Sharon did it because she knew it would wreak havoc for me.

  253. Kat M.*

    Not petty at all, but here’s one. I was working for a now-defunct video rental store, and there was an armed robbery. The person pulled a gun on the shift supervisor just as she was getting the money out to do her bank run, then go into the back room and pull the security tape. The shift manager was very freaked out and asked to be transferred to a different store.

    The regional manager thought it was weird that this person knew exactly where things like the security tape were located and precisely when the bank run took place. Well, she was right to be suspicious. As it turns out, the robber was the shift manager’s boyfriend. The two of them had planned the entire thing together.

    2. Artemesia*

      Just like when a woman is dead, look at the husband or boyfriend; when a store is robbed look at the ‘victim’ and his or her connections. Many small robberies like this are inside jobs — maybe most.

  254. Hermione*

    Tired of cleaning our microwave, I put our new splatter-reducing vented cover into our office microwave when it arrived around 10 am. I met someone for lunch outside the office that day, then went to use the microwave to heat a cuppa late that afternoon (our electric kettle was broken/backordered) and it had been taken.

  255. smokey*

    Someone once stole my leftover soup. I had eaten the first half out of that same container, so – germs all in it.

    I think I’m in the middle of stealing an office. It’s empty, there’s a ton of empty ones, and I hate my cube, so I’m just squatting in it until someone makes me move. My boss fully supports and encourages this. He wants me to fully move all my stuff in and put my name plate up but I haven’t gone that far yet. So yesterday he wrote “RESERVED” on a post-it note and stuck it where the name plate goes. So far, no push-back from anyone.

      1. smokey*

        Thank you! It’s not the same level but I keep thinking of when Pam from “The Office” just kinda gave herself the office manager job.

    2. smokey*

      My boss comes in once a week. After last week’s post-its note, this week he brought me a monitor.

      I was just using my laptop and he didn’t want his third monitor.

      The story continues….

  256. Kathenus*

    Oooh I remember a good one. During college I worked at an aquarium, and heard a story about the occasional missing fish from one of the exhibit tanks. We’re talking fish like 15 pound tuna, or 40 pound grouper; it was a real mystery. Turned out a night watchman was ‘fishing’ from time to time at night from the exhibit. Not sure if he was eating them, selling them, or putting them on the wall, but he didn’t work there anymore after that.

    3. blackcat*

      Wasn’t there a story a while back of an aquarium having this problem with some fish, and it turned out the thief was a octopus? (Obviously, it was eating smaller fish than a tuna or grouper) It always climbed back in its own tank after eating, and it was only caught when a camera was set up.

      1. Elizabeth West*

        You beat me to it–I think it was eating crabs also, or instead. Octopuses are SMART. We’re probably very lucky that they only live for two or three years. Which is also kind of sad.

      2. ss*

        They tell a similar story at the Chicago Shedd aquarium. They have a huge open water exhibit of sea anemone and they were finding that someone was sneaking in and vandalizing the exhibit during the night…. pulling out anemone and ripping apart the exhibit. After a few times they set up cameras specially aimed at the exhibit. They found out that there was a flock of birds that were going in and eating all the anemone on the overnights.

  257. DeeShyOne*

    A former coworker at a former job was consistently pilfering food, milk, creamer, butter, peanut butter, etc. from anyone that put something in the lunch room fridge…names on it didn’t matter. If she knew you had something that she wanted stashed away at your desk, she had no problem going through your personal space to take some. Her defense was she “only borrowed a little”. Borrowing implies you are getting it back. (I’ll pass on returning borrowed food or tissue, keep it).
    When she brought in a loaf of bread that was purchased from a well known weight loss group, put her name on it along with “don’t touch”, the entire loaf went missing from the fridge by noon. She was incensed. Sent out an office wide email complaining that she didn’t mind a couple of slices going missing, but since that bread was expensive and engineered to her needs, she would appreciate if people just didn’t take what didn’t belong to them.
    We all just about died from the irony.

  258. A Bag of Jedi Mind Tricks*

    A girl here at work had her Louboutin Shoes stolen. (why you would keep them in an unlocked draw is beyond me). She reported the theft to security, who viewed the video surveillance. Turns out it was a cleaning lady who was the culprit.

    1. Imaginary Number*

      I think a rational person would assume that no one will steal your shoes in an office place … even really nice ones.

  259. CeeLee*

    I usually go grocery shopping on my lunch hour for the sake of getting out of the office and getting errands done. I went to the Asian grocery store nearby and bought 3/4 lb of shiitake mushrooms on a foam tray and a bag of baby bok choi. Left these in the office fridge at about 2:30pm. Went back at the end of the day- 5pm, both were gone. Why would you take someone’s groceries for your dinner?!

  260. Popped Chips*

    I have a small bowl from ikea that I brought it for oatmeal and whatnot. The office supplies some culteru, but little else. My bowl has gone missing for months at a time and reappeared periodically. It’s missing now and I fear may be gone for good at this point.

  261. Anon.*

    I once got called in to my supervisor’s office to discuss my phone charges. Turns out, I’d been making long distance calls on weekends. A LOT. My desk was sort of hidden behind a barrier, yet available to anyone attending weekend seminars. On Monday mornings the handset usually smelled like after shave or perfume. It was gross. And usually, any spare change I’d left in my desk drawer would be cleaned out. K-12 teachers FTW.

  262. Argos*

    I work for a video security company and for testing purposes we have cameras up everywhere, including the break room (but not covering people’s work areas). A fridge thief wouldn’t stand a chance.

  263. Granny K*

    I had money (mostly change) stolen out of my desk, which wouldn’t be a big deal usually, but it was less than a month after my condo had been broken into, and less than 3 months after 9/11. Needless to say, it was a challenging autumn for me.

  264. Going Anon For This*

    Okay, I was the thief here. I stole a live fish.
    My boss’s new assistant put a glass vase in his office with a living plant and a betta fish swimming among the roots. I admired the fish and asked the assistant what she fed it, and she answered that the fish didn’t need any food because it nibbled on the plant’s roots for sustenance. I assured her that this wasn’t the case and sent her articles on betta care and feeding, but her response was, “If I give it food, the water will get cloudy and I’ll have to clean it.”
    I couldn’t stand the thought of the fish slowly starving to death, so I stayed late one night and took the fish home with me. I told her the next day that I’d found it dead and had flushed it for her. (I often worked late and had good reason to be in and out of my boss’s office all the time, so there weren’t any questions about why I’d been the one to find it.) I’m sure she strongly suspected what I’d done, but I didn’t care.
    I set up a lovely aquarium for that betta, and it lived a very long and happy life.

  265. Scarlott*

    I worked in a field construction office, where monitors, keyboards, and mice were on short supply. we had laptops, night shift would steal it, or (because we were on a 2 week on – 1 weeks off), while you were on your days off. Walkie talkies got stolen as well. They weren’t “stolen” in the sense that they weren’t taken home, but you would have to find a new one.
    I had another time at an office where I left a pasta dish in the fridge over night. Night shift stole it, and took my Tupperware as well. At that office they were short on parking space, so everyone was parked in front of each other, and someone from the shop who’s car no one could identify was parking me in. I ended up borrowing a car to get lunch that day.

  266. Narise*

    We work in a large department of a mid-ranged company. There are multiple break rooms on each floor for the various departments. One woman I work with eats every few hours for a medical need so when she would come to work she brought breakfast and lunch foods with her. One day she opened her lunch box around 10 and saw a breakfast item missing. Her friend sent out an email telling people not to still other peoples food. No one took responsibility and everyone moved on. Six weeks later the break room in our suite smelled like old broccoli. Maintenance came and found her breakfast item behind the coke machine. I always wondered if someone took it to eat it and then the email made them try to hide it or if they threw it behind the coke machine as revenge for the email.

  267. A Bag of Jedi Mind Tricks*

    At OldJob, we had someone skimming from one of the Retirement funds. We don’t know how she was doing it, but she did. And the thing about it was, she LOOKED like she’d be the last one to be able to pull something like that off. She was eventually caught and fired.

  268. AR*

    I had an employee who was authorized ONE TIME only to take home some broken pallets. He decided he would continue to take both good and damaged pallets home every weekend, even after we hired a company to start repairing the pallets. We caught him doing it on camera a year later while looking for a different issue as well as taking brand new stainless steel bar that had just been ordered to fix an issue. We suspended then fired him for the theft.
    When he protested the denial of unemployment benefits he stated that we had given him no warning that he should not take things from the company and that we should only have given him a written warning for the theft.
    The best part was watching him look around and scope out the area to make sure no one was watching him while he was still being recorded on the camera.

  269. RoseB*

    I’ve been fortunate to have never had anything stolen from my desk (atleast to my knowledge) but a few years ago, a coworker at my company emailed the entire organization (a not-for-profit performing arts center with approx. 450 employees) demanding in all caps that whoever stole her grapes from the fridge needed to return them ASAP. I did feel bad that someone stole her grapes, but we (meaning me and several other coworkers) laughed for months after that she actually demanded back her stolen grapes via an all staff email. No one ever stepped forward with her grapes, sadly. Although I don’t know who would after she sent a scathing all caps email!

    1. annon*

      I don’t know who would after she sent a scathing all caps email

      A decent person. Then again, a decent person wouldn’t have stolen someone else’s food in the first place.

      Seriously, people, if it isn’t yours, don’t take it. I don’t care how you justify it – just taking a little bit, it’s a common office supply, you were hungry and it looked good, it’s cheap to replace, whatever. It’s theft and it’s wrong, and if it’s not a big deal, well, then it’s not a big deal for you to go and get your own.

      I’m rather appalled by the people in the comments here who admit to stealing things but claim it’s okay (because it’s small! it’s a prank! it’s office supplies! it’s candy! it’s just a little creamer, from a mostly-full bottle! your boss was evil! you were hungry, and your hunger mattered more than your coworker’s!), or who have no sympathy for people who get stuff stolen/try to get their stuff back. What was the lady supposed to do, just never say anything? Emailing everyone when you don’t know who the thief was isn’t that unreasonable.

      1. Observer*

        Well, the hungry ones that have been posted really are a bit different. Let’s put it this way “I haven’t eaten all day, and don’t know if I’m going to have any food ALL WEEK” or “My mom is trying to starve my into losing weight” is different than pretty much any of the others.

  270. JKP*

    When I was an RA, my parents got my boyfriend a sweatshirt with a picture of me printed on it. He would wear it around his dorm, but I was always too embarrassed to be seen with him when he was wearing it. He was also an RA, and that sweatshirt was stolen from the laundry room. For the rest of the year, at various school events, I would look out in the crowd and see some random stranger wearing it. I was mostly just glad that my boyfriend couldn’t wear it anymore.

    1. Lily in NYC*

      This is so weird in so many ways! I am mostly shocked that your boyfriend was willing to wear it at all (my college boyfriend was barely willing to be seen in public with the real version of me, he thought it was “unmanly” to have a girlfriend, ha).

  271. no one, who are you?*

    I used to work at a pizza place. One of my favorite dishwashers was fired because he was found to have an entire (multi-pound) sack of branded flour in his backpack. Just flour. According to the rumor mill, illicit substances were involved.

    When I was a desperately poor admin, I would always wrangle a way to hide the extra boxed lunches after meetings/events and take them home. Sometimes that was the only food I had all week, so while I know it wasn’t right and could have gotten me in big trouble, I’m not at all sorry.

    1. Squeeble*

      Oh gosh, I don’t think you were in the wrong at all to take those lunches! What were they going to do otherwise–maybe a few people would take extras and the rest would get tossed. It’s great that you could use them and that they kept you afloat.

    2. annon*

      I hope no one else was relying on those. Budget better or visit a food bank, don’t steal from your coworkers.

      1. smokey*

        It sounds like she was probably the only one relying on the Extra boxed lunches that were left behind After meetings/events.

      3. Observer*

        Well, I hope no one else was depending on them. But “budget better” speaks of an incredibly entitled and ignorant view of the world. Sometimes there really are NO “good” budget choices. Which is better budgeting Pay the rent this month or buy some food this week? (I don’t mean GOOD food, I mean ANY food.)

  272. Greg M.*

    In one class I was one of the few that got the text book. one day we’re doing exercises in class and this guy comes over with a silly grin on his face and just takes my book off my desk out from under me. I immediately got up and took it back rather angrily. people tried to tell me I was rude. I told them to STFU.

    2. Floundering Mander*

      How in the hell were you being the rude one, when the other guy yanked your book right out from under you? That makes no sense at all!

  273. A Bag of Jedi Mind Tricks*

    Oh and we had one guy who was taking his friends and girlfriends out for dinners at fancy restaurants and putting them down as clients and claiming they were business expenses (so he was getting reimbursed by the company). He was found out and fired. But as a result, business expenses and clients must be documented in the Company’s system.

  274. InnocentBurrito*

    I bought a bunch of fancy burritos at Costco and would bring just one every day to eat at lunch. Every day I would take my one burrito out of the freezer and lunch and eat it. We don’t generally have issues with food theft. However, one lunch period a coworker bursts into the lunch room and goes on a TIRADE at me about stealing her expensive organic vegetarian burrito, how that is all she has available to eat all day, and so forth. IN FRONT OF EVERYONE. Once she took a breath I explained that I brought my own…and had noticed that someone else had brought the same burrito and hers was… STILL IN THE FREEZER. She didn’t even apologize. She just turned around sheepishly and left. Yeah, a lot of people steal, but please don’t assume!

  275. The OG Anonsie*

    Food and candy are a common target, but I had kind of a weird spin on this a few years ago. I worked somewhere where each employee or group of employees might have locked files and cabinets for their own documents. Only the people specific to whatever team or project would have a key to their relevant files, and these groups were pretty small.

    In this one area there were five people who worked with a couple specific programs and shared some locking cabinets. Four of these people were full time, one was only there two days a week and during events. The program often hosted events for which there would be snacks, bottled beverages, and candy offered, and one of their cabinets would hold leftovers from the last event that they would roll into the next one. Mini bags of chips and stuff like that, not really perishable.

    At one point they went in there to grab them for an event and there was only a tiny fraction of what was supposed to be in there. Everyone was perplexed, since only they had the keys to the cabinet. I think it happened a few times before one of the full timers started regularly checking the stock to see when it was disappearing and discovered that a chunk would go missing every day that the part timer was around. The one who also worked these events and as such saw it being discovered every time and knew it would throw off their counts and that she would have to deal with the scramble. They started actively watching it and it was literally every day she was there and never any day that she wasn’t. And she would just chime in with everyone like “oh that’s so weird because only we have the keys! so weird! wonder who it is!” o_______o;

    While I can wrap my head around someone stealing someone else’s food, I can’t understand stealing food that you also need for your job and then will have to deal with in a situation where it will be extremely obvious that you were the one who did it. Just… Why?

  276. Stella Louise*

    On occasion I will partake of company-provided diet soda from the office fridge. Sometime the cans are less than chilled having been placed in the refrigerator recently, so I will put a can in the freezer for 15 minutes. 15 minutes later, the can is gone. The first time I thought I was maybe imaging it but it has happened 3 or 4 times. I think I’ve figured out who the culprit is–but who does this? Hey dude! There isn’t a Diet Coke fairy leaving cans for you in the freezer!

    1. OlympiasEpiriot*

      Could it be that someone opens the freezer for ice, sees the can in there, has no idea how long it’s been there and takes it out worried that it might explode? I have, unfortunately, forgotten liquids in the freezer that contain a lot of water and expand, making a big mess. Maybe try wrapping it in a note saying “I’ll take this out by ____ o’clock?”

  277. Lillian Styx*

    I stole a couple kitchen sponges. My boss bought a huge package from Costco so I figured one or two wouldn’t be missed.

    I’ve had a couple makeup bags full of tampons stolen from my hiding place in the bathroom. Ah well.

  278. Stranger than fiction*

    This just in! I went to grab a kuerig pod out of my drawer and there was only one and I know there was three when I left yesterday!
    (Ps: boy did this thread get huge since I was here a little while ago, lots of sticky fingers out there)

  279. DCGirl*

    Here’s another story from me…..

    Way back when, I worked at a non-profit where everyone in the office but me had an IBM Selectric typewriter to use. It was state of the art at the time, and there was apparently a ring going around town stealing them.

    My boss, however, insisted that I use something called an IBM Executive typewriter instead because it had proportional spacing type and he thought it worked better. If you needed to use correcting tape to change the word “was” to something else, you had to know the space values of the individual characters (5 for W, 3 for A, 3 for S) to be able to insert the correcting tape and have it correctly cover the letter. It was horrible to work with, plus it was old and buggy. The repairman and I were on first-name terms because he was there so much. You couldn’t buy them anymore, so I was stuck with it. I begged for a more dependable typewrite and was told that Charlie insisted that I use the Executive. Period.

    One day I arrived at work to find the receptionist talking to the police. Someone, she said, had broken into the office and stole all the typewriters. I was secretly elated at this news, figuring I’d finally get a dependable, new typewriter to use, until I arrived at my desk. The thieves had stolen all the typewriters but mine. Even they knew a lemon when they saw it.

      1. DCGirl*

        No, I never did. I finally left the job, and that typewriter was still there, waiting for my replacement.

    5. Artemesia*

      LOL we had our cars parked in our driveway in a home where we didn’t have a garage. One morning we came out and the doors had been jimmied and my husband’s car radio stolen; the thiefs had broken into mine too, but didn’t bother with my crap radio.

    6. Elizabeth West*

      OMG that is great.
      It reminds me of an article I read in Reader’s Digest when I was a kid. A large tornado had struck this family’s neighborhood, and many homes, including theirs, were heavily damaged. They had returned to the house with some people (insurance adjusters? I don’t recall) in tow and were going through it carefully to assess the damage. They opened this one door and the person said, “My God! This room is a disaster! The tornado really went through here!” and was puzzled when the family burst out laughing.

      It was their teenaged son’s room, and it was the only one in the house that was untouched.

  280. lcsa99*

    I had a co-worker with special pens and stuff that she always found missing when she came in the next days so she kept trying to replace them. She got frustrated enough that she started putting it all in a cubby above her desk that she could lock, and would leave the key in her desk drawer. Then one day the key was missing! The cubby unfortunately had files and stuff too so we were all a little baffled and frustrated, to the point that we were googling how to pick a lock (we couldn’t figure it out).

    Several years later the key showed up on a different floor of the building (this was in a converted brownstone so our company had the whole building to ourselves) and we finally got it open.

  281. CAS*

    When I was about 8 months pregnant, my OB/GYN advised me to elevate my feet slightly throughout the workday to alleviate swelling. I bought myself a plastic step stool to use as a footrest, wrote my name on it with a black marker, and put it under the desk in my cubicle. For several weeks after that, I would arrive at work or come back after lunch or meetings to find my step stool missing. So, I’d wander around — on my swollen feet — trying to find the step stool. I found it in various areas of the department: by the copier, next to bookcases, in the storage closet, in other people’s cubicles and offices, stuck behind doors, you name it.

    One day, I announced in frustration that I couldn’t find my step stool and asked if anyone had seen it. Our admin assistant, who had absolutely no sense of boundaries, popped out of her cubicle to inform me that she had been taking the step stool out of my cubicle because she didn’t think it wasn’t fair that I was the only one who got to use it. She never asked about the step stool. But instead, she was apparently making special trips into a pregnant woman’s cubicle to steal her footrest even though there was a perfectly good step stool that everyone could use right there in the storage room. I told her not to take it again, and she didn’t, but I’m not sure she ever understood what she’d done wrong. It was the weirdest sense of fairness gone awry.

    2. Close Bracket*

      She thought it wasn’t fair
      That you were the only one
      Who could use the stepstool
      That you bought with your own money

      K

  282. LSP*

    At OldJob, a coworker’s peach yogurt went missing from the fridge. There were only six people in the office, so we all had an assumption about who it was who stole it, so I made a “MISSING” sign with a picture of the yogurt and posted it in his office as a joke.

    He found it funny, but swore up and down that he didn’t take the yogurt.

    The next day, our (humorless) receptionist showed up with a yogurt and gave it to my coworker. She admitted no fault, but only said that she felt bad the yogurt had gone missing. We all realized we had accused the wrong person, but the receptionist also refused to admit she had actually eaten the yogurt by mistake. There were quite a few yogurt eaters in the office, all preferring the same brand, so we gave her the benefit of the doubt that it had been a mistake.

    1. LSP*

      The same receptionist, though, had a history of theft.

      She had been out on medical leave for several months over the summer and into the fall, so we hired a college student to sub in for her. The college student had purchased of her own accord a glass pumpkin-shaped candy dish for Halloween and kept it filled with candies on the front desk.

      She didn’t take it with her when she left, and not long after the receptionist came back, that pumpkin was not only gone from the desk, but gone from the office! It was a small office with limited storage, and anything sizable we got tended to stay out on top of filing cabinets, etc. The pumpkin dish was GONE, and never returned, even the following fall.

  283. Ophelia Bumblesmoop*

    One of my coworkers takes all my pens after I leave for the day. I have to lock up my pens. Even though they are the generic ones from the supply room…

    My OldBoss took everything off my desk. Tape dispenser, stapler, scissors, rulers, highlighters, everything. I would reach for my stapler, see it was gone, go to his office and pick up one of the 4 identical staplers off his desk. He passed my desk on the way to and from the copier, so he would stop and use my stuff then keep walking with it to his own desk. It became an office joke about how much of a magpie he was.

  284. Dealtwiththis*

    My colleague has a mug with her initial on it. She’s the only one on the floor that has a name that starts with that letter. We had a new employee start that would brazenly take that particular mug out of the dishwasher whenever it was in there and carry it around the office (even to meetings with its’ owner!). It CLEARLY has someone else’s initial on it. Bizarre.

    I also once may have accidentally “borrowed” a mug without asking. I got to a new job and there was a hodge podge of mugs in the cabinets. There was one that was bigger than the others that I used for my coffee one day, and then I thought that it would be easier to just keep it at my desk after using it each time. I did that for about 2 years until I purchased myself a new mug and returned the borrowed one to the break room cabinet. I walked into a meeting the next day and someone was using the returned mug, all of the sudden, it dawned on me that it could have been someone’s personal mug!!! I sincerely hope that I wasn’t the crazy new employee that stole someone’s mug and brazenly carried it around the office. Oops!

    1. smokey*

      I did something like that once. Worked at a little mom-and-pop and there were all these communal mugs. Except for one, which was the lab manager’s​ personal mug. I had no idea until she confronted me one day.

  285. Merci Dee*

    I had never had problems with theft until I started ThisJob. For a while, it was kind of crazy.

    Several years ago, I brought in a plastic 44-ounce container of raw sugar to keep on-hand for my oatmeal and my tea. Over the years, I’ve re-filled the plastic container with 2-pound boxes of raw sugar because the screw-top lid helps to prevent bugs. For a long while, I kept this container of sugar in one of my desk drawers, until I noticed that some of the sugar would be missing from one day to the next. By some, I mean a lot. I would re-fill my container when I came in on Monday, and on Tuesday morning 2 – 3 inches of sugar would be gone — enough that someone would have to pour it into 1 or 2 foam cups to take that much. So I started locking my drawer; no problem, right? Wrong. Someone BROKE MY FREAKING DRAWER AND LOCK to get in to take more sugar. So I moved the sugar to the locking cabinet above my desk, and it’s been unmolested ever since.

    And I no longer keep my pins in the cute little flower bucket my daughter gave me, because they disappear like mad. All my pens are locked away every night, along with my pair of good scissors. And my Halloween-themed light-up wand. It makes me smile, and I’m convinced if I practice a little more with my swish-and-flick, I might be able to magic away some of my less-pleasant co-workers.

      1. Merci Dee*

        Oooh, if I could’ve crushed the particular ant that trashed my desk drawer, I certainly would have. With prejudice.

  286. Katie*

    I work at a public library and years ago we had a volunteer who would routinely take bites out of our staff members’ lunches and then put them back. I was never a victim, but shortly after I started working there, one of the long time employees told me I should put my name on any food I brought. I’m not sure why because this volunteer routinely ignored noted and instructions, so I’m not sure what good it would have done to put a name on a lunch bag. But we haven’t had any problems since.

  287. Notthemomma*

    Years ago, my whole team at Old Job was given about five months notice our jobs would be going away. Debbie, who ordered office supplies went on a spending frenzy, ordering every kind of pen, tablet, new staplers, etc that she could get away with. As we get closer to the last day, she would pack up a load of the unused supplies, write “free or will be thrown” on the lid, and take them home. She took at least six of the boxes paper comes in. Her reasoning? ‘We have it on hand, so someone should use it’. Never mind that any of he remaining 300 people could have used the stuff on their teams.

  288. Anon Banker*

    As a teller there were times when I took money from my drawer when I had an overage for the day. I didn’t want to show any differences on my monthly record, and I really needed the money at the time. Yes, even 5.00 made a difference back then.

    I once caught on video a teller manager taking money that was left behind by a customer–thousands of dollars. He found it in the lobby and decided to take it. He was fired.

    When I first started my teller career, on my first day the head teller was waiting around in the back area. Turns out they did a surprise cash drawer audit because they suspected her of theft. Her drawer turned up short when it had balanced to the penny the night before, and she hadn’t yet opened her window that morning. She was fired.

    I’ve taken copy paper, pens, keyboards, and random other stuff. I didn’t abscond with boxes of stuff, but if I needed some extra paper at home for something, I’d grab a handful every few months or so. Stuff like that.

    1. CMDRBNA*

      Anon Banker, that’s theft. Just because it’s an overage in your drawer didn’t make the money magically yours.

        1. CMDRBNA*

          I know they weren’t, but it sounded like they were trying to justify it – the SOP for a bank teller drawer being over isn’t that the teller gets to take the money.

        2. Anon Banker*

          Yes, LSP. Thank you.

          I didn’t say it was right. Just saying that’s how I justified it at the time as my 20 year old self. And wasn’t the whole subject of this thread “theft,” whether you were the perp or not? Maybe I’m missing something…

    2. Amy*

      When I first started as a teller only the shortages counted against you. Thankfully they’ve changed that system, at least at the bank I worked at.

  289. Dankar*

    Before I started working here, one of the professors managed to “get” a master key. He used it to let himself into other people’s offices and take supplies, books, papers, whatever he needed for class. The only reason I’ve heard the story is because he also used his master to let himself into vacant offices (professor was gone for the summer or on sabbatical) TO PUT HIS OWN COUCH IN TO NAP ON.

    He actually had the gall to complain when one of the other professors returned because he had to move his nap couch out of HER OFFICE.

  290. Culinary Robin Hood*

    A confession: when I was in undergrad, I worked at an assisted living senior home in a small beach town as a dishwasher. The pay was low, the hours were terrible, and a large portion of the older people were huge jerks–always complaining about the length of my hair (I am male, and it was shaggy, but nowhere near shoulder length), calling me a terrorist because of the uniform’s hat I had to wear, and generally just being curmudgeonly. Not all of them, however. I had my favorites, and typically, the rest of the staff hated these individuals as they were blunt, loud, and rule breakers with a penchant for complaining about the food.

    But I liked them. So I often stole cakes, brownies, ice cream, and a host of other “off menu” desserts reserved for birthday parties when family members visited (which was rare). My favorites had no real family visitors–even on Christmas. So I took to Robin Hood-esque tactics, and after my shift ended, we’d play bridge or poker in one of their rooms and stuff our faces with Ethel’s birthday cake. I probably should feel remorseful, but honestly, it was some of the most enjoyable times of my college career. I always cleaned up any evidence and never got caught, though I did hear some managers bearing the angry family members disgust at having to buy another cake (the apple didn’t fall far from the tree when it comes to personalities of the residents and their families). Eventually, I moved on to newer jobs, and my life of crime abruptly ended with my resignation.

    1. Future Analyst*

      This is sweet. I don’t condone the stealing, but thank you for spending time with those who didn’t have visitors

  291. INSERT MY NAME HERE*

    I had been finding random items missing from my desk drawers for a few weeks: postage stamps, loose change, a tin of cashews, mini-chocolate bars, packs of gum . . .and . . .my unopened jumbo box of Kotex pads. Now, c’mon. Those things are NOT cheap!
    I vented to a co-worker…
    I checked my email…
    She sent an email to the ENTIRE organization – hundreds of people -,letting know they should be mindful of their personal belongings because…
    “Someone stole INSERT MY NAME HERE’s panty liners!”

    Good grief…

    1. Bow Ties Are Cool*

      Please tell me she didn’t use your last name, and your first is something super common like Mary or Sue.

      1. INSERT MY NAME HERE*

        Oh . . .that’s her in nutshell . . .absolutely. She was eavesdropping when I called to ask a co-worker/friend for directions (pre-GPS days…) to another very large state agency.
        The next day, my boss called me in to his office and asked if all was OK because…he had heard I was “out looking for another job”…

  292. LVeen*

    Someone stole my water bottle from the office bathroom a few months ago.

    When I entered the bathroom, I was the only one there. I left my water bottle by one of the sinks while I went into the stall. While I was in there, someone else came in and left before I was finished. When I came out, my water bottle was gone.

    I tried to give this mystery woman the benefit of the doubt that it was an accident – who wants a used water bottle from the bathroom? – but no scenario makes sense to me. If she initially thought “Someone must have forgotten this here” wouldn’t she have instantly realized that there was someone in one of the stalls and that they were probably the rightful owner of the water bottle?

    1. LVeen*

      Forgot to say it was a cheap Rubbermaid bottle from the grocery store, not one of those expensive, fancy S’Well type bottles or anything.

  293. GreenDoor*

    In my office of about 55, we took up ridiculous amounts of monetary collections (a complaint for another post) but it would be just an envelope going from desk to desk with a list of employees attached. You’d cross off your name that you got the envelope and pass it on to someone that hadn’t. Not uncommon to have over $100 dollars in an envelope. Well, one day the envelope went missing. It was for a retirement lunch and gift so there was estimated to be well over $250 in it.

    Soon after, my work friend left at 5:00 and forgot to lock her office door. Came back in at about 6:00 to do some after hours work and, lo and behold, finds the envelope with all the money jammed in pile of papers on her shelf. She suspected her office nemesis planted it in order to frame her for theft so she quickly emailed the office director that she found the envelope with a “I’m sorry I misplaced it and worried everyone!” Came in early specifically to give it to him before Nemesis arrived. Walked around the office proclaiming, “thank goodness I found it!” Totally thwarted the frame-up attempt and got all the credit for finding the “missing” envelope. Nemesis was fuming! It was great.

  294. Sara*

    At my office a couple years ago, someone stole another worker’s wallet out of her purse. The weirdest part was the victim was very pregnant, and thief went to the liquor store to buy a bunch of booze. She was caught almost immediately and fired

  295. PNW*

    A couple of years ago I would bring a banana into work every day for a snack but didn’t always get around to eating it. I’d leave it on top of my desk when I went home but it would always be gone the next day. I could never tell if it was someone who stayed late or the office cleaners. This went on for about two months until I finally gave up on bananas. I thought about putting the banana in a drawer at night but I was fascinated by the disappearing bananas. I also worried that the office cleaners really needed a snack and I didn’t want to deprive them.

  296. Hello Kitty*

    My first job had purchased basic calculators in bulk and handed them out to everyone. Over time, they got, lost, stolen or misplaced. They became a hot commodity because for some unknown reason, they did not purchase more. Weird because it was a BANK and all we did was work on NUMBERS all day!! People got in major fights over these calculators. So one day I went out, purchased a hot pink Hello Kitty calculator for less than 10.00. It was never stolen, and if I did happen to leave in a conference room or another persons office, it was always brought right back to me. Over time, as other office supplies wore out I always replaced them on my own. Now, three jobs later I have a full set of Hello Kitty office supplies. Stapler, tape dispenser, pencil holder, business card holder etc. And that calculator worked for like 12 years. Best 10.00 I ever spent…..

  297. Not a Morning Person*

    My brother keeps his change in the unused ashtray of his SUV. He took the SUV in for service. When he returned to to pick up his SUV, he discovered that the change was gone along with the ashtray! The dealership had to order him a new ashtray.

      1. LadyKelvin*

        I just had my car in the shop where they were replacing the dashboard. They found 50 cents in my car somewhere that I didn’t even know I had and left it out for me so I’d see it. I was impressed.

      2. Adele*

        Years ago I had taken my mom to the airport and then, with her permission, used her very nice car for a trip to visit a friend two states away. I had never driven there before and was unprepared for the toll roads. There was a bunch of change in the ashtray so I used it all up, thinking nothing about it.

        A few years later my mother was telling someone why she would no longer use a particular auto shop in our town. She had taken her car in for servicing several years ago and when the car was returned she realized all the change she had in the ashtray was missing. She reported it to the manager but he swore his employee would never have done that.

        Yup, I was the thief. I hadn’t even thought to replenish the few dollars I took or to tell my mom. I fessed up right then, of course, and we both felt terrible that she had accused an innocent person of this petty crime.

        1. Elizabeth H.*

          Wow – why would you though? If I lent my car to a relative and it came back with change missing, of course I would expect that my relative had used it.

    2. Be the Change*

      Yeah, I was peeved one day to find all the dollar bills gone from my ashtray after getting the car washed and vacuumed. I gave a generous tip and drove away, only at the next light noticing the money gone. I was like, “Jack@$$, I give those dollars to homeless veterans who hold cardboard signs at the corners.” …I guess the dude wouldn’t know that, though, and no one dreams of growing up to be the guy who vacuums suburban white ladies’ Hondas, so I didn’t bust him.

    3. Chaordic One*

      A fairly short time ago my father noticed that the door sill molding was missing from the passenger side of his Ford F-150 pickup truck. He thinks that someone at the repair shop where he had taken it stole it. (Like unscrewed it, and left holes in the carpeting where it had been.) Because he doesn’t drive it that often, he didn’t notice for quite a while afterwards and he can’t think any other way it would have gone missing. I don’t think it would have fallen off.

      Anyway he’s never gone back to that repair shop ever again.

    4. Anon.*

      When I got my car back from service last time, I was upset that the first aid kit I keep in the back was gone. I noticed, though, that the little cubby in the trunk had also been messed with. Opened it up, and there was my newly cleaned *and restocked* first aid kit, along with all the tools and tire change stuff. They earned my lifetime allegiance that day.

  298. Kate, Short for Bob*

    Just a mug, a cheap mug, but. I used to work contracts in IT, all over the south of England, 3 to 18 months usually, so I was used to being new and unknown. I had a mug from the Twin Study Unit at Guys and St Thomases hospital – it’s a volunteer thing where if you’re a twin you go in every 3 years and they run through tests to see how you and your twin differ, and the results are used across the world.

    It’s a cool, low effort thing to do and so I selected that mug as my “this is something personal you can ask me about and we can establish rapport without having to be best buddies” type thing.

    It lasted me at least 4 contracts, and got stolen the first time I worked for a government department. I was there for over a year and I scanned the kitchen hard, never saw it again.

    I mean, who would even want it that wasn’t a twin?

    1. JulieBulie*

      Someone who’d like to pretend they are a twin, and if they are caught in a misdeed they will try to blame it on their evil twin.

  299. Office Manager*

    Office supplies would go missing from my desk on the regular- pens, post-it pads, staplers, etc. So now I only buy my supplies in pink, and shockingly, they stay at my desk.

  300. Stop, Thief!*

    Not really petty, more like illegal… and really completely circumstantial, except kind of not. I’ll try to keep it short.

    A few years ago I went through a period of time (about a year and a half) when every other month my credit card or debit card would suddenly have fraudulent charges that I didn’t make. Every 3 months I was filling out paperwork with the bank, cancelling my card and getting a new one. I couldn’t figure out what was causing it. I separated the cards so I would make physical purchases with one and online purchases with the other to see if there was a store or website I was using that was causing the issue. I even started questioning my beloved Dunkin Donuts shop. It drove me crazy.

    Then I had a breakthrough. It happened again and although the store wouldn’t tell me WHO items were being shipped to, they could tell me WHERE items were being shipped to. And it just so happened that I knew the town was the hometown of one of our department assistants. CircumstStop, thief!antial to be sure, but said assistant could certainly access my wallet from my unprotected cube. The assistant had actually recently given notice and was going back to school.

    Once they left I never had a problem again. Sad thing is, this person had a lot of friends in the department and people still hang out with them and refer to him kindly . I don’t have the heart to tell them he’s a thief.

  301. Kelssss*

    A coworker of mine had brought one of those prepackaged salads for her lunch. It was clearly labelled with her name on it. Someone went it, cut open the container and stole just the crab meat out of it and put the salad back in the fridge. Who does that?!

    1. nonnymouse*

      According to some folks upthread, people who have decided that their own hunger pangs and budget issues matter far more than your coworker’s.

      1. Observer*

        That’s unkind and uncalled for. None of the people who described stealing food because they were hungry, described this kind of behavior.

  302. Sad Birthday*

    I work in a small non-profit with 5 office employees. On one of the employees birthdays, a consultant brought in a fancy birthday cake from the city that read “Happy Birthday Jenny.” The cake was in the fridge in the morning as they were going to sing happy birthday and light candles after lunch. The executive director took the cake from the fridge and ate a slice from it at 10 AM. It was a LARGE slice that went through the message. He didn’t apologize or say anything and he DEFINITELY knew it was being saved for later.

    They sang her happy birthday around a half-eaten cake.

    He clearly doesn’t feel remorse for this since also has eaten my lunch multiple times unapologetically, even throwing out the containers in the kitchen garbage.

  303. Katy*

    I brought a delicious turkey and lettuce on sourdough bread sandwich to work one day and only the turkey slices were stolen. Why not just take the whole thing?

    At another workplace, the part time office assistant who was the offspring of a board member, persisted in eating our lunches until the division director made her stop.

  304. MamaTzu*

    My office had a clepto on the loose that would only ransack offices over the weekend and only steal trivial items. Two USB lightening cables and a wooden coat hanger were stolen from me. I was convinced the culprit had a voodoo doll made of my hair tucked away in their desk as well. It kept occurring so controlled entry and cameras were installed in the lobby!

  305. Adele*

    My office supports the food service, medical supplies and equipment (including transport beds), and janitorial departments of a large hospital. The amount and type of stuff that is stolen is amazing. Catheters, IV-poles, rethermalization bags, hairnets, bags of used but clean rags. Hams. (The guy who tried to sneak out with that in his pants didn’t get very far.) A hospital bed with mattress.

    We now have someone who checks Craigslist and eBay listings for this stuff. Amazing how much shows up there and how the thieves don’t realize it isn’t that hard to tie them to the accounts.

    2. ReanaZ*

      … I stole a ham once. From a grocery store.

      In my defense, it was completely an accident. I was doing the Christmas shopping in a haze after my husband gave me divorce papers on Christmas Eve when I got back from being out of town for work. I used the self-scanners and spent heaps overall and just walked out with it in my cart, unbagged. I didn’t even realise I hadn’t rung up the ham til I was home.

      Not in my defense, I was way, way too embarassed to return it.

      1. Story Nurse*

        This happened to me and a friend the other day—he got himself a bag of jelly beans from a self-serve stand at the candy and ice cream shop, and by the time we got to the head of the very long ice cream line and ordered ice cream and got ice cream and paid, he totally forgot he had the bag of jelly beans in his hand. He didn’t even think of it until he finished his ice cream, reached into the bag, and said, “I didn’t pay for this, did I?”

        Fortunately we were only a couple of blocks away so we could go right back and pay for it. The clerk was very nice about it, and I suspect we are now favored regulars at that shop because they know we’ll take the time and effort to be honest about $3 worth of jelly beans.

  306. Beautiful, talented, brilliant, powerful musk ox*

    Oh. I already posted about some petty stuff, but I just remembered The Chair Drama that occurred when I was new at my last job.

    Basically, a few months into my job at a small medical practice, I was given duties that had been those of someone who had recently quit. Said duties required babysitting a fax machine and using the computer that was in the old person’s shared office space, while I needed to be at my own desk part of the week to do my normal work. (This was temporary while our IT contractor got everything set up…it really shouldn’t have gone on as long as it did but ¯\_(ツ)_/¯.)

    So, the chair from the Fax Machine Desk disappears one day and I find it in our marketing manager’s office. (I should note that he was in office MAYBE two days per week, and often not that much.) He wasn’t in, and I mentioned the missing chair to a coworker, unsure if I could take it or if I needed to cart my own chair across the entire office (it was truly the farthest it could possibly be within our suite) whenever I needed to be at the Fax Machine Desk. She escalated the issue to our shared boss despite my insisting that I didn’t want it to become a Thing. Shared Boss pointed out that the retired owner of the practice still had an office that wasn’t being used and he had an executive-style chair in there. I really didn’t want the executive-style chair in part because I’m not a huge fan of high-backed chairs, but also because I was new and I didn’t want to come off as entitled to the rest of my coworkers. (I roll my eyes at this sort of drama, but I know others don’t and, once again, I really didn’t want it to become a Thing.)

    We decided that I can give Marketing Manager the executive-style chair (especially since the chair was rather large and MM was a pretty big and tall guy). Shared Boss was fully aware of this situation and was fine with it.

    Fast forward to a day or two later when I get a text from Marketing Manager telling me to talk to him if I ever move anything in his office. I responded with an explanation that I’d taken a chair I used regularly back and swapped it with the approval of our Shared Boss because otherwise I would be carting a chair across the office over and over again and we thought he’d appreciate the other chair or whatever.

    I’m honestly not sure if I was in the right or the wrong here, but I do know that I somehow caused Chair Drama in an attempt to NOT cause Chair Drama. Ha…

  307. Anonymous Beardo*

    I wear a full beard. Years ago at an office full of food thieves, I’d pluck a beard hair out and scotch-tape it to the outside of the plastic container of food – invisible inside my lunch bag, but visible if you pulled it out to steal it.

    Know what a beard hair looks like when it’s no longer on your face? Yeah. It looks like one of THOSE.

    Guess whose lunch stopped getting stolen.

  308. Can You Not*

    I once had a coworker who didn’t have scissors of her own so she would often reach into my desk and use mine (they were blue). One time, after returning from a two-week vacation, I noticed that my scissors were missing. She hadn’t arrived at work yet, but I glanced at her desk that was right in front of me and saw – you guessed it – blue scissors in a cup. I waited until she arrived and then casually asked the people sitting around me (including her), “Has anyone seen my blue scissors?” She reached into her cup and handed them to me, and I nonchalantly said, “Oh, these are mine?” She chirped, “No, I think they’re mine, but you can have them anyway!”

    The thing is, my scissors had tiny pieces of scotch tape at very specific spots, so I knew they were mine. What amazed me more than the act of taking was her pretense of generosity. I know we’re just talking about scissors here, but I find that a small act can really show a lot about a person’s character.

    1. many bells down*

      I took costume design in college, and they told us to label our scissors as they WOULD get taken. Often accidentally, but still. Only, I was the only lefty in the class, and I’d bought myself nice left-handed scissors because cutting fabric is hard on your hands. My scissors were the only ones that didn’t go missing at some point. Once or twice, I’d watch someone absentmindedly pick mine up, try to cut something with them, and then say “what’s wrong with these scissors?!” before putting them back down.

    2. nonnymouse*

      I find that a small act can really show a lot about a person’s character.

      This is why all the comments here from thieves who have zero remorse are so telling to me. I don’t care how you justify it to yourself, if you’re stealing someone else’s stuff, I have no respect for you and will never trust you with anything.

    3. BigSigh*

      Someone once accused me of stealing their scissors! All of the office scissors had blue handles and only about 4 people has a pair (out of ten and no one really needed them for much of anything). When someone quit about a year into my work there, I grabbed the scissors off her desk before anyone else moved in. A couple weeks later someone from a different department put up a giant fuss that her scissors had gone missing. She started going from desk to desk and when she got to mine, she used the blue handle as evidence.

      I basically looked at her like she was crazy and said I’d had them since former coworker left soooo keep looking.

  309. It's Business Time*

    I worked at a printing place where we printed checks, someone stole the blank checks and proceeded to pass around fraudulent checks around town. They were arrested and jailed.

  310. Irene Adler*

    One day, a co-worker brought in a large jar of peanut butter as she was about to polish off her opened jar. She placed it next to the almost empty jar in the company lunch room.

    The next Monday she discovered that the pristine jar had been opened. The top was not screwed on properly. It looked like someone had taken their bare hand and removed a giant scoop of peanut butter. They’d removed about a third of the contents.

    Understandably, she was disgusted over this and discarded the jar.
    Of course, the almost empty jar was untouched.

  311. Semprini!*

    In high school band, I had a pretty rainbow pencil with my name on it that I kept in my music folder for when I needed to annotate. One day it disappeared. I shrugged my shoulders and put another pencil in my music folder.

    Sometime later, a notice appeared on the notice board: “Missing: one rainbow “Semprini” pencil. Please return to the trumpet section!”

    No one in the trumpet section was named Semprini. I was the only person in the band named Semprini.

    I suspect they found it by accident rather than deliberately stealing it from me, but I’m kind of mindblown that they’d assume it’s theirs to the point of putting up a missing notice when they lost it rather than concluding it belongs to the person whose name is on the pencil.

    1. OlympiasEpiriot*

      Maybe they found it on the floor of a hallway and thought the name was a brand name? Some of those customized fonts aren’t obviously not a manufacturer’s.

  312. Not a Morning Person*

    At one place where I worked, we had a Keurig style coffee maker and a hot chocolate maker. They were the kind that were installed with water attached to the machines. The coffee came in small pods, but the hot chocolate maker used large plastic containers about the size of a quart of milk. Those started disappearing. No one ever figured out how or who was taking them. They started locking them in the supply closet, and someone would take the used one out of the dispenser and we’d discover it empty in the morning. Someone loved that hot chocolate mix!

  313. CDR*

    One morning, upon coming into work, there was an email from the CEO to all employees stating that the had stolen someone’s meatballs from the freezer the night before because he was working into the wee hours and that he would gladly purchase lunch for the person to whom they belonged. People loved to joke around and soon enough employees were replying to all with funny jokes. All I could come up with was that the meatballs must have been much more tempting than my veggie burgers, so I was thankful that my food was safe. This went on for a few hours and he then sent another email stating that anyone who had replied to a funny comment was going to be treated to lunch from the Cheesecake Factory. It was a great day!

    Same company….the guy who was the network admin and also the cousin of two of the three owners was found to have stolen $2.1M from the company. He “ordered” equipment from a company that he had set up (no one knew this was his company) and those invoices were paid through accounting without anyone checking to see if we had the assets. Over a period of 8 years, he had embezzled over $2M. He is now a convicted felon and lost everything. Early on in my tenure there when I worked in the accounting department, he came me one day to ask me if I wanted an iPad. I asked him what he meant. He said that for every 10 Dell computers he ordered, he got a free iPad. I told him absolutely not, if the company received some sort of incentive, it was the decision of the owners regarding what they wanted to do with them. Looking back, I think he was testing me to see if I would be a party to his wrongdoing, as the stealing started happening around this same time.

    1. Imaginary Number*

      I also learned too late that people randomly offering free stuff is a warning sign of theft. I guess I always thought thieves would be sneaky about their excess income. Turns out that most can’t help showing it off in some way. This one employee I had (who stole $100,000 through travel vouchers) had offered multiple junior employees Apple TVs (which were a novelty at that point) and had spent money out of his own pocket to buy some retiring coworkers fancy presents.

  314. Former Arts Administrator*

    A few jobs ago, someone took a single falafel out of my lunch. I had packed three in the morning, as part of a salad, and when I opened it for lunch, there were only two. Made worse by the fact that at that particular job, we all had to label our containers in the fridge with our names on masking tape (a militantly-enforced policy), so the thief knew for sure who it belonged to!

  315. Rachel Green*

    Luckily, I don’t think a lot of food theft happens in my office. One of my coworkers ate a hard boiled egg that I had intended to eat for a snack that afternoon. I think it was just an accident though, because she ate hard boiled eggs for lunch frequently, and probably thought the egg in the fridge was one she had brought. I never mentioned it to her because I assumed it was an accident. Next time I brought an egg, I put it in a plastic container with my name on it.

    We had some headphones and spare change reported stolen from people’s desks a couple of years ago. I don’t think they every figured out who was stealing stuff, but it was suspected to be the people who came after hours to clean, because we changed companies and the thefts stopped.

    1. Kelsi*

      Haha yeah I once had a coworker drink my soda–I had labeled it in Sharpie but I guess it was on the far side of the can, and she tended to bring the same type of soda. Wouldn’t be a noteworthy story except when she realized, partway through drinking it, she came and apologized to me repeatedly and profusely, then brought me more soda and a chocolate bar the next day as an apology. It was very sweet.

      I was just happy that she told me at all so I didn’t go into the break room expecting my caffeine boost only to be disappointed!

  316. EvilQueenRegina*

    I know someone who became an accidental milk thief because the guy he sat next to has a habit of labelling their team’s milk with some random made up name. He saw something labelled Eric, thought that was a fake name and drank the milk, then found out Eric was a real employee. The other guy now uses more obviously fake names.

    2. ReanaZ*

      I am a peanut butter thief under mislabeling circumstances.

      My office supplies some basic foodstuffs–coffee, tea, biscuits (cookies), milk, salt, pepper, jam, and butter. The jam, butter, salt, and pepper are labelled “VC”, the company initials.

      For THREE YEARS I ate peanut butter out of a jar in the same cabinet labelled “VC”. Not daily but frequently–if I was hungry after a big workout, I’d have it on an apple, if my blood sugar was crashing, I’d scope some on a plain biscuit. I assumed it was like the butter and jam, available for anyone to use.

      Then one day I was in the kitchen and Vernonica Cintra, who was leaving the company, was saying “Well, I’m going to miss it here, but hopefully at my new company, someone won’t steal my peanut butter all the time!” Holding the “VC” peanut butter I always used!

      1. Floundering Mander*

        How did she not notice that her initials were exactly the same as the office-supplied foodstuffs in the same cabinet and realize that people mistook her stuff for communal property? Or are you implying that all that other stuff was hers, too?

        Also, did you buy her a jar of peanut butter?

  317. Adele*

    Boss’s early 20-something daughter “borrowed” several credit cards from the stash he had in a drawer at home. She had them in her purse that she took to her pizza joint job. Her wallet with ID, cards, etc went missing one shift so she called Dad (and had to fess up to borrowing his credit cards). He immediately got on-line and saw there were purchases at a nearby Walmart, all food and baby-related stuff. I don’t remember if he called the police or just went directly to Walmart, but he and daughter were able to view security tapes and saw pregnant co-worker at the check-out lane/time when the purchases were made.

  318. 30 Years in the Biz*

    I was a new manager and my director took me, a scientist, and one lab assistant -both working for me- to our corporate headquarters on the other side of the US to meet our colleagues and train on a new system. On the last day we stored our luggage at the hotel and were picking it up after the workday on the way to the airport. That morning, a housekeeper had reported to hotel management that the comforter cover and the decorative pillow covers were missing from the lab assistant’s room. There had also been an unsuccessful attempt to remove the bed skirt. When we returned to the hotel for our luggage that afternoon the manager called the lab assistant into his office and ultimately got her to admit that she had taken the items. She opened her suitcase and gave them back. When we asked her about her conversation with the manager she said the hotel had slightly damaged her luggage and wanted to explain to her. I found out the whole story when I was back in our office and reviewing the hotel bill and noticed that they had not comp’d one night’s room charge for an unmade/dirty bed reported by the lab assistant on the first day of our stay. The hotel clerk would not explain why we didn’t receive this discount. She said “Talk to your employee”. When I talked to the employee and asked if there were any issues and if she knew why we weren’t getting the discount she said there were no problems. I called back the hotel and asked to talk to the manager. The manager also asked me to talk to my employee. I pressed him. He said “We don’t want to cause any trouble, we do a lot of business with your company”. I said “Please tell me” and he finally relented. He described the whole scenario. Ultimately, the employee wouldn’t admit she had stolen the items, so she was fired. She had previously had a couple instances of leaving early, but filling out her time card as if she had worked a full day (caught her leaving early more than once as I was pulling out of the parking lot). Not surprisingly after she was gone, the large packets of Starbucks’s hot cocoa mix we use to fill our automatic coffee/cocoa machine were no longer going missing on a regular basis. I still don’t know how she could fit all those linens in a carry on. Did she toss some of her clothes?? Human nature can be so unpredictable.

  319. All the Words*

    I work in a church that uses wine for communion, so at any given time, we have some jumbo bottles of cheap port around. I once walked in on a non-staff church leader drinking a solo cup full of communion wine.

    2. Anonymous Poster*

      BLEGH that sounds vile.

      If you’re that hard up for some alcohol, there’s better cheap stuff around than communion wine…

  320. Mandy*

    I will often go to the bathroom and then refill my water bottle in the same trip, but I don’t want to take my water bottle into the bathroom so I leave it on the back of the water fountain just outside the bathroom (many people in my office do this–if you are going to the bathroom and leave something on the fountain, everyone knows you’ll come back out and remove it in a few minutes). I’d been doing this for years and then one day while I was in the bathroom my teal Camelbak Eddy water bottle disappeared. I never did figure out is someone stole it, mistook it for their own or what. I replaced it with a bright pink version of the same bottle. No issues yet! (I’m in a department that has 4 women and 40+ men.)

  321. many bells down*

    At the museum, we have a lot of interactive exhibits that have headphones attached. The headphone wires were permanently attached to the exhibit, but the headphones themselves just plugged into the jack on the end. In one specific gallery, at least one pair would go missing every week. These were expensive headphones, so I can understand the appeal, but they also weren’t sold at retail so the thieves would have to call the company to get a replacement (proprietary) cord for them. Thankfully facilities replaced them all with permanently wired ones about a year ago.

    Also one of the security staff, who had been on disability leave for months following a work injury, brought in a bunch of games and coloring books for the break room as a sort of celebration when she came back to work. They were all gone the next day.

  322. SusanIvanova*

    I brought a cheesecake to work – the recipe turned out to make double what I needed for my dinner party, so I had a second one. It was in my grandmother’s vintage springform pan. I saw the last slice sitting on the springform bottom, considered moving it to a paper plate, but didn’t. Next time I was in the breakroom – no cake, and no pan bottom either. Not in the trash or recycling (I considered a remote possibility that someone thought it was disposable), nothing. Unless the cleaning crew thought it belonged to the main kitchen and took it, I have no idea why it would walk away without the springform top.

  323. ZVA*

    My employer manufactures, among many other things, coupons for a food company, and someone who works on our shop floor stole a bunch of the coupons once and used them at a store… Problem was, the coupons hadn’t been released to the public yet, so when the company was notified that they’d been redeemed, they knew it had to be by someone from our shop. The person was fired & our owner called a company meeting about it and told us what had happened in the gravest terms; it made me feel like I was back in middle school or something! Very fear of God. We do still work with the food company; I think that might have been conditional on the firing, but I’m not sure…

  324. Sea Born*

    At an OldJob, I was in a small department, with just three other people. We were moving offices, from a large shared office that was just us, to a really large bullpen upstairs. We didn’t have to move furniture, just files and stuff. I stopped at the vending machine for a Coke, left it on a table in the new office, went to get something, and when I came back, it was gone. I was so sad. I had really been looking forward to that Coke.

  325. Mini-pixie*

    Years ago, I worked at the airport as TSA security. We had a secure break room that you had to hand-scan in to. In the back of the break room were a bank of lockers for people to store their purses or whatever, and racks for jackets, that type of thing. I kept my purse in there, though I never used a padlock – only my coworkers had access to the room. Well, I am sure you guessed, one day I finished my shift and oops – no purse. The whole thing, including keys and wallet had been stolen. Ugh!

    1. blackcat*

      I have witnessed a TSA agent *picking a nice watch off the belt and trying to pocket it.* When called out, the guy said he was admiring it and put it down.

      My dad (who travels a lot) has mysteriously been down $40 after getting a pat down (his wallet was on a table that he was not allowed to look at).

      I have zero trust in TSA agents to not steal, and I am not at all surprised by your story.

      1. SusanIvanova*

        The first thing I thought when Apple announced their charging pad and mentioned something about how it would be convenient for travel: I’ve already lost one $40 induction charger to TSA and that’s on the cheap end – no way am I travelling with that!

  326. Kelsi*

    When I was eighteen, I worked in a part-time position at my current agency–just an after-school job, manning the registration desk while people came in for evening and weekend training (stuff like First Aid/CPR). The building was a regular office during the work week, with the usual staff fridge and break room. We didn’t have much contact with the daytime staff, and the instructors were independent contractors.

    One of the CPR instructors, every Saturday that he taught, would go through the staff fridge and make his lunch out of whatever looked tasty. He literally never brought lunch. He wasn’t sneaky about it though–he’d walk into the break room, say something like “ooh what’s in here today?” and start rummaging, making a pile of the stuff he wanted to eat. The one time I tentatively said something (I was young and technically had no authority!), he insisted that anyone who left a lunch over the weekend wasn’t coming back for it. The other people I worked with (also young, though slightly older than and senior to me) didn’t seem to think it was an issue, just a great source of “that Marcus, he’s such a wacky guy!” stories, so I never mentioned it to my boss, assuming everyone just knew and was fine with it.

    …Until, months later, she happened to be telling my mom (they’re friends) a weird story of disappearing lunches. Not long after that, they stopped contracting with Marcus! (There were other issues, but I suspect that was the last straw)

    1. Kelsi*

      Just realized it’s not clear…when she was telling the story was when I piped up like “Oh hey that’s definitely Marcus I thought you knew.”

  327. Gayle C*

    Many years ago, I worked for a small non-profit. They hired a paralegal who seemed normal. Shortly thereafter I noticed that he wore the same suit virtually every day and, frankly, smelled unwashed. Also noticed that food was missing from the fridge regularly. Anything left over from a meeting or individual lunches and snacks disappeared the same day. Plus, he always seemed to be in the office well before anyone else and didn’t leave on time with everyone else. Found out the day he was fired that he was homeless, living in the office and dining on our leftovers. Really, dude?

    2. Not Australian*

      We had a homeless guy living for a couple of weeks in one of the seldom-used store-rooms in our hospital. He was only caught when for some reason he started a fire in the corridor…

    3. The Data Don't Lie*

      I think a “Really, dude?” is called for when it’s one of the higher-ups that makes more money than the people who are stealing from, but in this case, yes, really. He’s homeless and hungry and trying to get by. Owns one suit, doesn’t have access to a shower. I feel bad for him and I’m sad he was fired. I hope he manages to get a leg up somehow and get out of that situation.

      1. Observer*

        Well said.

        So, he shouldn’t have been taking the food that people were bringing in for their lunches. But the other leftovers? As for the rest, I understand why your employer felt that they couldn’t keep him, but it sounds like he deserves compassion not snottiness.

    4. CMDRBNA*

      I mean…yes? Really, there are homeless people, and really, homeless people sometimes have jobs?

      I think there was a Captain Awkward column (might be misremembering the site) about someone who had to live at their office while in between housing. I think they were a student and couldn’t afford housing while the dorms were closed over the summer or something.

      I volunteer in the shelter system, and while this isn’t an issue at our particular shelter, often homeless shelters make it harder to hold down regular jobs and keep a space in the homeless shelter than otherwise (i.e. having to be back at the shelter at a certain time or you get bumped, but what if you’re working the evening shift at a restaurant or overnights?).

      Anyway, I’m not saying it was the responsibility of your non-profit to solve this guy’s situation because that’s likely beyond the ability/responsibility of most offices, but it is really sad and maybe the office could have put the paralegal in touch with some resources once they knew?

  328. Meghan*

    I don’t remember how many years ago this was, but I know it was mid-March, because it was Pi Day (3/15). I worked for a tech company and was part of planning a last-minute Pi Day celebration that was basically “buy a bunch of pies for everyone.” I volunteered to go get the pies from my favorite bakery, because I could also pick up a box of a dozen cream puffs for myself, for a gathering that weekend. Not that I wouldn’t eventually eat a dozen cream puffs from this bakery on my own. I would. They’re amazing. But I bought the pies separately, to be reimbursed, and spent my own money on the cream puffs.

    Pies went over very well. I put the cream puffs in the “personal food” fridge and the leftover pie went into the communal food/soda fridge. This was how the place worked: food in one fridge was up for grabs, and food in the other wasn’t. I’d never heard any talk of lunch theft before. Also, my cream puffs were still in the bakery box, tied up with string. It didn’t even occur to me to be concerned.

    But when I went to pick them up at the end of the day, the string had been cut and one cream puff was missing. So I marched myself back to my desk and sent out a quick, company-wide email. Probably as a reply to the “free pie for pi day” email from earlier. Paraphrasing, the pie had been for everyone, but I had bought the cream puffs for my family and they were about $3 each, so if the guilty party could kindly pay me back I would appreciate it. Then I went home for the weekend and fumed loudly to my friends about why there was one less cream-puff at the party.

    No one fessed up, of course. I did get a lot of people asking if anyone had come forward. And then a day or two later, a $5 bill on my keyboard. So, good enough.

    The other stories here make me appreciate my current office. Nothing’s ever disappeared, and I kept two boxes of Girl Scout cookies in plain view for months.

    1. Meghan*

      I say that, and then before I left today I noticed one of my toy matchbox cars was missing. If I hadn’t been reading this thread, I’d probably assume it had rolled off somewhere. Curses.

  330. Denise*

    I once had a stuffed animal, a Chihuahua dog from Taco Bell back in the “Yo Quiero Taco Bell” days, swiped from my desk. I really liked that guy. :(
    There’s also a lady where I work who loves to tell the story about her sister’s theft problem and how she solved it. She was having her tuna sandwiches for lunch regularly stolen from the communal fridge in the company kitchen. Since it would look pretty similar, she decided to made a sandwich out of cat food, and left it in the fridge for the thief to take. It took a few days, but it was eventually taken. And she never had a single sandwich stolen from her ever again…

  331. Anne (with an "e")*

    At the school where I used to teach the following items were stolen from me:
    (*Please Note: I had paid for these items with my own money.)
    * Two radio/cd/cassette players (First one was stolen. I replaced it. Then the second one was stolen a few years later.)
    * My Tervis tumbler
    * My stapler
    * A pair of scissors
    * A bag of candy (I had intended to hand out pieces of candy as prizes to my students.)
    * Several boxes of Kleenex until I wised up and stopped providing Kleenex for my students
    * Index cards
    * A pack of construction paper
    * I am certain there is more, but I can’t think of everything right now.

  332. Nanoo*

    Relative worked at one of the game concessions at a huge amusement park one summer after freshman year in college. A dad had spent about $40 trying to win a prize for his child when it began to rain. Relative took pity on him and handed him a stuffed animal. Next day relative was called into the office and fired for theft. Relative asked how much the toy had cost. Before leaving the office, relative took $4 and handed it to the manager.

    Relative was astonished by the firing and the parents were indignant. I sympathized with relative’s kind impulses and dismay at being fired over a $4 toy when $40 had been spent in its pursuit, but had to explain why such an operation would feel the need to have a zero tolerance policy.

  333. Traveling Teacher*

    I’ve never had anything stolen, exactly, but one time this happened:

    So, I was a traveling teacher in my first year of teaching, and one school in an economically depressed area had a lot of lovely, but very depressed, teachers teaching there. They had loads of dishes (plates, mugs, etc.) in a cupboard, but the day that they ran out of washing up liquid in mid-October, they just…stopped washing the dishes. The cupboard had a tray of dirty dishes, which multiplied into shelves upon shelves of disgusting, dirty dishes.

    I only taught there in the early morning and late afternoon so would keep a coffee mug there, neatly labeled with my name, plus a tray with a small bottle of washing up liquid and a sponge (I cut up one sponge into four pieces and kept one at each of my schools. I HATE communal sponges!) Also had my own instant coffee because that coffee maker was nasty. After about two weeks of the dirty dish multiplication, my mug kept getting used by the dirtiest teacher there (he had about 15 mugs scattered around his room, and I also taught in his classroom–lovely man, but terrible personal hygiene!). So, I started hiding my mug and washing up liquid in an out of the way hallway near one of my classrooms.

    In March, I found that one of the teachers had stolen my tiny sponge over the weekend, used it to wash up all of the rotting science experiments on the dishes, and then had put the dirty sponge BACK IN MY MUG. The sponge was covered in filth, y’all! Just, WHY? I wouldn’t have minded if they would have just thrown away the sponge, but come on! I washed the mug and then put it in the communal cupboard and started carrying a travel mug in my extremely heavy bag that I lugged around from place to place on the bus. :(

    1. Chaordic One*

      At bad old job I got fed up and started buying dish-washing liquid for the break room myself. I don’t think anyone noticed. I wonder what they do now that I don’t work there anymore.

    2. Floundering Mander*

      This kind of thing amazes me, but maybe I’m a sucker. At more than one (short-term, temporary contract) job I’ve just gone out and bought a bottle of cheap soap and sponges or hand soap. I figure it’s worth the 21p the cheapest dish soap at Tesco costs so that I can wash my mug properly while I’m there.

  334. Kelsi*

    On the other end of the spectrum from Fridge Guy, there was the manager that stole around $8000 (that we could trace) from my agency. She was doctoring receipts and then turning them in for reimbursement as “training supplies” that she had purchased–the only way she got caught was that one of her subordinates, tasked with collecting and organizing all the receipt scans, happened to have a second job at one of the manager’s favorite clothing stores–and even though the receipt had been altered so that the store name was removed, apparently they had very distinctive item coding on their receipts and the subordinate recognized it.

    As you can guess by the amount, she was doing it for a couple of years, sneaking it in alongside legitimate purchases. It was a shock to me (I had been her subordinate for a little while, though not her direct report), though I found out later not so much to some of her other subordinates…she was known to spend all day shopping online, apparently, so she was not exactly an exemplary worker to start with.

  335. Sylvan*

    A long time ago, my boss brought a big bag of trail mix into the office. We were all supposed to share it. Except I kept eating it when nobody else was around and I think I ate 3/4 of it. I’m not sorry.

    1. Future Analyst*

      Ahaha, this made me LOL. I think think we’ve all been there… just a handful at a time, here and there, and then suddenly you realize you’ve had most of the bag. Whoops!

  336. Anja*

    We had a common coffee mug cabinet at old job it was a mix of mugs people brought from home, general non-remarkable ones, and various ones that ended up in the cabinet. It was a pretty small office so guests were given the non-remarkable ones and everyone else had either their own or a favourite out of the random mugs (I was in a meeting all afternoon my last day – my colleagues packed my favourite mug in my box for me even though I didn’t bring it in). One day a colleague went on a rampage – his mug (which he brought from home) was missing. He sent office-wide e-mails. He asked anyone he ran into. He checked people’s desks. It was months before it was finally found again (during which we regularly heard about said mug). Most of us had assumed someone accidentally broke it but then didn’t want to face colleague’s wrath.

    It was found…on the desk of the head of security. He’d had it the whole time (and he was included on the e-mails). Normally people would say that it’s just a mug – is it really that big of a deal? But this mug – that my colleague brought from home – was a custom printed mug. With a picture of his kids on it. Who specifically chooses a mug with a picture of someone else’s children on it to hoard for months? It was very disconcerting.

  337. ReanaZ*

    Okay, this wasn’t in the office but it was work-adjacent and batshit enough all of you should know about it:

    I used to work out of the head office in a major Australian city. Then I transferred to a new small branch office in another state. I had travelled back to the head office for a few days and was flying out to go home early afternoon. I went to a cafe across the street from my office for lunch before heading to the airport, with my luggage.

    At some point, I went to the loo, taking my handbag with my laptop, phone, and wallet in it, and leaving my suitcase in the seating area. It had no valuables in it, and my attitude has always been (to this point…) “If someone wants to steal my dirty clothes, they probably need them more than I do.” I was gone maybe 2 minutes.

    I got back to find a small pocket unzipped. SOMEONE HAD STOLEN A PAIR OF MY UNDERWEAR FROM MY SUITCASE. A *dirty* pair of my underwear. In a cafe. In broad daylight.

    Normally I would dismiss this as the mischief of teenagers on a dare or whatever but it was noon in the middle of the CBD. No kids. Literally the only people in the cafe were well-dressed business professionals.

    WHO DOES THAT

    1. Enough*

      My husband was packing to come home from a business trip and left his laundry bag by the car and went back into his room to get something. When he came back it was gone. They got a week’s worth of dirty clothes. More annoyed about replacing the bag than the clothes.

      1. Artemesia*

        I was returning from Hawaii, the big island, where I had given a speech a couple of years ago and had brought my husband on the trip. From the rental car to the check in for the rental was about 30 feet and he had tossed his jacket on top of the luggage carrier. It apparently slipped off, we noticed it immediately when we got to the counter and I went back to pick it up where it must have fallen and in that minute or so, someone had scooped it up and taken it. It was literally not more than a minute.

    2. nonegiven*

      I saw a sitcom where those things go for $200 on Craigslist but you really need to wear them day and night for 3 days to get that much.

  338. The Claims Examiner*

    I haven’t personally had anything stolen, but my husband has had the the following things stolen:
    Chandra Nalaar pop figure
    a gray hoodie from Wal Mart
    several Lock and Locks (the older good ones!!!)
    so many lunches
    Someone stole entire boxes of coffee from every floor in my building. I suspect it was the substitute cleaning service. I thought it was weird that they brought their own garbage cans.

  339. Peter B*

    We’ve had occasional issues with people eating other people’s food in my office. I really don’t understand, but I avoid this by just eating something out every day for lunch.
    However, I’m legally blind and once have had a video magnifier I use to do the very occasional non-computer paperwork task stolen out of my desk. Not sure what anyone thought they were going to do with that, but super annoying since it was expensive enough that we needed to do a police report and explain why it needed to be replaced.

    1. Artemesia*

      Can you tell me what the video magnifier is; my husband needs this type of thing and I haven’t found anything that works yet. I’d love to have a link.

      1. Peter B*

        There are lots of options out there, depending on how large he would like to magnify things, how portable he needs it to be, etc. The one I use is the Humanware Explore 5, but porrtability is a big factor for me, so that drove my decision a bit. The link for that one is here: http://store.humanware.com/hus/explore-5-handheld-electronic-magnifier.html
        Humanware makes other sizes as well.
        One other thing you might consider is that there is an app called Zoom Reader for iOS that might make an iPad Pro with a stand a decent choice as well.
        Good luck and happy to help more if you have more questions…

  340. The Principal of the Thing*

    At Firstjob we had open, cubby-style box shelves for our bags in the communal lunch room, and we all learned pretty quickly not to leave anything there, because we had a thief who would take cash, credit cards, and such. We would get in trouble for leaving our bags in classrooms but would always take that risk, because we all knew that the thief was the bosses daughter, and untouchable. She took a casual teachers rent money out of her purse once and bragged about it in front of other staff: when the police were called we were told that anybody who spoke to them would be not only fired but reported for child abusers, which would have killed our careers.

    It was a horrible place and I quit as soon as I got another job.

  341. Mystery of the Missing Beer*

    Once upon a time, I was a grad student in a lab at a nuclear particle accelerator. We sometimes did shift work during multi-day major experiments; somebody was always in the lab monitoring the experiment.

    During one major experiment, some of my fellow grad students thought it would be a great idea to bring in some beer to enjoy – during their shift. Not a six-pack, mind you, but a full-sized cooler packed full of beer (for about ~2-3 people). I happen to not drink. So, naturally, during my shift, I ended up doing all the work while they ended up drinking the entire time. I expressed my displeasure at this arrangement – specifically at them drinking heavily during work – and they responded in typical grad-student fashion by assuring me I was completely free to drink heavily on shift as well.

    On Day 1, the boss-professor stops by right while they are in the middle of getting their drink on. I think to myself, “Thank goodness, surely he will tell them not to drink on shift.” But, clever bastards that they were, my fellows had done their homework. They hand our (German) boss his favorite local beer as soon as he approaches. Without blinking, the boss cracks it open and takes a drink. Immediate official buy-in to drinking on shift. So, that day I learned that drinking (in moderation) at work is apparently quite normal in Germany.

    On Day 2, I start getting angrier with my drunken colleagues, who have been continuously refilling their beer stash. They had decided to start storing their cooler just outside an exterior door, because it was winter. I told them storing beer outside on a college campus was extremely dumb, and it would eventually walk off. College students have a sixth sense for free beer. I told them drinking on a campus with prohibition-era alcohol rules was also pretty risky, that they’d get likely get in trouble. I said drinking while running the particle accelerator (these things are not exactly safe, nor fool-proofed) was needlessly risky.

    On Day 3, I was resigned to my fate and had tapered off my complaints into a low grumble. However, my complacency was misplaced. Towards the end of my shift, I get a phone call from the particle accelerator’s central operations people (who are aware we have a major experiment, but unaware of the drinking grad students). The conversation goes something like this:
    Central Ops: “So we just got done speaking to the police.”
    Me: “…Oh?” (!!!)
    Central Ops: “Are you drinking beer down there? At work? While you’re running the accelerator?”
    Me: “No, I’m not drinking beer. Why do you ask?” – technically true
    Central Ops: “So, the cops came by to respond to an alarm that was automatically set off when an exterior door got propped open. They found that some snow had gotten wedged in the door. However, they also found a cooler full of beer right outside the door. They’ve confiscated it, since it’s against the law and campus regs to have alcohol in this building or outside it. The door is pretty close to your lab.”
    Me: “Huh. Thanks for the heads-up! Anything else you need from me?”
    Central Ops: “Uh, no, I guess not. Good luck with your experiment.”
    So, I told my compatriots about the call. They promptly rushed out to check on their beer, only to find their cooler had in fact been emptied by the cops. I was the recipient of some angry, drunk glares, but no outright hostility or accusations. I had, after all, not yet ratted them out. I thought surely they would mend their ways after this.

    Then came Day 4. In an active of civil disobedience that they likened to the civil rights movement, my colleagues had brought even more beer, and stashed it in exactly the same place. I shook my head in disgust. I went home after my shift.

    I arrived for my shift on Day 5 to be met with some unexpected, extremely hostile, yet sober, grad students. They immediately accused me of theft. I asked what they were talking about. Apparently, soon after I left shift on Day 4, their new stash of beer had been stolen. I reminded them that I don’t actually drink, and informed them that if I were inclined to steal their beer I would’ve started doing so on Day 1, when they started behaving obnoxiously. This temporarily mollified them, but to this day they still blame me for this last loss of beer. Reader, I did not steal their beer. There were about 50,000 other students on that campus who could’ve stolen the beer, plus the accelerator’s central operators, plus the cops who had stumbled upon their beer just one day earlier. This was, at last, too much of a strain on their budgets, and they did not buy more beer that day.

    Shortly after the experiment ended, we had a group meeting with all the grad students and the boss. I expressed my displeasure at the drinking-at-work issue and all the problems it had caused. To my great displeasure, the boss then chimed in, “I rather liked having this beer available. It’s pretty good beer! It’s not really a problem, and we should do this again next time.”

    After the meeting, I looked up the various campus rules (and actual state/local laws) that prohibit us from having alcohol while working at the university, having alcohol while doing stuff like running a particle accelerator, and having alcohol in the specific building that we worked in. It’s serious Prohibition-era stuff, and people had gotten in trouble on campus for much less egregious behavior. I also made a point o make it clear to him that the drunken students had accidentally called the cops on themselves by propping the door open, and that I would refuse to fill in on shifts where somebody got arrested over this. I brought my findings to the boss, who finally, if grumpily, agreed that maybe this was not an appropriate venue for beer.

  342. Anansi*

    I am 99 percent sure that someone stole my shoes, and that it was politically motivated. A few years ago, I bought a pair of Ivanka Trump shoes at Nordstrom Rack. I wore them for years and they were the only comfortable pair of high heels I owned, and I kept them under my desk at the office. My office is pretty political, and left leaning, and about a week after the election, the shoes were gone. It was so random and weird that I didn’t go to HR or do anything about it, but I still wonder who felt the need to steal my shoes over politics.

    1. Artemesia*

      I was at Nordstrom Rack with my daughter a couple of months ago and we were chatting and some of our talk was political. A woman in one of the aisles came up to us and said ‘that pair of heels you are looking at, it’s Ivanka Trump, I thought you would want to know.’

    2. Floundering Mander*

      Oh for goodness’ sake. I am about as liberal as they get, and politically active, and I would not steal your shoes just because they were Ivanka’s brand. That’s just low.

  343. Fabulous*

    I’ve mainly stolen pens and small pads of paper when I have a meeting after work and I forget to bring some from home. Occasionally when I’ve inherited a new desk, the former occupant will have left something there and it obviously becomes mine. That includes, two NICE notepads, an empty leather portfolio, a dish and bowl with cutlery, a beautiful paisley mug, and a cool fabric organizer. Also, I stole a picture. A big one – like flatscreen TV sized big – I think it’s of the Golden Gate Bridge. No one wanted it in their office so I said I’d take it. Not sure if they knew I meant I’d take it home! :)

  344. SusanIvanova*

    Most food thefts at my high-tech company just got some head shaking, even the time someone swiped a strawberry off the top of an uncut birthday cake, leaving an obvious hole in the frosting – seriously? That is obviously not fair game yet!

    But when someone swiped a box of strawberries that one of the custodians brought in for lunch, that generated a lot of outrage on the social email list. We never learned what became of that. (Not our building, so probably not the same thief!)

  345. Casanova Frankenstein*

    1) At ExJob, the toilet paper had to be put in a locked cabinet because it was stolen so frequently. I suspect it was one or more of the factory workers. They got paid well relative to their jobs but most of them had numerous children and struggled financially. At one point the bottled waters were cut off because they were going missing by the caseload. Eventually, the culprit was identified, given a warning about repeat offenses, and then the bottled water was reinstated.

    2) Since coffee mugs seems to be a big theme here… when ExJob got a new CEO, he got really peeved that people would leave coffee mugs in the sink and expect the cleaning lady to wash them. Without so much as a company-wide notice, he asked the cleaning lady to secretly bring said mugs to his office (after cleaning them) and put them on a special shelf. Whenever you had the misfortune to visit his office he delighted in asking whether any of the mugs were yours. What was hilarious is that with only 1-2 exceptions, all the mugs were company property so no one cared. Somehow he did not figure this out even though most of them were generic and plain white and there were, like, 5 identical I Heart NYC mugs. Seriously, what would be the odds that a collection of 50 random people would all buy the same mug?! I pointed out that the only reason everyone thought it was ok for the cleaning lady to wash the mugs was because the former CEO said it was ok, but New CEO thought everyone was being “childish”

    3) My boyfriend is an engineer in an office with mostly men. He likes to use those pens with multiple different colored cartridges so he can color code comments when he marks up documents. Even though he’s one of the managers, people were constantly stealing his pens until… He got a Hello Kitty pen. No one else wants to use it and even if someone did, everyone knows it’s his and fortunately no one’s stupid enough to take it.

    1. Professional Merchandiser*

      That reminds me of when I used to work on a reset crew with a number of men. We were issued tool boxes but the men refused to use them because they looked “sissy.”??? They were bright yellow, the same color as the handle of Stanley tools. Well, since they didn’t have their toolboxes, they never had tools, so they would “borrow” mine and never return them. I got tired of replacing hammers, screwdrivers, ect. The company would reimburse me, but still…finally I ordered a set of bright pink tools from Lilian Vernon. (This was before you could find things like this at Walmart.) Never had any more problems. If they HAD to borrow something, they made SURE to return it ASAP.

    4. Julianne*

      My dad used to travel a lot for work and had a bad habit of leaving his computer case (the padded zipper type) in the security screening bins. Well, not HIS computer case, because he only took his laptop out of the office when he traveled, so he had no real need for such a case, so he kept taking mine! I was in college and traveled daily with my laptop, so I preferred to have the case for some extra protection. I finally got wise on him and bought one that was pink and sparkly. He never borrowed it again.

  346. PhyllisB*

    This isn’t a work-related theft, but a friend of mine invited me and the kids to come swim with them at their brand-new country club. (So new that the dressing room was a metal but with benches to set your items on.) After we came back to change; my shirt was missing. We looked high and low and it was gone. The odd thing is, somebody had to go to some effort to take it because I had put in the middle between my shorts and extra towel. She wouldn’t let me report it missing. The bad thing (besides having to ride home in a wet swimsuit) is it was a BRAND-NEW TOP.

  347. Darth Brooks*

    My first week in a new job sometime opened my new bottle of coffee creamer in the fridge, used some, and removed my name. Granted, it’s a small theft in the grand scheme, I’ve been very reluctant to leave anything in the fridge since then.

  348. Pathfinder Ryder*

    My old work cup, which was a reusable coffee cup type, disappeared from my desk one week, and though a coworker mentioned she’d seen it in a patient room (we’re on a hospital ward), I never saw it again.

    I brought back an Awesome mug after vacation and was a little wary about leaving it on my desk after the less cool one vanished, but it’s been fine for a year :) Maybe because it’s so unique and recognizable – I get comments on it every time I bring it to the break room or a meeting, and from a lot of staff who work on multiple wards.

  349. Shayland*

    So, not about stealing, but I think you’ll like it anyway.

    I’m having a bit of a tough time financially at the moment, and my disability is progressing in such away that I go from being fine to needing to eat right now this very minute or else I risk fainting. It’s been a struggle, as sometimes I’ll eat my packed lunch and then need to eat something else later but not have anything.

    So, end of a long work day, and I’m just so drained. I’m an art student, a glass blowing major, and was blowing glass for several hours. Outside of our studio we have a nice pick knick table and some sofas. I saw someone’s lunch, a salad and two energy bars, unattended. I said, “Oh! I want that!”

    And from behind me someone said, “The salad?”

    I turned, laughed, and said, “No, the energy bar.”

    She said, “Well you can have it. Do you want the villia one or the carmal one?”

    I said, “Woah, wait, really?”

    She said, “Yeah, of course really.”

    Total stranger. Knows nothing about my food or money stress. We talked a bit, she was thinking of being a glass blowing major. Super nice. Made my day.

  350. Piano Girl*

    My husband is a high-school theatre teacher. He routinely has his lunches stolen (it’s a free lunch school) along with light bulbs, books, movies, his keys, his iPods, tools, supplies, etc., etc. One evening we went to see one of his former students in a community theatre production, and the former student was dressed in a “missing” costume that I had made.
    At his previous school, some of his students had broken into the theatre and had taken some of his equipment. They were caught by the police, and when asked where the things came from, one of the said, “I found it under a bush”. Sigh……..
    I don’t understand how these kids can justify taking someone else’s possessions, but after reading the comments on this post, I guess they are not so out of the ordinary.

  351. Noah*

    I once worked in the office where the theft of vendor gifts to individuals (not the ones to the company) was so common that they banned individuals receiving vendor gifts. I know this is a common policy, but we had it for an uncommon reason.

  352. JulieBulie*

    My employer had just declared bankruptcy and was shutting down our office. People were going in and out of the suite to take their things out to their cars, and someone had left our door propped open. While we were in a quick meeting, someone (apparently) came into our office and stole my boss’s purse off of her desk.

    My boss insisted that she had looked everywhere for it. We went out to her car and she showed us that her purse wasn’t in the front or the back. I innocently asked, what about the trunk? She really didn’t want to open the trunk… but then realized that it didn’t look good for her to refuse… so she opened the trunk. It was full of office supplies that she had taken from the supply cabinet. I guess she didn’t want them to end up in some paperclip/stapler/pen orphanage.

    I don’t know how much money was in her purse, nor whether the office supplies were worth more or less than what she had lost. I just found the irony rather sharp.

  353. Elder Dog*

    My family last name isn’t actually Blastname but it starts with a B. My grandfather was a plant manager, and my father hired on to work right out of high school. One of the supervisors hated him for being the manager’s son and made it his mission to make his life as miserable as possible.
    Workers had to buy their own tools and were given lockers to keep them in, but had to buy their own locks. My father’s tools kept disappearing out of his locked locker after someone broke into it and were found left all over the plant, although some simply disappeared. He figured out who was stealing them (the supervisor) and put a sign inside the locker that said “Put the tools back where they belong when you’re done with them you son of a B.”
    The supervisor reported my father for calling him “filthy names”, (this was over 80 years ago) and my grandfather sat them both down and said what’s going on. The supervisor, shaking with indignation, complained my father had called him a son of a B*tch. My father said, no, that sign was a reminder to himself to put his tools away, and it wasn’t meant to say son of a B*itch, but son of a Blastname and there wasn’t room to spell out the whole thing. After all, who else could it possibly refer to since it was locked inside his locker with his tools?
    My grandfather asked my father to go back to work and spoke with the supervisor alone, so nobody is quite sure what happened, but the supervisor was moved to a different part of the plant where he wasn’t supervising my dad and left that job soon after. My dad’s tools never went missing again.
    BTW, after more than 70 years, never forgot the man’s name, but refrained from attending his funeral and telling his story when the preacher asked for remembrances of the deceased.

    1. Chaordic One*

      I grew up in a “company town.” (The big main business in town shut down quite a few years ago and the population dropped precipitously.) At the company all of their hand tools were painted baby blue. Anyway, growing up it seemed to me that all of the parents of my friends from school worked at the company and they all complete tool sets that had baby blue handles. Everyone.

  354. Free Meerkats (formerly Gene)*

    Former cow-orker (we’ll call him Bubba) was going through a nasty divorce. No surprise to any of us, she was wonderful, Bubba was an officious ass. Boss got a call from her one day asking how he wanted her to drop off the “stuff he had brought home from work”. The stuff included about a half case of paper, boxes of pens, a battery charger, and … an IBM Selectric II typewriter.

    He claimed that he had taken the typewriter home to clean it, and was going to bring it back as soon as he was finished. No one had seen it around the office for at least 6 months. He didn’t get fired then though, shortly after he suffered an industrial “injury” (one with no witnesses and only soft tissue damage) and went out on medical leave. After months out with his doctors signing off every few weeks, when he was told to go to an employer-supplied doctor for a return to work physical, he no showed and was fired. He later sued, and lost.

  355. Julie Noted*

    Lab reagents.

    Each person was responsible for making up their own reagents, and washing and sterilising the bottles between batches. You had your own section of the shelf with all your solutions on them, with a sticker on each bottle identifying who owned what.

    One of the postdocs was too lazy to prepare sufficient bottles in advance of a big experiment, so he’d just swipe a whole bottle from someone else and put his “Simon” sticker on it. On top of the original owner’s sticker…

  356. Aardvark*

    I used to do on-site training for customers, and brought pencil boxes filled with spare pens, post-its, highlighters, etc. for use during training. I’d tape my business card to the top of them and wrote the company name on the other side in permanent marker so that they’d be easily identifiable as company property at the end of the day.
    Once someone at the end of a training picked one up, looked at the card, looked at me, and then walked out. Because they were a customer, it was maybe $3 of office supplies, and I was pretty new to the working world, I just kind of watched incredulously as they walked off with it!

    1. Artemesia*

      I learned to actually collect the stupid markets towards the end of training; built it into the process or else I had to buy a couple dozen new ones. I issued X number per table and made sure I got them all back.

      1. Story Nurse*

        A friend once posted to an online forum we shared that when he was a teenager, a cop came to his school for a “just say no to drugs” training event and passed around two joints for students to look at. “I’d better get those back or you’re all in big trouble!” he said.

        When he collected them at the end, there were three.

        1. Turtlewings*

          That is beautiful and I love it. (Also, that’s actually not a terrible idea, to pass the things around where kids actually know what this stuff looks like. I’ve still never seen a joint in person, if I’d never seen one on TV I’d have no idea what I’d just been handed if it ever happened.)

  357. Petty Editor*

    I make one-of-a-kind fairy garden terrariums that go for a solid hundred dollars at craft fairs. I made a custom giraffe-themed scene for a friend in our office’s holiday gift exchange (commentariat, have mercy – I also gave her favorite gourmet chocolates, I don’t count handmade gifts as part of the prescribed dollar amount in exchanges in case that gift isn’t valued). My friend was promoted to a position that involved a lot of travel and was gone for a few months. When we were packing up her office for a move, the terrarium was discovered missing. But when we went to pack our recently laid-off supervisor’s office, we found the giraffe terrarium and several other pieces that other colleagues had commissioned for their desks. They had been stashed in a locked cabinet that contained ONLY these terrariums, all lovingly tended so none of the plants were dead. They all went back to their original owners, and as no one had the supervisor’s personal cell phone, we never got an explanation.

    1. Artemesia*

      They had to have light right? They were real plants, so that took some serious planning and strategizing to keep them healthy and then lock them up.

    2. Dunnewriting*

      My friend’s mom makes those fairy garden style terrariums, too (they’re really cute). When my friend got married, she made them as centerpieces for the reception, intended to be given as gifts to people that had helped with the wedding…and they all vanished. Luckily she caught a few people walking out with them and was able to get them back.

      Never caught the jerk who took my maid of honor bouquet, though. It’s been 8 years and I’m still annoyed.

  358. Valkyire*

    I’m late to the party, but when I was in my very early 20’s I was an assistant elementary Montessori Teacher. When my lead teacher got hurt I was suddenly completely in charge of 21 kids between 5th and 8th grade. One day when my friend was visiting from out of town I couldn’t find my keys to save my life. I was a key chain hoarder so they were always pretty easy to find, except this time.

    I had to find a ride to my parent’s house because they had my spare key, then get new keys made for my apartment and it was enormous pain.

    6+ months later in June when school was out I found my keys while I was cleaning out the library. One of the students HID MY KEYS BEHIND BOOKS IN THE LIBRARY! I have suspicions (I see you Sean…) but never actually figured out who did it.

  359. Miles*

    Our kitchen area uses the end of one of the worktops as an area where people leave things for others to take if interested (fruit from their gardens, cookbooks, novelty cups, etc). The area is marked off with some red tape and has a sign on the wall. Well, one morning I come into the kitchen to make my morning cuppa and there’s this lovely, obviously not cheap, travel mug sitting in the give-away area. (Right next to a bag of lemons, iirc). “I’m having that!” thinks I, and grabs it. :D

    Next day, I wander into the kitchen and there’s a Lost Poster for my new travel mug, complete with photo. The text below the photo clearly shows that the owner didn’t realise they had left it in the give-away area and is saddened at its disappearance. Now, I immediately knew I needed to return the travel mug. But the mug’s owner is a friendly and popular member of the company and I know I can have some fun here… so I type up a ransom demand; doughnuts for the floor (approx. 30 people) – or the travel mug ‘gets it’.

    Sure enough, next day he arrives at the office with a variety of doughnuts (cinnamon, glazed, jam – it was great!) and leaves them in the kitchen as instructed. I quietly slip in later in the day, leave the mug and take a couple of doughnuts. :)

    *Oh, and on the following Monday I slipped a $20 into his desk drawer to cover (most) of the cost of the doughnuts.

  360. KatfromCA*

    I once made a pie for a coworker at Thanksgiving for helping me deal with an awful customer. He planned on taking to his Uncle’s the next day so I wrapped it up in a nice festive bag with ribbon and all. Closing time rolls around and he went to the fridge to take it home and discovered someone had unwrapped the festive wrapping, cut out a single slice and then rewrapped it all back up. We knew exactly who had done it. But he was mortified he wouldn’t have the home made pie to take to the meal the next day. I told him take it anyone and explain what kind of people he works with!

  361. MollyWobbles*

    We’re going through major renovations and are having to move offices every few weeks as they work on different areas.

    Two of us are currently camping out in what used to be the copy room using tables for desks and making due until the next move. There’s no door and someone or several someones have been systematically shopping in our sad little office. They’ve taken phone chargers, lunches, Keureg K-cups, office supplies including an expensive fountain pen that I left by accident, a hoodie. Pretty much anything not nailed down.

    We’ve worked with these people for years and we typically don’t have a problem so I’m hoping that their intent isn’t to steal but that it’s a left-over habit from the days when that’s where office supplies were stored.

  362. Mrs. Fenris*

    My stethescope disappeared once at work! You can get a cheap one for about $20, but I had a higher end one worth about $160. I put up a note near the stethescope rack: “My green Littmann Master stethescope is missing. If you have it, please hang it back up here. No questions asked.” It never appeared. I still can’t believe that someone didn’t have their own and just helped themselves.

    So I replaced it, and a few years later I had a problem with someone repeatedly borrowing it. I’m pretty sure it was the same staff member over and over. I have no idea why she thought this was OK, but every time she worked an overnight shift, I would come in and find it in a totally different area of the building. And then it escalated…my boss was using it, taking it to her office, and leaving it locked inside! Once I didn’t have access to it for a day and a half, then found it hanging on the rack…with blood on it.

    That’s when I sent a snarly internal email to everyone and started taking it home with me at night.

  363. Mrs. Fenris*

    OK, and I have an excellent story of theft, though it was not a coworker. I used to work at an animal hospital that did a very large amount of boarding. They walked all of the dogs three times a day. In the morning they brought outside a 5 gallon bucket lined with a trash bag, and they deposited all of the dog poop in it. If it was warm outside or there were a lot of dogs, they would bring it inside and take it out with the rest of the trash, but sometimes they left it outside until the noon walk.

    They came out once at noon and the poop bucket was gone.

    That’s right, folks, somebody stole a bucket of dog poop.

    I imagine their goal was to steal the bucket itself, but it was sitting outside an animal hospital. What exactly did they think was going to be in it?

    1. Story Nurse*

      When we signed up for our wonderful cloth diaper service (Diaperkind in Brooklyn, very highly recommended), we got a stern warning that if we left our dirty diapers out in front of our house for the weekly clean/dirty swap, it was very important to lock the bin shut and chain it to the fence, because thieves have been known to rifle through bins of dirty diapers, leaving them scattered across the sidewalk, and even steal entire bins. We dutifully got heavy-duty locks and a bike chain, drilled holes in our outdoor bin so we could lock the lid on, gave a set of keys to the service’s delivery driver, and have never had a problem. But we remain amazed and sad that anyone is so desperate to find something of value in the trash that they’ll dig through heaps of cloth that’s soaked with urine and soiled with baby poo (which is one of the most foul substances on this earth).

  364. Julianne*

    Last spring, I bought Cheez-Its and animal crackers as snacks for my after school tutoring group. We ended up not eating all of them, so I’d planned to use them to bribe students into helping me move all my stuff to my new classroom. (Judge away, but our last three days of school are half days and attendance usually hovers around 20%.) But it turned out that last year’s crop of 5th graders were not great movers, so I denied them snacks and just left them in a bag in my cabinet over the summer. Not surprisingly, they were gone when I came back in August; I assumed summer maintenance crews had eaten them, and that was fine by me.

    Two days ago, I got to school and found replacement snacks on my desk, accompanied by a note from one of our custodians which explained that he ate the snacks but later felt guilty about it.

    1. Imaginary Number*

      In terms of food stealing, I feel that there is an exception when it comes to things like Cheez-Its. If you’re going to leave a box of Cheez-Its laying around it would be a crime if they’re not eaten. :)

  365. TiffIf*

    This is something that happened in high school not work, but I’ve always found it kind of amusing.
    I had a TI-83 calculator that I left in the math classroom on accident one day and it was gone when I went to retrieve it. I was scared to tell my parents about it (we didn’t have enough money to replace it easily). About two weeks later I found it back in the math classroom exactly where I had left it with the battery completely dead. Apparently someone picked it up, ran the battery down and then just put it back.

    1. Enough*

      My daughter left hers in her classroom and the teacher took it. Never told her and gave it back at the end of the year long after we had replaced it. Though it came in handy when her sister was in school and one of her classmates lost his. After lending it to him for 2 years we gifted it to him at graduation.

  366. Red Fraggle*

    When I was in the Army we had two pairs of Night Vision Goggles go missing from the arms room. Anyone who’s been in the military knows what a bad day that was for the unit. It’s pretty unusual for things to get stolen from the arms room, which has extra layers of security. There’s very few cases of them getting broken into. Most losses occur in the field.

    Because of the missing NVGs, the entire unit got put on lockdown for three days. This means everyone in the unit got to live in the gym. Like I said. A REALLY bad day (days.) Sleeping on cots, eating MREs. Not allowed to go home to families. Soldiers’ literally had to be escorted if they needed to go anywhere, like to a doctor’s appointment.

    The NVGs magically appeared right before the long weekend was supposed to start. From what I heard afterward (I moved while the investigation was ongoing) a Soldier who had been tasked with helping out the previous inventory had stolen them. Basically, he marked down that they were present and then pocketed them, so the theft wasn’t discovered for a month.

    1. BePositive*

      I assume that soldier would have known the punishment would be for the unit. Why would anyone want to do that?

      1. Red Fraggle*

        Desperation, probably. They probably didn’t consider the possibility of a lockdown worse than whatever they were dealing with.
        My guess was that someone suspected their buddy and threatened to turn them in if they had to stay one more day in the gym. One of the reasons lockdowns are effective.
        NVGs are small but worth quite a lot of money.

  367. Joie De Vivre*

    Grand Theft Auto –

    ReallyOldCompany had a car employees could use for business errands.
    One day the car AND the keys went missing. When the police found the car, the man who had it claimed it was given to him in exchange for drugs.

    The company had less than 100 employees at that location. It shouldn’t have been to hard to figure out which employee (or employees) was involved.

    But as far as I know, no employee was ever charged….. something that still makes me go hmmmmm

  368. Anon for this*

    At Small Change Incorporated, an HR person would go into the system and increase her vacation and sick leave accruals. It didn’t take her manager long to figure out that she was using way more leave than she could have earned, and she lost her job.

  369. tiny cheeses*

    Timely question. I brought in a bag of 12 mini Babybel cheeses (in the red wax) and put them in the communal fridge with the intention of eating one for lunch every day, and someone had already stolen one by day 3.

  370. Yay finally I get to participate*

    I am a teacher at a men’s prison, so stuff gets stolen all. the. time. Small sampling of what frequently goes missing if left unattended and what it’s used for:

    – apple cores, orange peels or anything else left over from fresh produce (used to make hooch)
    – dried out whiteboard markers (ink used for tattoos)
    – retractable pens (used to make heroin needles or tattoo needles)
    – ziplock bags (used for regular storage or … storage where the sun does not shine)
    – chicken bones (can be sharpened to make shanks)
    – batteries or other electronic miscellanea (used to make pretty much anything you can imagine)
    – screws (weapons)
    – pencil-top erasers (used as dope plungers)
    – lighters (used for their actual purpose, contraband on prison yard for obvious reasons)

    The coolest thing i have even seen is a fully functioning DVD player made out stolen computer parts and a cardboard box. The largest thing ever stolen from me was a chair. Two students collaborated: one student stacked two chairs by the door, then called me over to show me something on his computer screen. While my back was turned, his buddy snuck the two chairs out of the inside door, down the hallway and through the outside door. I saw the last part of him slip away and I walked back over to the door, and of course there are multiple cameras in the classroom so they were both caught.

  371. Anonymous for this one*

    Years ago, one of my work friends quit working in our office and got a job at a much smaller sales office in the same line of business in a town a good 30 miles or so away. It could be argued that they were competitors. After she left, she asked me to fax her copies of our cmpany’s procedures manual. It was all basic step-by-step information, how to prepare a proposal, how to type up an invoice, things like that. There weren’t any big company secrets in it.

    Being very young, green and stupid I did so. I never got caught but, if I were asked to do that now, knowing what I know now, I would never do so.

    I’ve also worked at a couple of places where it was common for employees to put their personal mail in with the outgoing company mail so that their personal mail would get metered on the company dime. (This was in the days before online bill-pay was common.)

  372. CrazyFL*

    A girl I went to high school with was recently arrested for embezzling $215,000, over almost a year, from her previous employer. Supposedly, she transferred the money from the payroll account directly to her personal account (like an audit wouldn’t catch that!). Apparently, she then used the money to hold an extravagant wedding.

    1. Slow Gin Lizz*

      Going to be a short honeymoon, that one, given that she’ll be in jail for the foreseeable future. (At least, I hope so?)

  373. Fruitaholic*

    The only story I have is kind of funny. I had brought a whole mango to the office to eat as a snack. I had taken it, along with my bowl, knife, and spoon into the kitchen and started to prep it to eat (cut off both sides to scoop out the flesh). Halfway through, a co-worker called me into the computer lab to look at an issue. I was only gone about 5mins, but when I came back, someone had eaten all of the flesh off my mango, and left the seed and skins in the bowl. Who eats someone’s partially cut mango?

  374. Tee*

    When I was an insulin dependant diabetic due to being pregnant, I kept juice boxes in our office fridge for low blood sugar.

    After a long break, I think it was Christmas, I came back to work to find all of my juice boxes gone. Thank goodness I realised before I had a hypo and could restock the supply.

    No one ever fessed up to the theft. And the whole office knew what they were for!

  375. inadvertent book thief*

    My first job, when I was 17, was interning for a publishing company. The person training me showed me the large bookcases full of books they’d published—several copies of each, replenished by admin staff as people took them or used them for promotions. “Take as many as you want!” they said. “These are here to be given away.”

    I was very literal. I took as many books as I wanted for myself—one copy of each book I was genuinely interested in, as intended. Then, when December came around, I took as many books as I wanted to send to friends and family as holiday gifts… with no idea that I had crossed into excessive appropriation. I even packed them up and sent them through the company mailroom (dutifully reimbursing the company for the shipping charges) because it never occurred to me anyone would have a problem with that. And indeed, no one did until months later when a staffer who didn’t like me started looking for a reason to fire me, and a fuss was suddenly made about me stealing books.

    I hope they were clearer in their instructions to the next intern.

  376. Not Australian*

    We had a rash of petty thefts at the hospital where I worked – staff lockers were crowbarred open and things like bottles of perfume and spare clothes were taken – so a security camera was installed at the entrance to the department.

    You can guess what happened next. The security camera was stolen.

  377. Cookie regifter*

    A coworker baked cookies for the team, packaging them in small individual gift bags. One member regifted her cookies to a coworker from a different team, pretending that they were store-bought.

  378. lamuella*

    I work solo in an NHS health library, which means I have to do a lot of stuff that would normally be back room functions at my desk. I once walked back into the library after going to grab coffee to find a regular problem patron loading newly purchased but not yet processed books from my cart into his rucksack. His “excuse” was “I thought they were donations free to a good home”. This was the final straw in getting him banned from the library, although his complaints about that echoed around the organisation for the next 6 months.

  379. Rogue*

    I worked at a gravel company before. We had two locations; neither were in town, but one was in a very rural area. I’d lent the company a metal detector for reasons. The office manager for that location was supposed to bring it to me, at the other location, at the end of the day. She “forgot” and conveniently, her location was robbed that night and among the things taken was my metal detector. To this day, because of additional info, I think it was an inside job.

  380. Anon anon anon*

    I had a sketchy co-worker. He was always stopping by my office and pressuring me to go do things with him like lunch or errands. He was gay. It wasn’t a love interest kind of thing. He seemed really interested in finding out how much money I had access to. He would watch while I entered my pin number, try to get me to sign up for expensive gym memberships (double whammy – I don’t do gyms because of a disability), and tricked me into buying the office lunch when I had literally just that amount of money in my bank account (he asked me to help him pick up the food and then told them I would be paying for it).

    After he found out I wasn’t rich, he started making comments like, “A lot of the women who work here are really stupid and have rich husbands. Are you thinking what I’m thinking?” Oh, and he worked in IT and had access to everyone’s passwords and personal info.

    He also made a point of insulting me, insulting my job, and making creepy comments about my body all the time. He was always claiming I had either gained or lost weight and wanting to talk about it. Stuff like that. I made it clear I wasn’t into it and didn’t want to be friends with him, but he wouldn’t stop coming to my office and bothering me.

    I had no boss at the time. My boss had left and hadn’t been replaced. The person I technically reported to was on the other side of the country and didn’t communicate much. So I eventually said something to HR. They promoted him. They put him in charge of the diversity committee. I found a better job and left.

  381. I dont get it...*

    I have a colleague who is…very vocal about things she dislikes (pretty much everything) but this one has to be the best yet.

    Most desks have a rubbish bin under/nearby. My desk never had one, but I have a huge computer tower so not much space to put one, and sit next to the aisle so would be a trip hazard. NBD, I just swivel round and use my coworkers bin behind me.

    This really upset her for some reason, asking me to stop putting my rubbish in “her” bin. (We’re talking an occasional coffee cup and sandwich wrapper – nothing major here) She got really angry/emotional about it on several occassions before moving the bin to the other side, behind where she sits so I couldn’t reach it. Again NBD, I’ll just use another bin, but goodness me – what a palava over something so small.

    The irony? She leaves nearly all her rubbish on her desk…

  382. Jayne*

    Not my story, but my baby brother worked at a factory…a hot factory. There was a guy who would go around and finish people’s sodas, especially Dr Peppers. And, yes, that meant that he would drink after whomever. He was apparently pretty gleeful about it. So someone got a friend who crews tobacco to use a Dr Pepper bottle as their dipping cup and then left it around. Apparently, word got around somehow, so there was a small crowd on hand to watch this guy take a big swig. Bleck!

    1. Michelle*

      Oh God. When I was a kid my mom had a boyfriend who would use half empty soda cans as ashtrays. All over his house were dozens of these soda can / ashtrays. One time when I was at his house I got confused and drank from the wrong can. Ugh.

      My brother-in-law dips, and spits into an empty soda bottle. My husband doesn’t understand why I find this so horrifying. To be fair, his brother is a lot more careful and considerate than my mom’s old boyfriend. But still. I’ve made it clear that no one who lives with me is allowed to have any such disgusting habits.

  383. Cat*

    It’s not theft but there is a woman who is constantly using my dishes. We have a communal kitchen where the staff unofficially claim a bit of cabinet space for their tea, dishes, silverware, etc. Most staff are respectful of everyone’s cabinet space and there isn’t food theft that I know of. Anyway, Mitzy has been using my utensils, such as a fork or a small chopping board and knife. I’m never around when she does it but I have a close colleague who often sees her using my items. At first I thought she didn’t realize that they were mine and not communal but now she makes it a point to avoid eating when my colleague is in the kitchen and be more sneaky about it. I know she’s still doing it because my things are rearranged in the cabinet!

  384. Anon Marketer*

    I’m fortunate to work in an office where stealing doesn’t really happen. The most “stealing” done is stealing one or two tissues from someone’s box on the desk. This was before my time, but we now all have to hide our computers somewhere before we leave because someone once stole an entire laptop.

    1. Anon Marketer*

      Adding onto this story. My mom owned a very large practice when I was a kid, came home one day, and locked herself into the bedroom because she had a headache and needed to nap. Turns out, she later told us, her employee stole her purse (the boss’ purse!) and used her credit cards. The employee was fired immediately, but for whatever reason, thought it was okay to ask for a reference later!

  385. Radiant Peach*

    I worked in a library while I was in college, and during certain exam weeks we had extended all-night hours and I had volunteered to work an overnight. My shift ended and I went to a different part to study after going to the convenience store across the street to grab something for breakfast. I went to the bathroom, leaving my laptop out and iphone and wallet loosely inside my backpack because it was so early in the morning it was almost totally deserted. When I came back all my valuables were there but someone had taken my poptart

    1. Turtlewings*

      I love this, both for the sheer absurdity and for the almost heartwarming idea that someone must have been super hungry, but only took what they needed instead of cleaning you out!

      1. JaneB*

        A colleague once had her car broken into in broad daylight – window smashed etc. All that was taken was a Mars Bar (individual chocolate bar) even though she had tools, over 100 music cds, a good radio/cd player etc all lying around in the front of the car. We decided the theft must have been diabetic or pms-ing….

  386. Interviewer*

    For years, I used to keep discount movie tickets in my desk for my staff – a great corporate benefit where you could buy them for a few bucks less than the box office and resell them to employees – but one day they went missing. They had been stored in my lap drawer, easily seen by anyone opening that drawer, so I figured someone who knew where they were kept was desperate. I figured it had to be an internal job, someone who knew that I had these tickets or had bought them before and watched me pull them out. I was mad, but I kept the news of the theft to myself and chalked it up to a hard lesson learned. I also spent a lot of time wondering which one of my coworkers was the thief.

    The next set I bought, I kept them buried in a drawer full of file folders, not right up front but somewhere in the middle. Not easily found or spotted at all. That entire set went missing a week later, before anyone had a chance to buy any tickets. I also discovered I was missing an envelope buried in another drawer that had about $20 cash.

    This time, I was furious. I called our COO, who approved a sting operation, and I pulled in one IT person to set up hidden camera in my office, with remote monitoring. This was his most favorite project ever – he was so crushed the next day if the cameras didn’t capture anything. But about a week later, we got the culprit on video, and it was the cleaning crew manager. Solid full color video of him coming into my office, turning off the lights so he wouldn’t be noticed by other crew members down the hall, and quietly going through every single drawer in my desk. He even checked the stack of business cards on my desk – not sure why, maybe he thought I had gift cards lying around? You could even see him going through all my file folders to see if I had restocked the movie tickets. I had $15 cash in an envelope in the lap drawer, under some other papers, and he took out the envelope, got the cash, and put it in his wallet.

    I immediately called the owner of the cleaning company, who sent his assistant to watch the video, and they fired that guy that very hour. No other theft issues since then.

  387. tw*

    My old company moved offices. Right after the move, there would be construction crews around the office after hours. Out office was also in a downtown metro area and didn’t have much security to enter. One woman left her laptop out unsecured and it was obviously stolen.

    At a business lunch, I was telling the VPs and higher ups about how I wouldn’t leave anything valuable in our unsecured office because I had stocked snacks in the cabinet in my open workstation and one box of cookies went missing. They were outraged that my privacy had been violated. They were saying things like the laptop out in the open they could understand, but cookies in a cabinet was outrageous….
    After that, I just kept the snacks in a grocery bag in the cabinet so that they weren’t in sight and no one stole my snacks again. And oh yeah, the person that left her laptop out was given a brand new laptop with no consequences.

  388. pj*

    My area is near the exec offices of our org. There were some bottles of handsoap in the ladies room- nothing super fancy, but a step above the regular industrial pink soap of an office restroom. there was also some hand lotion and hairspray. This all went missing one day. It was replaced. Then it all goes missing agian. Turns out the person who’d been buying the stuff for the ladies room was the COO and she was pretty pissed off that someone was filching the soaps that she was putting there for everyone to share, so she put a note up on the mirror in the ladies room to that effect. the thefts stopped… we never found out who the thief was, taking $1 bottles of handsoap and lotion.

  389. Creag an Tuire*

    At my old job, I always left a note on my turkey sandwiches (my sister is professional chef and uses a family secret to make them extra juicy). Notwithstanding this, my boss somehow got “confused” and ate my lunch. Which he didn’t even have the decency to finish! He threw it out!

    And somehow I ended up getting written up for investigating and calling him out. For throwing away my sandwich. My sandwich.

  390. winter*

    I thought I didn’t have anything to contribute, but I not-really-stole a racist Christmas ornament. I believe it was left out so whoever wanted it could take it home. Perhaps it was supposed to be real decoration. In any case, I put it in the highest kitchen cupboard I could find, far to the back so no one would ever use it, and my hands are still clean.

    1. Anonymous for this one*

      I used to volunteer at a charitable organization that ran a thrift shop where I would help sort the donations. One day we received a box of books from a pretty young coed who was attending a (conservative) local religious college. I’m used to all sorts of books, but these books really bothered me. One was titled “The Virtues of Jesse Helms” and another had a picture of former President Obama wearing a turban on the cover. Those books “accidentally” fell into the recycle bin.

  391. Mel*

    I had brought in an old but sentimental mug to use as a pencil holder at my desk. I came back to my desk one day to find my mug gone and my pens and pencils completely scattered across my desk. I found it a few weeks later in the dish rack with a massive chunk of it missing! Hope it was worth it for whoever drank out of that dirty mug.

  392. BronzeFire*

    I once worked in a library that was housed in a Victorian Mansion. They had to keep the bathroom door locked from the outside (you needed to have a key to use it) because someone stole an ornate toilet paper holder! The thief actually went in with a screwdriver and removed a piece of hardware that wasn’t even an antique or original to the building.

    1. Chaordic One*

      I had heard a similar story about some people who were selling their house. It had been left unlocked and unattended for a few minutes during a real estate tour of houses for sale in the area. Someone went into the house (apparently with a ladder) and removed one of the chandeliers in the dining room!

  393. pope suburban*

    At least one of the employees where I used to work would steal stuff from the shop- this was a specialty construction company- to use on home-improvement projects. It was mostly little things, here and there, but it added up. He kept getting bolder and bolder about using his company purchase cards to get home goods and gas for his personal vehicle, and using his company phone for personal use to the tune of $5,o00 in extra expenses. The worst thing was when I saw that he had a very expensive thermostat with a full-color LCD display in his apartment- the exact kind we ordered for our high-end projects, in fact. Eventually he was let go, for the theft and other things, but it took well over a year.

  394. KF*

    Worked at a non-profit with a board member who took AV equipment – sometimes it came back, sometimes it didn’t. One time some of the missing equipment came back to us when he tried to give it to us as a donation.

  395. anon feline*

    I had a $15.00 water jug (like hikers use) stolen, by a person who I (still) work with. He had the nerve to bring it one day about a year after it went missing. I looked down at his desk and there it was… I did a double take. He had this expression on his face like “oh crap!” BUT. In the time he had used it was very beat. up. I didn’t say anything though. But he knows, it hasn’t returned since!

    This same individual never covers for people when they are out either.

    Yep a real winner he is.

    Oh and upper management big boss thinks he does “awesome work” too. Direct manager has a crush on him as well but that is another story for another time.

  396. Obi-wan's wife*

    Long ago when I was the bookkeeper at a grocery store we had a major incident. The management knew something was up but didn’t want to tip their hand just yet. Well, in retrospect it would’ve been good to let the bookkeeper in in the secret.

    There was a group of young college students working st the store. When no one was watching they’d check out another member of the groups groceries. But, only charging the cents portion of the item. One day I’m put in charge of the whole store. Carrying keys responsible for the business. Manager is at Disney with his kids… well I’m at the safe making a deposit when I turn and see an order being totaled up. There was at least $100 worth of groceries, yet the bill comes to $17 and change. I’m the bookkeeper for heaven’s sake. The cashier takes the receipt and wads it in a tiny ball and throws it in her trash can. I tell the box person to empty the trash. I retrieve the receipt and try calling anyone else in management to find out what to do. No one answers. I call corporate security. They tell me they’re on their way and to not let the cashier go home. The “customer” will be dealt with later. Long story short is 6 people get fired and I’m to blame. The “customer” was a law student. I was told by another employee I was evil because I put his future career in jeopardy. Even the manager was mad because he wanted to make the big bust.
    Go figure. Oh and added bonus was while I was delayed because of this incident, someone broke into my house and stole a bunch of stuff that day. I’m not sure it was coincidence.

    1. winter*

      Sounds like you did a really good job and management didn’t think this through. I don’t know what either the students nor management expected from you…

    2. NorthernSoutherner*

      Good grief! You say, “Long story short is 6 people get fired and I’m to blame.” You were so not to blame. And one of the thieves called you ‘evil.’ It’s like a bizarro universe.

  397. Sorry Not Sorry*

    I did it. Not stole for keeps, but to throw away. At my office there is a policy of no strong fragrances, as one of our coworkers is highly allergic. I, too, have an aversion to strong scents, as they immediately cause headaches. However, there was this one employee that would douse herself at her desk every morning when she came in with one of the sprays from bath and body works (and it did not smell good, as she was trying to cover her cigarette smell and that doesn’t really work). Additionally, she had a strong confrontational attitude. Knowing this, I asked our mutual supervisor to please ask her to stop spraying. Instead, the supervisor sends out a mass email reminding everyone to not use fragrances at the office. Twice. Naturally, these did not apply to the spraying culprit. Well, one day she took her spray into the bathroom with her to cover up that smell…and left her bottle. I subsequently found said bottle and tossed it immediately! She blamed the cleaning ladies, but there wasn’t anything to be done, since she couldn’t really prove it was stolen or if she lost it!

    Sorry, not sorry!

    1. Millie M*

      I will not judge you for that. One of my co-workers had a bottle of lotion that gave me headaches. (coincidentally, that was also B&BW–a lot of their scents have that effect on me) She would slather it on right before we had a meeting (sometimes while we were having a meeting). I thought a lot about how to get rid of it, like maybe dumping some of it out while she was out of the office, so it wouldn’t be noticeable but it would get used up a lot faster. I never did anything because I was afraid I would get caught and it wasn’t really worth it. But if she left it in the bathroom, it would have been gone in a flash, buried at the bottom of a full trash can, maybe the one outside where it wouldn’t be found and somehow make its way back into the building. She eventually did quit using it so much.

      I found out that this lotion is a knockoff of a better brand, and the real stuff doesn’t give me headaches.

      1. Sorry Not Sorry*

        Glad to know I’m not alone and I forgot to mention that she also would put smelly lotion on right before our daily meeting…ON HER FEET. It totally disgusted me.

    2. Cactus*

      Your coworker sounds a lot like my least favorite former coworker. Same perfume/smoking habits, same bad personality.

      1. Sorry Not Sorry*

        She is currently my least favorite coworker. Just rude, confrontational, and has a victim personality. She can’t figure out why her office friends are now just former friends.

  398. Kraziekat*

    When I first started to work at a certain human trap built by a mouse, there was this trio of idiots (nicest thing I could call them) who loved ‘hazing’ the new people. Especially the College program people, like they had an ax to grind. This was my first full time job, my first time away from my parents where I couldn’t see them on the weekends, and I had recently been diagnosed as ‘pre-diabetic’ so I was careful with my food. One day, I bring in left over 6-inch sub from subway, a small bag of chips, and a coke. (I was allowed by my dietician) Per my mom, I made sure to lable my lunch, but I went a wee bit overboard. i labled my sandwich, my chips, and my soda,, put it in the communal fridge

    1. Kraziekat*

      … it posted before I completed. What the heck?

      Anyway, I even labled the subway bag. I had noticed the trio watching me as I walked up, but didn’t think anything about it. Went off to my station, worked, came back for lunch, and you can guess what happened.

      Here’s the difference a good manager can make: After making sure my lunch really wasn’t there, the manager took me to a nearby park resturant, bought me a pizza and soda, and let me take my full 30 minutes despite running over.

      The best part is, and I’m not ashamed of this, when I discovered my lunch was gone, I started crying…. and I’m not a pretty crier. The next day, I found a new sandwich, fresh made, same type, only missing the yellow mustard, chips, and generic cola with my name on it with a ‘Sorry’ written on it, in the warehouse supply manager’s hand. That trio? Included the warehouse manager (he wasn’t a true manager, just kept charge over dry goods and cups and stuff) and they never hazed another College program person while I was there.

  399. Cactus*

    I’ve never had anything weird stolen… just lunches, as far as I can remember. One time I was really annoyed, though, because I had brought my lunch in a small reusable bag that I had just gotten at an Indian restaurant to take leftovers home in. I had thought it was the perfect size for a work lunchbag, but then the first time I brought anything in it, it disappeared.
    I did get my iPod stolen out of my car when I was at a job interview once, though.

  400. Eri*

    Our biggest problem company wide is tool theft. The techs are expected to bring their own other than a few specialized items, and if they aren’t vigilant around their boxes or tool bags it isn’t unusual for things like screwdrivers, sockets, hammers, and other easily snatched hand tools to go missing. One of the managers tried to have an area of loaner tools from garage sales/thrift stores to try and alleviate the issue, but everything ended up just disappearing rather than being returned. I’m lucky that in 6 years I haven’t had many of my own go missing, but being in a non-tech position means that I don’t need much on a daily basis. Anything I do bring is easily carried on my person or stored in my backpack.

    There was one particularly bizarre experience though. I travel offsite and between locations frequently, so while I’m gone other employees are free to use my desk to research parts or look up work orders. I always keep charge cables for both Apple and Android devices at my desk pre-plugged in as a sort of informal charge station for anyone who might need it. Most people are respectful about it and I enjoy helping out in little ways like that.

    A newer tech asked to borrow my lightning cable for the day, and I didn’t think twice about handing it over. When a few days had gone by and it was still gone I asked him about it he assured me he’d get it back as soon as he could. The next morning I came in to find a dirty, beat up Apple cord plugged in (the kind you get with an iPhone, wires already starting to get exposed). It would be impossible to mistake it for the black 6′ charger that I had kept there, but I wanted to try and give him the benefit of the doubt. When I took it to him I offered it back and framed it as if maybe it was a mistake, but he acted like he had no idea what I was talking about and insisted it was the same one he had borrowed. I tried describing my original charger and explaining that I was sure they weren’t the same, but he cut me off saying his time was too valuable to be bothered with someone not liking the color of their phone cord. I dropped the subject rather than trying to reason with him, and thankfully that was the worst I had to deal with personally for the time he worked with us

    (Unfortunately he used his specialized skill set and certifications to manipulate our old general manager into thinking they had to keep this punk way longer than what was reasonable. Highlights of his employment include faking the theft of $1500 in personal tools he demanded be replaced, drinking and driving in company vehicles, blowing over his estimates by the thousands forcing the company to eat the difference, and misleading customers into thinking mistakes he made were problems that were already present. Could go on and on, it was a nightmare)

  401. Zirbelnuss*

    My husband’s company supplies its staff with MacBooks. They had bought two or three in advance for future employees and stored them at the head office. When the time came to hand out one of them to a new employee, they opened the box and found the the laptop had been replaced with stones, presumably to make the box seem heavy. I don’t know if they ever found out who the culprit was, although they contacted the police and had everyone provide fingerprints. They suspected it might have been the cleaning firm but couldn’t prove it.

  402. Time Marches On*

    In comparison to some of these, mine looks pretty minuscule, but I had no idea how to react at the time. I’m in a pretty small (and very young) department and we all get along well. One of my coworkers (let’s call them C1) often receives freebies from potential printers, and was offering around a calendar, which I said I wanted. I left it on my desk over the holidays, since I wouldn’t need it until the new year, for obvious reasons. When I got back to the office, it was gone. I asked around to see if anyone had seen it, didn’t get a reply, and shrugged it off, assuming that it had been accidentally thrown away – disappointing, but shit happens. Fast forward a few months, when I head over to Coworker 2’s cubicle and notice a very familiar-looking calendar. I’m ready to shrug this off too (it’s weird, but maybe I had just forgotten that our other coworker had received two, rather than one!) until later that day I hear C1 and C2 whispering — including my name and the word “calendar.” I walk over and say, “The calendar? Yeah, I noticed that,” and they immediately look VERY sheepish. C2 admits that she took the calendar and didn’t think I would notice and that it would be fine. C1 had known and not mentioned it.

    Me: “…but then I asked about it?”
    C2: *looks even more sheepish*

    She did eventually offer to give it back to me, but I was kind of in a state of “bwuh????” at the time and didn’t want to come off as a demanding asshole, especially considering I’d gotten it for free. (Although if she’d wanted a calendar… you can get them at the dollar store???) Later I found out this was apparently the second time she’d taken something from someone’s desk, thinking they wouldn’t notice it, and then been surprised when they did — I guess she’s got really shitty impulse control. I like her a lot as a person and really respect the work she does, but it was a very bizarre experience that’s hard to forget.

  403. LS*

    At a job years ago, our CEO decided to do some “community outreach” (as it was explained to us) and hired someone, let’s call him Bob, who was described by our very unhappy manager as a “gang member”. I’m not sure whether Bob had a criminal record or what his background was (but the police did show up at the office to arrest him one day, for domestic violence – he came back to work a few days later). Bob had none of the skills we needed and there was no plan in place to train him.

    My manager was afraid of Bob and didn’t know what to do. The problem was solved a few months later when we arrived on a Monday morning to find 3 of our computers missing. When security checked the access logs they found that Bob had been in and out of the building 3 times at 2am Saturday morning. Some agreement was reached whereby the company didn’t phone the police and Bob went away and didn’t come back.

    True story.

  404. BlueShedSurvived!*

    I’ve been with the same employer for 15 of the last 17 years and worked in a handful of different departments – one in which had a food thief. Meals disappeared out of the lunchroom refrigerator randomly. Sometimes a bite was missing from a sandwich or you could tell someone had scooped out some of your casserole. If you brought two of something, one mysteriously disappeared.

    So, I started bringing frozen lunches and keeping them in the freezer. I thought I was outsmarting the thief. Until one lunchtime, I put a frozen meal in the microwave to cook for five minutes then headed to the restroom. When I returned to the microwave, you could smell my meal was cooked but when I opened the door, the microwave was empty. I stopped bringing food in to work after that and went out to lunch until I was promoted to a different department three months later.

  405. sam Conklin*

    I had made some homemade soup – fairly spicy; very good in my opinion.

    My lunch was taken (soup, sandwich and cookie). Bummed – I usually buy from the cafeteria..

    The next day, the soup was returned!!! I guess it was too spicy…

  406. Trust Your Instincts*

    Someone stole my essential oils from work once! I’m a massage therapist by trade, and one day I noticed that my cedar oil was missing. Then my nearly empty frankincense. Then eventually my brand new bergamot, and my eucalyptus, and camphor. It’s possible that a client took them, but I did some detective work and none of the days where things were taken had the same client. I started hiding them out of plain site (but had no place to lock them up) and they still went missing, meaning someone was actively looking for them! My boss refused to believe it could be another therapist, so I had to take matters into my own hands. I announced I had gotten some new expensive Neroli oil, swapped the label with my black pepper oil, and sat back and waited. Sure enough, the “Neroli” oil went missing. I didn’t have a problem after that, but I started bringing them home every night about a month later, just in case.

  407. NorthernSoutherner*

    Yeah, one day I showed up at work (I was part time at the time) and my chair was gone. I poked around looking for it and finally had to settle for an old castaway.

  408. InTheClearing*

    At my old job I had a mini bottle of Bath & Body Works hand lotion on my desk. It was a seasonal scent and was most definitely not in season anymore and the admin who sat closest to me stole it and a couple weeks later started asking me to come over to her desk to look at things and would pull it out of a drawer and use it. That was shortly before I left (lots of other reasons went into that decision) and my current mini bottle of Bath & Body Works hand lotion hasn’t been touched at my new office.

  409. LibraryGryffon*

    When I started at my last job, the position (and office) had been vacant for about three months. They promised to find the desk chair for me. My predecessor had had a very nice executive chair, and when she left it had been appropriated by another office.

    The up/down thingy broke after about 6 years, so I had to replace it, with one I liked even better. My office has been vacant for over three years now as far as I know, so I wonder who claimed it after my replacement left? (My position was eliminated, and someone else had their’s expanded, working two/three locations -all 30 or more miles apart from each other) five days a week instead one on four. They retired less than a year later.)

  410. Gadfly*

    I’m way late, but I am still pissed about a pencil cup stolen at my last job not long after I started (about 9 years ago now). It was a yerba mate cup that had come with the box of tea, and was interesting looking but not expensive or anything. And someone took it. Dumped out all my pens and took it.

  411. Candi*

    In my mall housekeeping job, you had to supply your own breakroom anything that wasn’t coffee mugs. So I had some styrofoam cups and plastic cutlery with my name on the packages.

    However, we were only allowed one (small) locker per employee, and mine was barely big enough for my purse. (And since I rode the bus, it was not a large purse.) So I had to store the items in an unused locker, and couldn’t secure it.

    This one guy in overnight maintenance always took my stuff. Even though there was a Target attached to the mall within five minute walk of the maintenance/housekeeping bay. I worked morning shifts on weekends (7 am- 330 pm). I would come in early, due to the bus, and 45 minutes before his shift ended, he’d be getting into my stuff and not caring when called on it. Management didn’t care either; Catch-22 of it should be secured but I wasn’t allowed to secure it. I couldn’t store it were I was staying because I lived with my ex and in-laws, and I would have been out the whole package in a day, rather than 3-4 cups one overnight shift and as many forks and spoons.

    I was at BEC by the time that guy finally got canned for his sixth or seventh round of stealing from the maintenance and housekeeping supplies. Not just the stealing from me; the mall was divided into the ‘old’ original section and the couple-years-newer ‘new’ section. Overnight maintenance was supposed to be taking those big arse brooms that are about 3 feet wide and sweep their assigned section. Guess who never, ever swept the new section. (The old section had both sets of mall offices in it; it would have been noticed. But management rarely went in the new section when on the clock.)

    I left for a better job about three months after they hired a new maintenance/housekeeping manager. It was a .30 cent an hour paycut, and NM will probably say forever he fired me the day I handed in my two weeks’ notice (long story), but I got lucky. That guy fired or drove out every. single. long-term housekeeper, including the woman who’d been there 15 years; she left when NM promoted a (pretty, thin) 18 year old girl into the head housekeeping spot before she w-as even out of her (company mandatory) 90 day probation. All the other new housekeepers were also in the 18-19 range, thin, and pretty.

    LT Housekeeper got a better job at Boeing. As head housekeeper. Making $8 something more an hour. I talked to her shortly before she turned in her notice. As for New Manager…. welllll, he was dismissed within two years, about the time a bunch of sexual harassment lawsuits hit and were quietly settled. Publicly, they totally were not related. They said so.

  412. WILL.DA.GREAT*

    At my last job, we had a thief who would steal the sugar jars out of the office break room. Worse part was they would dump out all the sugar and just take the jar. The office eventually moved to just providing sugar packets instead, but it was really odd. Another time, I brought some peach cobbler into work once. A coworker walked past my desk while I was eating and said “I was going to steal that. Oh well, I guess I’ll take Bob’s lunch instead!” At first I thought she was joking but ironically she was fired two months later for getting caught stealing from another coworker. So glad I left that place.

  413. StitchKittea*

    Reading through everyone else’s submissions reminded me of the time our office was broken into by an outside person. They walked past the hundreds of thousands in computer parts, took a few beers and our kettle bell.

  414. Iseestupidpeople*

    I caught a well- loved boss at the worst job in the world, “Karl” stealing outrageously and openly from the college we both worked for.

    When I reported him, the superiors that adored him, who had all bought into the version of himself he’d created, did everything they could to protect him, even trying to blame me for the thefts only he could have committed. They convinced HR I was making it all up, even though things like ‘I don’t have access to the college credit card’ were glaring facts in the case against him. HR to this day wonders if I were somehow behind it, in spite of the ludicrous impossibility of such a thing even being remotely possible.

    I hoped they’d fire and prosecute him, but instead, they insulted and argued with me, and eventually asked if he would like to quit or be fired? And then they allowed him to quit gracefully, informing everyone about the yarn he spun about ‘going away to college’

    No one but me thought it was hilariously unlikely he’d quit his job at a college, in order to ‘go away to a college’ he’d have to pay full price for, they were all too busy applauding him and patting him on the back for his bravery in making such an important mid life decision.

    Um yeah. Like trying to set me up for his crimes! Those are the important decisions of mid life that define a person, after all.

  415. Interested Bystander*

    This is kinda late, but I missed this thread until now. In the last 1.5 months, four water bottles have been stolen off my desk after hours. My name is written in sharpie on all of them, so I would know if I found one, but I haven’t seen them floating around my workplace. I have taken to locking up my water bottle when I leave for the day, in my only locking file cabinet, which also holds my personnel files. Pretty ridiculous what I have to go through to keep a $15 water bottle.

  416. Elvira*

    This is also kind of late, but I was the victim of a pretty major office theft earlier this year. Worked for a small organization and we had an all-staff meeting. I shared an office with a coworker who was at the same meeting, and our office was in the back of the suite. When I got back from the meeting, I picked up my purse to go to lunch and noticed it felt light. Turns out, someone had snuck into my office, taken my wallet out of my purse, left the purse, left my car keys, left my phone and laptop on my desk, and before the staff meeting was over had crossed state lines (our office was near the border) and spent a combined $250 at a grocery store, liquor store, and 7-Eleven. No one had seen or heard anything despite the fact that the suite was small, and there were no cameras in the building. I got my money and cards back eventually (had to put a fraud alert on my SSN, though, because I may have had a copy of my SS card in the wallet), but I was irrationally upset about the wallet itself; it was made of really cool woven leather and I’d purchased it second-hand for really cheap but I found out it retailed for about $200 on its own.

  417. Leeah*

    on my internship I had two cases of theft: one time someone stole my sandwich from the fridge – they actually opened the plastic container, took the sandwich, and put the empty container back in the fridge. the other time someone stole a tiny block of blank post-its I had on my desk. both times I was pretty annoyed, but thought “for them to steal something so cheap they sure must’ve needed more than I did,” so from then on I avoided bringing food to the office and kept all valuables inside my locked drawer.

    at that same workplace we also had to put name tags to the back of our chairs because sometimes managers would call for impromptu meetings with employees on their desks and people would just get any empty chair that was close by and available. so in the morning I’d have to go around the office floor looking for a chair with my name or my coworker’s name on it. you’d think people would just put the chair back where they got it when the meeting was over, but usually it was still sitting by a manager’s desk, along with three or four others! it was rude af

  418. Jenny with the Axe*

    OK; I’m coming very late to this, but…

    Many years ago when I got my first sysadmin job, I was already known in anti-spam circles as “Jenny with the Axe”. So when I got the job as email sysadmin/postmaster/spam hunter at an ISP, my managers approved my bringing an actual axe to work (a small one, camping axe/hatchet for cutting firewood with) and hanging it on the wall by my desk. At the time, the ISP part of the business was in a small separate office from the main office.

    A couple of years later the main office moved to new premises and we were included, so suddenly the ~50 person office became a ~750 person one. There weren’t even cubicles, only desks separated by lockers. I put my axe on top of my locker, again with approval from my manager.

    Then the conditions got so stressful that I burned out and was away from work for a couple of months. And when I came back, the axe was gone.

    I never found out who took it.

Comments are closed.