In this week's HR Strange but True!, we are running a story about employees who take other people's food from the workplace refridgerator.  Has this been a problem at your workplace?  How did your company address it? Share your stories, especially the funny ones.  If we get enough good ones, we'll include them in a future issue of HR Strange but True!

You can read the weekly column here:  http://hr.blr.com/hrstrangebuttrue.aspx

 

Hey.  Get out those "nanny-cams"

Yes, we had a problem with a yogurt thief.

We have a small refrigerator in the employee lounge.  Some employees put small things like yogurt in there rather than walking to the big fridge in the lunchroom.  And containers of yogurt started disappearing, even if employees wrote their names on them. 

Employees put increasingly nasty notes to the thief on the fridge door, but the crime continued.

Finally, one woman hid behind the sofa in the lounge midway between lunch break and afternoon break.  Sure enough, the yogurt thief made her move. When the woman jumped up and yelled "put that yogurt back," the thief ran into the ladies room.  The other employee promptly cornered her in a stall--and there were witnesses--and made her confess!

The peer pressure worked and the thief stopped.

is taking something from the refridgerator that isn't yours any different than stealing from a vending machine?  i bet the "pilferers" think it is different but it really isn't. the vending machine is just harder to steal from than the refridgerator. more theft would probbaly happen with the vending machine it it were easier to take food without paying for it. it's not just food either. some people will take anything if they think they can get away with it. i know one company that caught an employee "allegedly" stealing toilet paper.

Our compnay had a policy that food would be emptied out of the fridge and thrown out after every workday. Well, the president of your company came in insanely early one day and threw out the leftover food - thinking it was from the previous day. What he didn't realize was that someone had come in earlier than him that morning and put their food in the fridge for the day. The employee emailed the whole company asking who took his food. The president emailed the whole company back and apologized for throwing it out! It was pretty funny!

Not only do we have food thieves, we have people who will "play" with other people's food (example - one bite out of a sandwich or stealing the pepperoni off a piece of pizza). We finally moved one of our security cameras to the kitchen and that seems to have done the trick.

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Candi, SPHR
Go Mountaineers!!

Ok that is just crazy.  I feel like you are talking about a group of 5 year olds and not a group of adults.  I guess common courtesy has gone out the door.  If you want or need something that bad then just ask.  There are a lot of people that bring extra food in and keep it in the frig.  They are probably willing to share if someone asked rather than taking.  I know I would.  Even if you don't want to share, no one should just take your food.  If it is that big of a problem then I think the issue needs to be addressed and if it continues then appropriate disciplinary action will be taken.  If they are stealing food, what else are they doing with company property or time or even other employees' property?

I am the Director of Human Resources for a large manufacturing faculity here in Alabama, and we use to have the brown bag bandits here. It got so bad that I had to install security cameras in each breakroom. The most memorable bandit was a young man that would bring an empty bag with him and "shop" for his lunch in our refigarators while everyone else was working. He got away with this for about 4 months before we finally was able to catch him. His excuse to us was that his wife would not allow get out of bed and fix him lunch.

 

 

Spelling of big electrical appliance where food is kept cold:

 R-E-F-R-I-G-E-R-A-T-O-R