Has Your Work Lunch Ever Been Stolen? Reddit Has Opinions On What To Do Next

Picture this: You've had a really crappy work day and it's finally time to take a break and enjoy the tasty lunch you packed for yourself. You head to the office fridge, already fantasizing about your delicious Trader Joe's prepared food item or the carefully assembled leftovers from last night's dinner that you stowed away in your lunch bag. When you open the fridge door, your lunch is nowhere to be found. You're filled with a white-hot, blinding rage — and it's compounded by the fact that you're now incredibly hungry. What would you do next?

Well, a woman named Belinda recently took to Reddit to vent about this exact scenario. In a post on r/mildlyinfuriating titled "Someone stole my work lunch," which has amassed close to 5,000 comments, she says, "I work front desk. I'm the ONLY person who can't leave the premises for breaks or lunch. I can't be away from the front desk more than [three minutes] at a time and someone stole my Lean Cuisine."

She goes on to say that she had to go to a grocery store and buy a frozen Stouffer's meal for $6. She originally responded to the situation by writing a "pretty unhinged" note to post on the fridge, but then took 15 minutes to calm down and ended up posting a different note, which said "My lunch was taken. Please respect others [sic] belongings and do not take food that isn't yours."

So, what should you do if someone steals the gourmet lunch sandwich you have been looking forward to all day? We all remember what Ross Geller did in Season 5, Episode 9 of "Friends," "The One With Ross's Sandwich," when someone stole his Thanksgiving sandwich from the office fridge. In a TikTok video posted by @chrissy.j.xx, she said that she added purple gel food coloring to her sandwich so that the workplace lunch thief would be immediately recognizable by the dye on their mouth. 

WikiHow recommends staking out your colleagues' trash cans for remnants of your lunch, setting up hidden cameras, or dosing your food with hot peppers. Unfortunately, while it might be tempting to immediately seek revenge for your fallen sandwich, the better approach is to keep a cool head. Reacting in an extreme way may end up with you facing disciplinary action or even losing your job. Instead, try to find a way to protect your lunch without threatening harm to your co-workers or violating company policies.

If someone keeps stealing your healthy, homemade lunches, the best approach might be to speak to your manager or supervisor about the issue. The Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM) suggests that the onus is really on the employer to discourage food theft in the office. In its "Ask an Expert" column, Victoria Neal, SHRM-SCP, discusses how a company can stop a lunch thief. She suggests, "Frame the issue in ethical terms and appeal to the thief's self-image ... Tell workers that, although food theft may appear trivial, any stealing will cause managers to question their honesty and integrity — and could even jeopardize their future with the company."