Breakroom refrigerator theft

[Emergent]

Both of my jobs have signs on the fridge from exasperated coworkers telling people to stop stealing the food of others.

Seriously? If it's not yours, don't take it folks. If you forgot your food, do not, I repeat, DO NOT steal the food of others.

And on a related topic, please take your rotting leftovers out of the fridge after a month or two, ok?

[Extra Pickles]

I speak for myself, and for me it is no biggie. As for nurses talking about having the intention of poisoning another not being innapropriate, I beg to differ. It makes me wonder what else you are capable of.

Such as? Surely you aren't insinuating that putting hot sauce in a sandwich to annoy a thief is a gateway to murder, right? I wonder what it is you are concerned about us being capable of?

Yes stealing is wrong, but that does not mean I forget who I am and try to do something that I think is worse, and yes especially for nurses.

You think it's worse to put hot sauce in one's own sandwich in the event that a thief might take it than stealing that sandwich is? Weird ethics in my opinion.

I would not want to find myself explaining that to a judge. " Yes your honor, i put such and such in the food so that if or when someone else ingested it, that person became ill."

LOL, pretty sure no one in any of these situations described on this thread has ever had such a conversation with a judge! But keep taking other people's belongings because it's no big deal and I'll bet you'll have that conversation one day indeed!

[carolinapooh, BSN, RN]

One day? Was the food there for multiple days?

Places where I have worked they would routinely go through and discard any food items left for longer than X amount of days. Would make sense if suddenly a group of people lost food at once.

The phrase isn't denoting a number of days passed.

It's an opening clause. "One day, I left the window open and my wood floor got wet." "One day, I was starving when I got my lunch break."

[Garden,RN, ASN, RN]

I love the way you make the assumption that I take other people's stuff because I told you I don't take issue with this. let me set your mind at ease, I don't eat anything that I didn't pack myself, even in restaurants I am very careful. Hospital and all these facility refrigerators don't look inviting to me because of the microbes in our workplaces. I can't even eat most of the time because of health issues. I just can't understand the whole thing, both sides and I just avoid the whole area. I do think it is interesting given our relationship to food in the US that there are so many responses. I doubt any of us are actually starving.

[fulitarn, BSN, RN]

Technically our policy is that the fridge gets cleaned out once a week, and if your food is not labeled with a name and date, or if it is more than a week old it gets thrown out (including containers). But that is our policy so no one can complain if something happens.

It doesn't usually get done once a week, and when it is done we try to put up a sign that says "the fridge will be cleaned out tomorrow"

However, if it's on the table it is "no name- fair game"

[TXJDRN]

An OR tech friend of mine experienced someone finishing her half can of soda everyday after lunch in the OR break room. She finally squirted methylene blue into the can and caught the cola bandit resident blue mouthed!

[Zenndaya]

Has anyone considered purchasing a mini fridge and keeping it locked? Is that a possibility? Its about $40 minimum. The only question is if your workplace would allow it. . . Just a suggestion lol. This thread has kept me very entertained for the past half hour so thank you all :)

[WKShadowNP, DNP, APRN]

Has anyone considered purchasing a mini fridge and keeping it locked? Is that a possibility? Its about $40 minimum. The only question is if your workplace would allow it. . . Just a suggestion lol. This thread has kept me very entertained for the past half hour so thank you all :)

I had one for travel that would both cool and heat, depending on what you needed. It took too long to cool or heat so it didn't last past my home health days.

[Ruby Vee, BSN]

An OR tech friend of mine experienced someone finishing her half can of soda everyday after lunch in the OR break room. She finally squirted methylene blue into the can and caught the cola bandit resident blue mouthed!

Beverage alert!

[Ruby Vee, BSN]

Has anyone considered purchasing a mini fridge and keeping it locked? Is that a possibility? Its about $40 minimum. The only question is if your workplace would allow it. . . Just a suggestion lol. This thread has kept me very entertained for the past half hour so thank you all :)

I cannot imagine a hospital, nursing home, ALF or other facility that would allow this.

[GHGoonette, BSN, RN]

Fascinating, this thread is still going! Here's my experience: My boss always provides the basic stuff for tea and coffee, but I could never tolerate chicory, so I've always brought my own 100% coffee to work. What a disaster. I found my coffee jar depleted after 3 days. Then I started bringing my own french press and ground coffee to work, and that solved the problem. Then I started a healthy eating regime. Found I couldn't bring low-carb, low-cal foods to work without SOMEONE raping them! Seems wherever you are in the world, people disrepect you and your belongings.