'Obviously the police wouldn’t do anything about it': Nurse tech calls cops over $.50 theft to make a point to hospital administrators

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Remy Millisky • Writer and Editor
Nov 21, 2023 11:00 AM EST

This hospital had an ongoing food theft issue that got really out of hand. 

Why would someone steal food in a workplace environment? If someone lifts a meal from the work refrigerator once, you could chalk it up to a mistake. If it happens twice, it could be that someone was so hungry they couldn't wait to get food, or are just becoming more brazen about their theft. By the third time, this is a real issue---and it could even spawn copycats. 

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  • This Brazilian hospital had a rampant food theft problem among the employees. It seems like food was being stolen so frequently that there were multiple people doing it. After all, if you steal a tasty treat once, and the hospital administrators don't care at all, why wouldn't a thief keep snacking on other peoples' meals? 

    The hospital that u/InpatientComment9072's husband worked at also had a sneaky way of avoiding responsibility for what their employees were doing. When the OP's husband tried to report his own food as missing, the hospital got to smugly tell him that since it wasn't hospital property, their hands were tied. 

    Check out the whole story below to find out how this clever nurse technician managed to get back at his toxic employer. Then, read one story about how a restaurant employee got back at a really entitled customer.

  • 01
    "Nothing you can do about stolen food? Ok!" M OC Mandatory English is not my first language I saw a story of stolen food at work and reminded me of one of my husband's stories so I decided to share it.
    via u/InpatientComment9072
  • 02
    Over 15 years ago my husband was a nurse technician at a private hospital in a small town in Brazil. At the hospital, there was a constant problem of food being stolen from the employees fridge, there were constant complaints but the administration would just ignore them. One day my husband
    via u/InpatientComment9072
  • 03
    brought a pot of cream cheese (requeijão)worth 2 reais (about 50 cents) put it in the fridge and when his break came he saw it missing. He went to HR to report the theft and they told him that since it was not hospital property, there was nothing they could do.
    via u/InpatientComment9072
  • 04
    My husband just said "Is that so?" turn around and left. He went to the phone and called the cops asking them to come because there was a theft (he didn't tell them what was stolen).
    via u/InpatientComment9072
  • 05
    Now, private hospitals in Brazil have a big thing about image, so when two cop cars arrived at the front of the hospital everyone, from patients, employees, HR and even the top administration came to see what was going on.
    via u/InpatientComment9072
  • 06
    One of the cops that arrived ended being one of my husband uncle's so he just went straight to ask him what happened. My husband with the most serious expression just told him, loud enough for everyone to hear, that he wanted to make an official report that someone stole his 50 cent pot of cream cheese.
    via u/InpatientComment9072
  • 07
    There was a general silence before his uncle asked "Are you serious? If I knew this was about a 50c pot of cheese we would not have come, and would have told you to go to the station to make the report if you wanted", my husband just answered with a smile "I know, that is why I did not say what was stolen and now you have to make the report", which he did.
    via u/InpatientComment9072
  • 08
    Obviously the police wouldn't do anything about it, but because of the whole circus that my husband created, the next week the hospital installed a camera right in front of the employees fridge and the food theft finally stopped.
    via u/InpatientComment9072
  • 09
    zorggalacticus Happened to me before. Made "tuna" salad out of wet cat food. Next day it was gone. The thief got quite the fancy feast. Lunch never went missing after that.
    via u/zorggalacticus
  • 10
    Vivid Fiddlesticks · There was a food theft problem at my old company; HR put out a notice that food theft was unacceptable and if caught it would lead to termination.
    via u/Vivid Fiddlesticks
  • 11
    THREE people were fired before it finally stopped!!! One person was caught stealing an entire pizza. She claimed she thought it was leftovers but she was on camera watching the person put it down (to go use the restroom) and then she hid it in the broom closet and played dumb when the person came back and couldn't find their food.
    via u/Vivid Fiddlesticks
  • 12
    The audacity of some people just boggles my mind.
    via u/Vivid Fiddlesticks
  • 13
    centumcellae85 · You know, there are perks to being the person known for obscenely hot food preferences. Go ahead. Steal my clearly labeled ghost pepper chimichangas or my scorpion pepper hot sauce. I dare you.
    via u/centumcellae85
  • 14
    Talwyn_Wize The student hostel building I was living in (had about 100 students per building) when I went to university didn't have locks on their main door to the shared kitchen areas. Food kept going missing for all of us, so my neighbour decided to set up a webcam in a corner. Caught the
    via u/Talwyn_Wize
  • 15
    food thief on cam (he didn't even live in the building), printed out a hundred pictures of him with "This man is stealing food from your kitchen!" and plastered it on the walls on every block for a mile.
    via u/Talwyn_Wize
  • 16
    Surprise, it stopped after that. Turns out we weren't the only building having the issue either, so he'd been stealing from a few hundred people.
    via u/Talwyn_Wize
  • 17
    Đ [deleted] My wife's work place had lunches stolen so my wife made tacos with Carolina Reaper powder mixed in the meat. The thief got quite the burn
    via u/[deleted]
  • 18
    Charley Dharkmere. My husband worked in a huge call center & food theft was rampant. Not sure what triggered it but they installed cameras facing the fridges & if you touched someone else's food it was an instant fireable offense. I got my hubby a very brightly colored lunch cooler for easy ID.
    via u/CharleyDharkmere

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cheese toxic-workplace stealing job hospitals hospital employees workplace theft police toxic-work-environment
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