Update: Coworker gets back at lunch thief by tossing their unlabeled boxes: ‘Did you have your name on them?’

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Ben Weiss • Writer and Editor
Apr 1, 2024 8:00 AM EDT

Watching someone get a taste of their own medicine is a rare occurrence, but when it happens, you have to savor the moment. This is especially true for petty revenge on annoying coworkers. It's not every day you get to see that person suffer the consequences of their own actions. Most of the time, you just have to smile, nod, and ignore them while you quietly imagine all the ways their behavior might come back to bite them on the behind. However, when your annoying coworker has actively wronged you, you are well within your right to make those fantasies a reality (well, within reason, of course).

This employee discovered that their coworker, who got away with everything given her close relationship with their boss, had eaten their lunch. The thief's rationalization was that the box was unlabeled, but based on her unbothered and totally unapologetic reaction, this lady knew exactly what she was doing. So, when the employee later found empty boxes the thief was saving for her boyfriend's upcoming move, the employee took it upon herself to enact some payback. 

Keep scrolling below for the fallout. For more stories like this, take a look at this one about an employee who made their coworker's elevator ride a nightmare. 

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  • 01
    "Eat my lunch? I'll throw away your boxes." W caps lock A S shift Z X 20 fn control option command
    via Alfred Rowe
  • 02
    Eat my lunch? I'll throw away your boxes. Let me paint the picture: I'm a lab manager. I do research and also make sure the lab runs smoothly. A girl there gives me a hard time. She's: Rich girl at work.
    via u/[deleted]
  • 03
    Friends with the CEO. Has a laser on the back of my head and snitching on my supervisor for every mistake I make. Yells at other employees. She's a . I get a meal subscription because I'm a new mom and don't have time to cook. One day I was a little behind on work and decided to finish it and have a late lunch. So I go to get it, and it's nowhere to be found. I looked everywhere. Then I noticed the empty box in the trash.
    via u/[deleted]
  • 04
    Someone ate it. It's a small office. It wouldn't be hard to find this person. The lady I mentioned earlier asked me "Well, did it have your name on it?" I said no, but it clearly wasn't a community food item. She smiled and said You did that on "whoops". C purpose. I was so angry that I had to leave early. The next day, I went into the lab and noticed a pile of boxes in the storage area of the lab. I asked someone about it.
    via u/[deleted]
  • 05
    Turns out she was saving them as shipments came in because her boyfriend (poor soul) was moving in with her. One by one, I sliced up the boxes with a box cutter and put them in the recycle bin. Later during the week she was asking around about where her boxes went. When she got to me, I asked, "Did you have your name on them?"
    via u/[deleted]
  • 06
    Edit: her reaction was "wow seriously?" And she stompped off somewhere. I don't know if this is going to bite me in the she may increase her later, of me but I'm leaving the company in about a week so I can tolerate it.
    via u/[deleted]
  • 07
    Update: I spent two hours alone with her in the lab. She saw me and made a snooty little face and was visably uncomfortable. I said good morning and she just walked past me. Delicious. I took my time with my experiment, had a smile on my face, calm, happy. She hated it. She was being aggressive with whatever she was doing and tried to make a big scene. Was she uncomfortable? Not sure. Was she trying to intimidate me? Not sure about that either. Whatever she was feeling, it was negative, and it w
    via u/[deleted]
  • 08
    75trombones. "I only steal un-named food for which I am not the rightful owner.." 1.9k ☐ Reply Share
    via u/[deleted]
  • 09
    SalisburyWitch Lunch stealing makes me mad. You know well you didn't bring it. She sounds like the kind of co- worker who ends up making OP buy ghost pepper cheese. Edit: because I can't spell buy. 817 Reply Share
    via u/[deleted]
  • 10
    [deleted] Mic drop. Awesome response 322 Reply Share
    via u/[deleted]
  • 11
    wiscokid76. I worked at a place that had a lunch stealer. I started keeping my lunch in a small cooler near me but I did know a guy who started wiping his with bread and making sandwiches from them. It was a surprise when one of the higher ups got sick with food poisoning for a few days. O, dude made more money than almost everyone else and was stealing to boot. Some of us knew what happened and he must've suspected because nothing was taken ever again. 309 Reply Share ...
    via u/[deleted]
  • 12
    tulip27 This is the best! 224 Reply Share
    via u/[deleted]
  • 13
    Fluffynotfluffy. Put a bag of Haribo sugar free gummy bears within easy access for her. She will love them! Once. 152 Reply Share
    via u/[deleted]
  • 14
    goose You're the manager, she committed theft in the workplace - discipline her before she sails right into your job, ffs. 112 Reply Share
    via u/[deleted]
  • 15
    SeanBZA. Time to bring in the hottest curry you can stand, leaving in a similar box. Though by me that does no work, seeing as 80% of the people here love hot food, and getting a volcano curry is not a problem, they even serve it with more chillis for those who need it hotter, which is great. 102 Reply Share
    via u/[deleted]
  • 16
    Aksds At my work we have blue stickers for communal stuff (other than the stacks of drinks we have available for $1), and orange for personal (gets put on at check out) pretty good system ngl.
    via u/[deleted]
  • 17
    hdmx539 This is *chef's kiss.* Did she stop eating other people's lunches? Also, with her taking other people's lunches if she's rich? It's more like a power move. "I'm friends with the CEO and you can't touch me."
    via u/[deleted]
  • 18
    IAmTheLizardQueen666 · For everyone bickering about "look it up yourself", "tampering" applies to consumer products. OPs lunch is not for sale, it's not in a store, there's no price tag. The food thief clearly knows it's not their food.
    via u/[deleted]
  • 19
    If OP makes a "special" meal that the thief will regret eating, it shouldn't have anyones name attached. But do it.
    via u/[deleted]
  • 20
    "(2) "Tamper" means to alter or add a foreign substance to a consumer product to make it probable that the consumer product will cause serious bodily injury.
    via u/[deleted]
  • 21
    (b) A person commits an offense if he knowingly or intentionally tampers with a consumer product knowing that the consumer product will be offered for sale to the public or as a gift to another.
    via u/[deleted]
  • 22
    (c) A person commits an offense if he knowingly or intentionally threatens to tamper with a consumer product with the intent to cause fear, to affect the sale of the consumer product, or to cause bodily injury to any person." Unlabeled lunch brought from home is not a consumer product. The end.
    via u/[deleted]

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terrible coworkers workplace-stories work stories toxic-workplace job work coworkers petty revenge reddit thread Reddit company toxic-work-environment
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