30+ Workers who got petty revenge on coworkers who ate their lunches: 'Put 1/2 of a scorpion pepper in each [burrito]... he never ate my food again'

Author image for Remy Millisky
Remy Millisky • Writer and Editor
Jul 4, 2025 11:00 AM EDT

When you've been looking forward to your office lunch all day, it can totally sour your mood to find out it's been stolen. This is especially true if you had some delicious leftovers or a home-cooked meal from a loved one that you were salivating over all morning. Even if it's just a PB&J, that meal is supposed to keep you running until 5 PM hits and you can head home to cook yourself dinner. 

Some workplaces have a problem of chronic food theft. For some people, stealing a slice of pizza or an unattended salad is the perfect way to have a free meal. They don't even seem to feel too guilty about it, since a lot of them are repeat thieves. However, their coworkers quickly become irritated that their lunches are going missing. And in a large company with hundreds or thousands of workers, a single lunch can easily be wolfed down without the original lunch owner ever discovering who did it. 

These workers went above and beyond to catch their office fridge raiders. Some used hot sauce or peppers to trick that person into eating a dish that would ruin their day (or week!). Others simply left their food out for a few days before putting that back in the fridge as bait, and then they watched as the food thief snacked on some totally inedible food. 

Up next, read about the employees whose giant mistakes got them immediately fired, like one person whose HR department highlighted his mistake when they "showed him the camera footage." 

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  • 01

    "People who have had co-workers steal your food, how did you get revenge?"

    xs-murdoc I left 2 pieces of pizza in the fridge. I removed the cheese layer carefully and dumped a ton of salt on top of the sauce and put the cheese back on top.
    via u/xs-murdoc
  • 02
    AJDrake405 I didn't specially order the food in spite but one day I catered a huge order from a popular bbq place and didn't tell the coworker who stole peoples lunches (more than once from several people) When he came down to the break room and he saw most of the company in there
    via u/AJDrake405
  • 03
    enjoying the food he asked why nobody told him. I looked over at him and said "we've been starving all week because someone keeps stealing lunches from the fridge, you never seem to complain about it so I didn't think you were hungry"
    via u/AJDrake405
  • 04
    Jumpy-Author-4985 I got tired of having sandwiches stolen so made a turkey sandwich and let it sit on the counter for a couple days before taking it in. Sure enough, it disappeared and someone had to leave early that day because they got sick. Never owned up to stealing it and thefts did seem to stop
    via u/Jumpy-Author-4985
  • 05
    blindambition00 At my former job, we had a fridge bandit. This person would pick the tidbits out of your food. Example the shrimp out of your Chinese. However their biggest trait was taking sandwiches out of lunch boxes. After dealing with multiple employee complaints, and being a telecom, communications company I asked for cameras in the break room.
    via u/blindambition00
  • 06
    My request was denied. So, vigilante action came into play. I spoke with three of the food victims and instructed them to meet me in my office the next day fifteen mins before their shift. When they showed up I had a loaf of bread and two cans of wet cat food. We made some new sandwiches to replace the ones in their lunch boxes. I had them remove the real sandwiches
    via u/blindambition00
  • 07
    to store in my office refrigerator. The culprit took the bait, and one of the sandwiches was stolen. We never saw who, but after that day, there wasn't another theft before I moved on to another company and promotion. Petty and gross, but I love thinking about the big first bite they took and the reaction that followed. Lesson learned !
    via u/blindambition00
  • 08
    wabudo Made a tomato based sauce with lots of fresh basil and mixed a tablespoon of Da Bomb hotsauce to it. The dude suffered bad.
    via u/wabudo
  • 09
    [deleted] Found out who did it by waiting until everyone left for the day and walked around the entire office looking in everyone's trash cans until I found remnants of what used to be my $3 frozen microwave meal. It
    via u/[deleted]
  • 10
    could've been an honest mistake, but I don't even care. The following day I took the license plate off of her car and threw it into the dumpster.
    via u/[deleted]
  • 11
    GothPenguin Informed them that my medication was mixed in with my food, told them that I wasn't exactly sure what my seizure medication would do to someone who didn't have seizures and that they may need to visit the ER.
    via u/GothPenguin
  • 12
    Basically I lied. I was on meds and they were the kind that you sprinkled over something soft that you didn't chew to take them but they were in my purse waiting for me to take them with yogurt. The thief had taken my clearly labeled sandwich but left my yogurt alone.
    via u/GothPenguin
  • 13
    Scared_Ad2563 I am a creature of habit and will often eat the same foods for a while before I get tired of them and switch to something else. It was usually a fruit or vegetable, so I kept it in the fridge until I wanted to eat it. One busybody coworker would "help" by cleaning the fridge, but not tell anyone or give warning. Multiple times,
    via u/Scared_Ad2563
  • 14
    she'd throw my snack away (clearly labeled) because, "It's been there for days!" No amount of explaining that I just brought the same snack daily and, indeed, ate it daily would help. I even started putting the date on the bag next to my name and she still kept throwing out my snacks. She also was a perpetual dish leaver in the break room sink. Maybe she used
    via u/Scared_Ad2563
  • 15
    the same bowl every day and kept adding more bowls daily, but it really seemed like she would leave her dishes in the sink all week before cleaning them on Fridays before leaving for the weekend. So I started throwing her dishes in the trash can on Thursday.
    via u/Scared_Ad2563
  • 16
    MattyFromTheUK A guy at my old job was stealing food from fridges, and was caught nicking food from the kitchens too (we were a food manufacturer company)
    via u/MattyFromTheUK
  • 17
    Our Facilities Manager locked down his pass key so he couldn't access certain places without a chaperone. Toilet and in-out the building was fine, but the kitchen and canteen he needed to be let in. He left soon after.
    via u/MattyFromTheUK
  • 18
    Icy-Computer-P Not me, but my dad, during the 1970s. Some dude kept stealing lunches from the breakroom fridge. Management wouldn't do anything about it. So one day my dad made a peanut butter and dog sh sandwich, wrapped it up and put it in a lunch bag in the fridge.
    via u/Icy-Computer-P***
  • 19
    Not only does the food thief steal the sh sandwich, he eats half of it while my dad watched before figuring out what was going on. Then he stood up and started screaming blue murder. The thief was outraged, and complained to management. Management said "don't steal lunches then" and that was it for official reprisals.
    via u/Icy-Computer-P***
  • 20
    Every other worker there started calling the thief "s eater" for the rest of his time there.
    via u/Icy-Computer-P***
  • 21
    chiubacca82 The issue isn't that they ate my lunch, but they took my prized Tupperware!
    via u/chiubacca82
  • 22
    loztriforce I worked for a family business many years ago, used to have this huge office area, I'd keep Costco boxes of snacks in a drawer. Noticed they were being taken, talked to the owners and convinced them to allow me to setup a hidden camera.
    via u/loztriforce
  • 23
    Caught a cleaner guy on video coming to eat my snacks, then as he's eating he's looking at my pictures, picks his nose and possibly wipes it on my chair. I showed the video to the owners and the guy was fired within a few minutes.
    via u/loztriforce
  • 24
    GreenLanternCorps Closest I've had to this was had one coworker offer to pick up (not buy) food from a burger joint for everyone else. Guy comes back and apparently the whole way back specifically ate my and only my fries. I didn't really get revenge I just took his fries out of his hands and there wasn't a whole lot he could do about it.
    via u/GreenLanternCorps
  • 25
    gimpers420 I like spicy food, really spicy food, like I regularly put scorpion pepper on a lot of my dishes. I started making breakfast sandwiches and this guy at work kept eating them. I asked him to stop, told him. those were not communal (because we do share coffee/creamer and stuff like that), but told him I'd be
    via u/gimpers420
  • 26
    happy to prep him some since that's something I do. Next day he comes in and heats one up and I said nothing. That night I made 2 burritos and put 1/2 of a scorpion pepper in each one, put my homemade habenaro pepper salsa on them, and used a Carolina reaper pepper hotsauce as well.
    via u/gimpers420
  • 27
    After 30 minutes in the bathroom he never ate my food again. Little B
    via u/gimpers420
  • 28
    Ryno5150 More than 25 years ago, I worked at a factory and about a few weeks prior, I started to notice a snack missing from my lunch. Some days it was just my potato chips, but it had started to become the cookie every day. Just one, as my wife would normally pack me two. I asked around and of course nobody knew anything.
    via u/Ryno5150
  • 29
    The only out of the ordinary thing going on at the place was a very rotund and arrogant young man that had started about a month earlier, about the same time that I noticed bits of my lunch had gone missing. He had also said that it wasn't him. So I came up with a devilish idea. I made a big batch of chocolate chips cookies and brought them in for
    via u/Ryno5150
  • 30
    everyone to enjoy, except for two larger cookies that had an entire box of chocolate exlax baked face down into into them, which remained in my lunchbox. It was the Wednesday before thanksgiving and my shift started at 11pm that night. I passed out the regular cookies to everyone at work to set the trap. 1am, nothing. Both cookies were
    via u/Ryno5150
  • 31
    still in my lunchbox. Oh well, I keep working. 3am rolls around and one of the cookies is missing. I joyfully go around telling everyone what I had done and to keep an eye on the restroom for the perpetrator. He should be easy to spot since he will likely be sprinting. 4am, I return to my workstation to re Alize the
    via u/Ryno5150
  • 32
    2nd cookie was now missing. Uh, yeah I didn't expect that they would take both cookies. It was usually just one. Whoever the suspect is now had enough exlax to propel the to the stratosphere. 5am, nothing yet but everyone's eyes are on the restroom.
    via u/Ryno5150
  • 33
    6:15am, this streak of safety gear wearing a hard hat comes bolting from the corner of the plant, screaming in agony and busts through the restroom door. It was indeed the young rotund probationary employee. Everyone had a good laugh and a couple of coworkers decided to stand outside of the stall door and harass
    via u/Ryno5150
  • 34
    this poor young man. "I'll bet you'll never steal anyone's lunch again kiddo". "Now you'll be spending Thanksgiving on the can. Your mama can slide your dinner under the door for you". The kid still denied it was him. Nobody believes it though, but my lunch was never messed with again.
    via u/Ryno5150
  • 35
    Cheezburger Image 10524518400
    via Getty Images For Unsplash+

    The image does not depict the actual subjects of the story. Subjects are models.

  • 36
    [deleted] I made a blindingly hot curry. The funny part is that he had me dragged into the facility manager's office for 'booby trapping' my lunch. I ate a forkful like it was no big deal and then pointed out to the manager that, if he was okay with stealing from his coworkers, then he'd definitely be okay with stealing from the company.
    via u/[deleted]
  • 37
    They started doing random bag checks after that and that guy always got his back checked when it happened.
    via u/[deleted]
  • 38
    LordBaranof Not really revenge, but once a month, the owners would pick a restaurant, get everyone's order, and buy lunch for the entire office. They would go pick it up, and then leave all the lunches in the breakroom for people to get when they could. One co-worker treated it as a free for all. He would go back, sample everyone's lunches, then
    via u/LordBaranof
  • 39
    pick which he liked best. If he had picked lunch A and then decided he liked your lunch B better, he would eat that despite what he had picked originally. After a while of this, I suggested that they give everyone's lunch directly to them at their desk, then that person could take it back to the breakroom and eat it. They agreed.
    via u/LordBaranof
  • 40
    When they came in, they hand delivered everone's lunch to them at their desk. He would make off hand comments about how your lunch looked really good and he would like to try it, to which I would respond, "Should have ordered it then."
    via u/LordBaranof
  • 41
    8urfiat Red food coloring in my chili. Found them real quick.
    via u/8urfiat
  • 42
    13atou I made a salami sandwich generously spread with Vegemite. Buddy ol'pal must have though it was bbq sauce or else.. Never came back for my food! And for Aussies out there I'm not saying that stuff isn't tasteful but to the unprepared European taste it's quite awful.
    via u/13atou
  • 43
    Spin_Me We had an employee who stole food & drinks all the time. Let's call her Erica since that's her name. She had a habit of stealing my single-serve yogurts from the fridge. I used a syringe to inject ghost chili oil into a strawberry "fruit on the bottom" cup. What she thought was strawberry "juice" instead made her
    via u/Spin_Me
  • 44
    mouth burn, her eyes water, and made her vomit. I stayed late at the office that evening, fished the offending yogurt cup out of her trash, and deposited it in her top drawer so that she knew that "someone" was watching her.
    via u/Spin_Me
  • 45
    Silver_Scallion_1127 After I had my lunch taken, I took a bite in each item like a sandwich. When I that sandwich was swiped, they probably didnt realize it was already bitten because it never happned after that.
    via u/Silver_Scallion_1127
  • 46
    P Pant73 I left my lunch on top on my truck in the Florida heat then placed it in the fridge. It didn't take long to identify the suspect...
    via u/P***Pant73
  • 47
    Cheezburger Image 10524530176
    via Getty Images For Unsplash+

    The image does not depict the actual subjects of the story. Subjects are models.

  • 48
    cookster212 Not me but my Step Dad. He used to LOVE to make pickled eggs and bring them into the mill to share with his friends. He would have them in a huge jar, and he would make around 100 eggs at a time. They were stored in a communal fridge. He started to see massive amounts disappearing, so he started to put notes on the jar like,
    via u/cookster212
  • 49
    "Please ask before you take an egg." Still, tones of eggs were disappearing. He heard who was doing it, and the culprit was taking them home. So, he ped in the jar. Gross, but the eggs were still being taken by this one dude. So, he waited until they were all gone, stood up in the lunchroom, and told the crew what he had done.
    via u/cookster212
  • 50
    Tones of laughs while the guy ran to the bathroom to puke. Gross as h I, but no one touched his eggs ever again.
    via u/cookster212
  • 51

    It must've been totally mortifying to be caught on a hidden fridge camera

    Heythere23856 I put a hidden camera in the fridge... caught him redhanded on camera diggin through everyones lunches. Then i sent a mass email to everyone in the office with the title found the office rat! He quit a few days later because everyone hated him and treated him bad after... karmas a b louie
    via u/Heythere23856
  • 52
    rawwwse Not revenge, per se, but defense... I kept an entire Costco box full of Häagen Dazs ice cream bars in the freezer for over a month, untouched, in a covered 9X13 casserole pan labeled "Enchiladas" I(ツ)」 Nobody likes old soggy enchiladas.
    via u/rawwwse
  • 53

    Smart!

    PeakWinter6717 I labeled my food with fake warnings about being spicy or expired. No more stolen lunches!
    via u/PeakWinter6717
  • 54
    TripleTune I had our HR person throw away my half a sub that I had just brought in that morning for lunch. Smaller firm, so I took the high road and sent an email blast, hoping whoever took it had enjoyed it. Two days letter I get called into a meeting with her (HR), my manager, a VP, and some random guy. All so she could let me know of our email policies and
    via u/TripleTune
  • 55
    blah blah blah. After all that, she apologized for throwing it away and ended the meeting. LL F you Bea. You micromanaging yearn for revenge. . I still
    via u/TripleTune
  • 56
    alc3880 I wouldn't feel the need for revenge lol, but I would go out to the middle of the office and loudly say that i hope whoever stole my lunch enjoyed it and if they are not able to afford their own lunch there are resources available to them and I hope they get the help they need.
    via u/alc3880
  • 57
    Then I would tell the boss I a going out for lunch because someone took it upon themselves to take mine, I will be back in an hour.
    via u/alc3880
  • 58
    Cheezburger Image 10524520448
    via Getty Images For Unsplash+

    The image does not depict the actual subjects of the story. Subjects are models.

  • 59
    Wild_Department_. Wasabi! Got a burger off the truck. Cut out the middle and filled it with Wasabi. ( Japanese horse radish) Put it back in the little foam box and wrote "My lunch, do not take".
    via u/Wild_Department_8943
  • 60
    SOB tried to down it in two bites. You could here him screaming from the far side of the building. Took him out in an ambulance. He was unharmed. ROFLMAO He was fired.
    via u/Wild_Department_8943
  • 61
    No_Goose_7390 I was sitting chatting with someone in the break room. She was eating and I wasn't. She asked why I wasn't eating lunch. I told her because she was eating my lunch.
    via u/No_Goose_7390
  • 62
    She froze mid-chew. It was beautiful. Not revenge but she was mortified, caught in the act. Now I think about how young and broke we all were and I have a little more compassion.
    via u/No_Goose_7390
  • 63
    Bovoduch Never got revenge but there was a very odd situation at a past job. Worked in a psychiatric hospital for children, evening shift at the time. Kids are wild, so after rough days/nights we (staff) would order dinner and eat together when we could. We had a relatively new employee, who absolutely hated it. One crazy night, we ordered dinner, had a kid get
    via u/Bovoduch
  • 64
    out of bed and act a fool, and so we put our dinner to the side. This employee was on the other dormitory at the time. Turns out, this employee came over to the dorm, and just ate all of our food. Like 3 people's worth of food. All of it. Then just left in the middle of the shift, and never came back ever.
    via u/Bovoduch
  • 65
    Emotional_Fondan... Kept happening on a regular basis. Eventually, I made some pasta with a crop ton of California reapers blended into the sauce. They stopped for a while after this.
    via u/Emotional_Fondant_55
  • 66
    [deleted] I love hot sauce. I dont have a limit to hotness. I love to sweat and push my limits. I already had an idea of who was eating my food because they were sweating inside of a cool grocery store. So I ordered some Hot Ones The Last Dab Xperience. I put it in my macaroni goulash I made one day.
    via u/[deleted]
  • 67
    That was the day an ambulance showed up because the dude thought he was going to spontaneously combust. Pretty much admitted while he was being checked out and asked me how the h I do I consume that cr p. Asked me right in front of my manager. Told him to buy his own food and experiment for himself. He never stole food again.
    via u/[deleted]

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