Office worker’s solution to chow thief problem: Locked mini-fridge
A frustrated office worker took to Reddit to complain about people stealing his lunch. He tried to resolve it through group chats, asking the chow thieves to stop it. Nobody stepped forward to take accountability for stealing his lunches. Consequently, the office worker continued to risk his food being stolen. To resolve this issue, he purchased a mini fridge and placed it under his desk. He locked the mini-fridge. It was then when someone confronted him about securing his lunch this way.
From Fox News:
In a viral post on Reddit, the employee said his workplace offers a communal kitchen with one fridge.
“Over the past month, my lunch has been stolen five times,” the Reddit user said. “Not just random snacks. Entire homemade meals I bring from home, gone without a trace.”
He added, “It’s not just frustrating, it’s expensive and messes up my day.”
In an office group chat, the worker asked the unknown lunch thief to stop — but no one took responsibility.
His solution? The desk jockey bought a mini-fridge and placed it under his desk, complete with a lock “just for extra peace of mind.”
“Since then, no more stolen lunches,” he wrote in his post.
But his solution was not well-received.
The Redditor reported that one of his co-workers confronted him and called the fridge “weird and selfish.”
“She said it made me ‘look paranoid’ and ‘not part of the team,'” the original poster recalled. “I said I was tired of my food being stolen, and this was the only solution that worked.”
He added, “She said I should’ve just brought stuff I wouldn’t care about losing, like snacks or microwave meals, if I was so worried.”
Since then, the employee has been subjected to snide remarks about locking up his lunch, he said, and he’s “starting to feel like the weirdo in the office just for protecting my stuff.”
Additional Reading:
Margolis, A. (2025, July 6). Man buys locked mini-fridge after food thefts, gets called ‘weird and selfish’ by co-workers. Fox News. Link.
Category: Society
We had a lunch thief in my last job before I retired. Being an office full of scouts, tankers and infantry, someone set up cameras and found the cleaning crew were lifting items. At least it got them fired, but I don’t know of any legal action.
My own way of preventing theft; back in 1998 on a no notice deployment to Kuwait (thanks, Saddam), we had limited ice and a mid-sized cooler for our headquarters platooon. People couldn’t be bothered to replace water bottles or put their name on them and it would just empty. Finally I put a sign on it which essentially said “I rubbed a water bottle all over my nuts before putting it in here.” Unsurprisingly, people stopped taking just anybody’s cold water. You gotta do what you gotta do.
Hooah! 🙂
It seems every unit has a lunch pirate.
I made a decoy lunch one day. A BLT, but I used toothpaste as mayo.
My lunch never went missing again
Ya evil bastid, I love it!
The “phantom muncher” would take a bite and re-wrap your food.
Mine was a three slice of bread roast beef masterpiece. With my name on the paper bag and “dont you dare” …
…with enough hot sauces and seasonings for the Texas state Chilli cookoff.
We heard the scream. Oh did he scream.
When a boss criticized me, “we could get sued”, I pointed out that the ladies were discussing using Draino. And walked away.
And that was that.
Buy a submarine sandwich.
Leave the sandwich under the dumpster outside in the parking lot for three days. 100 + weather is preferable.
After three days, remove sandwich and replace the lettuce, tomato and side pickle with fresh versions.
Leave the original mayo (extra), ham and salami on sandwich, re-wrap and place in fridge.
Problem solved but make sure to schedule an extra employee for the next few days.
It still won’t stop some guys.
Homer has the right idea. It is a sin to waste food. I have learned over the years that most food will remain edible without refrigeration for a surprising length of time. I think that is why I had the nickname “Garbage Gut” as a child.
Better yet, leave a sub sandwich with pickles on it, an put a drop of Lemon Joy dish detergent on each pickle, then the lunch thief gets a three-day case of the screaming shits! (THREE drops are all that’s necessary, and the tartness of the pickles will hide the taste.)
Perhaps a generous dollop of Man Mayo.
That’s even worse than having your entire lunch stolen!
Could have solved the problem by buying some chicken lunch meat and leaving it out on the counter until it got nice and warm for a day or two and got that funny smell, then put that into a sandwich, that or get some sort of ghost pepper spread and put that in the sandwich. Or maybe mix some strong laxative into some mayo and put that on a sandwich. The person that violently shits themselves during the all hands meeting a 3pm is your lunch bandit.
Oh you are a baaaaaad boy, aren’t you? I’m stealing your idea!
A burrito made with canned dog or cat food does wonders as well!
I will not admit intentionally bringing in cat food. Besides the Statue of Limitations long passed.
Lunch thief ate it.
Later that day, on a personal phone call which said lunch thief always eavesdropped and then commented on when I hung up –
me “What do you mean the leftover pulled chicken is there? I took that for lunch.”
….
me “Dear God, it was a rough morning. I must have put the cat food in the wrong container. Well, I hope the cat liked the pulled chicken. Lucky I’ve been too busy and skipped lunch. Yeah, I’ll have to go throw that stuff out. Maybe I’ll get lucky and the office lunch thief will have eaten it.”
Lunch thief suddenly was sick and went home early. Tried to report me to HR. HR just laughed at my “mistake”. I then reported the lunch thief for listening in on private phone conversations to boot. Lunch thief was fired shortly thereafter as they were also grossly incompetent at their job (receptionist and mail clerk).
As a peace offering, maybe the locking lunch “wierdo” could just put out some laxatives shaped and colored like skittles or m&m, and put a sign up that says free (picture wily coyote), but without the anvil. That will come later.
Yes, but then you get accused of trying to poison your coworkers (who weren’t stealing your food but were thankful you brought some food to share).
Kind of the same thing of shooting someone in your home for stealing or “breaking in” when you left the light on and the door open.
I like Andy11M’s idea better. Bring the sandwich with something extra and just take it off before you eat it.
I personally believe it was the “Karen” who called you a wierdo who was taking it.
Not if they do not know its you.
Mimic someone else’s lunch for a few says.
That is what I was thinking too. The Karen Bandit
Get the hell out of that woke shithole workplace….!!!
Exactly.
AI: No, it is generally illegal to deliberately tamper with or contaminate food, even if it is being stolen from a company fridge.
Key Points:
While agree that someone stealing your lunch earns a punch in the nose, messing with is a bigger problem as shown above. The woman complaining about the fridge is ONE of the lunch thieves, but its probably a cabal of douchebags. I always brought a soft ‘cooler lunch lunch box’ that I kept in my cubicle. If they’re making remarks, then they’re the inconsiderate assholes with zero empathy. Don’t let them bring you down.
If so, the guilty party will have to admit to stealing and you simply state “I already aye mine”.
Back when Hack Stone had a side gig working down at Quantico while waiting for that first paycheck from the proud but humble woman owned business to clear, we had a break room with one refrigerator for maybe forty people. One employee had a soft ‘cooler lunch lunch box’, and would place it in the refrigerator, occupying valuable limited real estate in the refrigerator. Not only was the person a refrigerator hog, he/she was too stupid to realize soft a ‘cooler lunch lunch box’ would prevent any external temperatures from impacting the contents.
I have heard several food-stealing stories on YouTube channels that read Reddit posts. More often than not, the victim will put a lot of very spicy toppings on their food in the hopes the stealer will get sick/have their taste-buds scaulded away – but the key is to only include things you can/will eat. (The victims were generally big fans of very spicy food.) That way you cannot be accused of intentionally trying to harm the stealer.
Yeah, I’ll go out on a limb here and think the bitch that complained was the chow thief. Skrunt!
He who smelt it dealt it.
Despite AI’s warnings, and the questionably legality of doing so, I’m firmly on the food tampering side of things, with a few precautions. First, maybe I want to start bringing Nutella sandwiches, with a melted chocolate Ex-Lax mixed in. I’m at the age where being regular is important, and I bet I could build up a routine including such a diet. Or perhaps my lunch meat is just a little on the expired side (not uncommon in this household, I had to toss a nearly untouched sub kit, some slightly moldy cheese, and some greyish hotdogs and bologna yesterday). I have some Southern tastes, so some head cheese (or souse if I could find it, Columbus, GA and Phenix City spoiled me, as the Piggly Wigglys had 5-6 different brands and types) and a pickled pig’s foot or two would be a great lunch that many would refuse to steal. Let’s be honest, though, I’d probably just go back to keeping jars of pig’s feet and pickled eggs along with sardines in Louisiana hot sauce.
Anything like the expired food or Ex-Lax treatment would of course require plausible deniability. I’d make sure I grabbed my lunch daily, so long as it was still there, and make a show of eating it (swapping out the sandwich for a perfectly safe doppelganger), or retching and throwing the spoiled food away in disgust. A thief watching the show once or twice might decide the risk isn’t worth the reward. Maybe just feigning being sick and/or advertising a lack of hygiene (“I dropped the steak on the floor, and the dog licked it, but I rinsed it off. No way was I wasting a $15 piece of meat.”) would work.
But it was home-cooked meals being stolen. I’ve never tried my hand at cooking them, but I bet I could figure out a decent chitterling, tripe, chicken feet, or other recipe. Enough Crystal hot sauce will make anything edible.
As a child I developed a fondness for smoked herring. Easy to find out if your local supermarket carries it–you can smell it as soon as you walk in the door. My father used to buy me a piece or two just to watch me eat it; I think it amused him; nobody else in the house would touch it, so I had to eat it before we got home.
As for pigs feet and pickled eggs, Columbus also spoiled me. I can still fondly remember the smell as I entered a few bars in the area; stale beer, pigs feet, pickled eggs, and pickled(?) sausages.
I’m sure the folk at that dude’s work didn’t go to Korea and can’t stand a big open tub of fresh kimchi (poorly covered with saran wrap, of course) left in the fridge over night or a long holiday weekend.
Spawning the saying from one of my teen years mentors “You’re in deep kimchi!” and yes, he was a Korean War Vet.
Contaminated food will simply inspire counter contamination.
Grease that sandwich with some bear spay and it will work itself out.
Weirdest roommate I ever had was a branch detailed MI officer who was a 28 year old virgin and my suite mate at OBC, where housing put us together. He moved in and immediately began stealing my food. After a couple of days I explained to him that I couldn’t afford to feed him because I was supporting my wife while she finished college. He said he would stop and then kept stealing food. He started stealing my shampoo, toothpaste and whatever was loose.
After another week I simply started locking it all in my room. He became quite angry and confronted me, demanding I buy him food and stuff. He told me he was short on funds because he was helping support his unemployed adult sister and mom. I explained my side again and he still felt like I should feed him. When I explained that was never going to happen things got really weird and passive aggressive. He tried to goad me to a fight and several other weird things.
Eventually he told housing I was too difficult to live with and moved in with someone else for a few weeks and of course that didn’t work out either. He went through five roommates in four months. Last I saw him, he flunked out of airborne school because he couldn’t do a PLF.
You know it just occurred to me that he was a Berkeley grad? Could it be after all these years my long lost creepy, crazy roommate was none other than our Commissar? It would fit.
Funny.
Man I thought I had some strange guys in the barracks as a Joe, nothing like that.
Hack had some hygienically challenged troops in his various assignments. Had “the talk” with a few, and still no improvement. Their room mates were drawing hazardous duty pay.
We had one guy when I was in Germany who took a two week leave but, since he was broke, spent the time in the barracks. He didn’t bathe the whole time. someone eventually scattered moth balls all over his bunk, which also stank.
It could have been worse. He could have been rooming with Jeffrey Dahmer. Whoever shared a BEQ with that guy rates free drinks at the American Legion for life.
Funny enough, the guy that was Dahmers roomie has been a mess most of his life since being discharged. Dahmer abused the fuck out of him.
By Jove, that could be! Lars, was that you?
That WAS you! Asshole! What is yours is mine and what is mine is mine, duh!
Did he wave a Mexican flag while he stood on your car?
First shared apartment after moving out of my parent’s house, my roommate was an underemployed electronics repairman who barely afforded his rent and food because he was such a heavy smoker. Things got worse when his girlfriend unofficially moved in too but contributed nothing to the household. I started noticing soda and milk and things like that going missing, but what crossed the line was the day I came home from work after spending my entire shift looking forward to the leftovers I had brough home the evening prior only to find my food gone – eaten by the woman with no job who just lazed around in bed all day while both her boyfriend and I were working our jobs – and having no money for anything else so I went hungry that night. Got into a mild arguement that night. Immediately started buying stuff that did not require refrigeration and literally hiding it under my dresser and bed in my locked bedroom or soda flavors I knew neither my roommate nor his girlfriend liked, such as pineapple soda. Things were okay for a couple of weeks until a mutual friend – thinking he was doing me a favor – pointed out to roommate and his girlfriend that I was hiding food and drinks in my bedroom. Suddenly I was even more the bad guy for keeping food hidden from them.
It was only a short time later (and the addition of some other rude behavior) that I gave my notice and moved out.
Sounds like this guy works in an office full of batshit crazy entitled dickheads. Lunch theft is probably the least of his things to worry about.
The gall of some people. Never touch another man’s lunch or think your entitled to it. This reminds me of a story of revenge on one lunch thief. Go to 5:20 for the specific story. Watch the entire video if you could use a laugh:
Report the snide comments and missing lunches, record the dates of the group chat, send HR several e-mails on the subject. Give them time to rectify it. When they do not, sue the shit out of the company for theft and hostile work environment. Should be able to get enough out of them that they revamp the stealing and work environment. Save the money because after a while they will be build a case to fire you, even though you did not start it.
Wouldn’t be America without a lawsuit.
No comment since all you Gals and Guys got all the comments in…BZ
My favorite response to lunches getting stolen? A beautiful deli sandwich left in the fridge with a fat dose of Ex-Lax in it!
I remember while going to school, guys used to try and fit an Ex-Lax bar in a candy bar wrapper…
How come I have never have to worry about people stealing my lunch?
That’s weird.
I have never put my name on it.
And I am not that big to begin with. (That’s what she said 😫)
How does the lunch thief know it’s mine?
Allowing other people to eat your lunch is “not being a part of the team?”
When is the team going to provide him some lunch?
Sounds like a pretty one way street to me…and I’d bet it’s the people who’ve been stealing his food that complained.
For the food thieves: I got tired of office parasites also, so I bought a dozen creme filled Krispy Kreme donuts. I scooped out most of the creme and filled them with black pepper, left them in the break room. Stood back and let the vultures have at it. Last time people took stuff without asking….