How to stop coworkers from stealing your food in the office fridge
Coworkers consuming or throwing away labeled personal food leaves employees unable to keep snacks or drinks at work without them disappearing. This forces people to resort to suboptimal workarounds like keeping items at their desks or buying expensive cafeteria lunches instead.
What people tried
Every workaround mentioned in the threads below. We haven’t tested any of them — and nobody here is claiming they worked.
Found another way around this?
Share your steps and trade-offs so fellow engineers don't have to reinvent the wheel. No account required.
- 1keeping a bottle on my desk and filling a glass full of ice when I feel like itDid this help you?
- 2labelling the bottle with my name, marking the level, or wrapping it on a plastic bagDid this help you?
- 3switching to single-use can/bottles of soft drinkDid this help you?
- 4stop bringing in fizzy drinksDid this help you?
- 5Buying cheap cafeteria lunches insteadDid this help you?
- 6Talking to the person about not eating certain foodsDid this help you?
- 7Setting aside meal portions and putting them in a lunch bag or Tupperware in the fridgeDid this help you?
- 8Getting a mini fridge for your own space or work loungeDid this help you?
- 9Labeling leftovers with your name or a noteDid this help you?
In their words
Unedited, grouped by where they were said, most upvoted first within each place, each linked to the thread it came from.
“My partner's son (32) moved back to our home this summer... the dang guys eats everything.”source ↗
“I just want to take a key lime yogurt and some granola to my school, let alone a few cheese sticks... Instead, I go to the cafeteria and have a $5 lunch of carbs and salt.”source ↗
“Yet, my bottle has consistently disappeared. People are consuming it way more than I am willing to tolerate.”source ↗
“In the meantime, I'm just keeping a bottle on my desk and filling a glass full of ice when I feel like it. It's quite suboptimal but does the trick for now.”source ↗