Thought I would lighten things up a bit and write about a subject that, while a little light, is a sore spot for some employees. Imagine that it's early afternoon and you've put a solid few hours of work - you are ready for an energy infusion (e.g. lunch). You open the fridge and find that someone else has beaten you to your lunch and decided they needed it more. You now feel like this is not going to be a good afternoon. Other than the fact that you have to eat out of a vending machine now, you realize that there is someone in your office that has very little respect for boundaries. Maybe though, this person left you a little bit of food (you know, because they felt bad)...
What should you do? You could take the route of striking back and some passive-aggressive tactics. Some interesting ideas (culled from actual employee strike backs):
hide your food in a jar labeled "medical specimen"
hide food in the back of the refrigerator
camouflage your lunch as in this clip at HuffingtonPost Canada
Or, you could make an attempt to instill a little guilt and peer awareness into the perpetrator by leaving a note stating "hope you enjoyed that leftover chicken and rice, maybe try bringing in some for yourself". If lunch stealing becomes a constant issue, your office manager could try posting signs that send a clear warning to stay away from food they didn't bring.
There are several articles on the topic and even a web site, Passive AggressiveNotes.com *(note: site contains some content not entirely suitable for children) devoted to the topic of addressing (or redressing) those individuals who feel compelled and entitled to liberating your lunch.
