Do you help yourself to condiments in the breakroom fridge?

I admit to pilfering half and half for my coffee once or twice, but only after establishing I was leaving plenty for a coffeeholic for the rest of the day. And I replaced it.

I got the okay from a colleague to use her creamer, but she was keeping the foil on the top to foil would-be creamer thieves. Otherwise, no.

The only thing I touch in my work's break room is stuff I've brought in myself, stuff obviously meant for everybody (i.e. when a client brings us cookies), stuff I have permission to use from said stuff's owner, and our community water cooler. Thats it.

No,

I use disposable packetts or do without, I don't like to use open containers that are available to a lot of people. (my health is important to me)

Only the one's I've brought in myself

But then I don't worry about if others are using them either.

(E.G. I have some Sweet Baby Ray's for when I eat chicken nuggets.)

Mostly I just make my stuff at home, though

I mostly use the lunch break as a chance to get out but no, I don't ever use somebody else's stuff. I shared a large office with another girl for a while and brought in communal salt and pepper shakers for us, plus we each had a few things in our desk that we would share if somebody forgot something.

Oddly enough, I once bought a whole salad dressing container and wound up hating it. I left the bottle in the communal fridge with a note for somebody else to take it. It was full when it was thrown out months later. Of course, everybody else could have just hated it too... it was pretty bad!

There is unmarked margarine in our fridge that I occassionally use. Never seen anyone else use it, and I seem to be the only one who does use it. Am I bad? We seem to be very big on meetings with food and food days, so it's probably left over from bagel day or something.

I had some nice raspberry vinagrette dressing in the fridge. There was leftover chicken pecan salad from a meeting and someone grabbed my bottle of dressing and put it out with the salad. Dressing all used up, I never said anything. Next bottle I put my initials on.

We do have packets of mustard and mayo laying around. Several bottles of salad dressing with initials, hands off. Other condiments, take some if you need some.

Yeah, it's just a .99 bottle of mustard.

But I think the folks who habitually use stuff from the fridge they didn't bring themselves are also the people who take the last cup of coffee without making a new pot. And borrow stuff from your desk when you aren't there. And stand in your doorway when you're on the phone.....

I talk to the others in the lunch room and see if there is an informal 'policy' where people share condiments and when something is low, someone brings in a new bottle. No need to keep track of whose turn it is or who brough what, but just an informal way of sharing.

We are talking condiments here.

No. I do not pilfer the fridge.

And then over the last 3 months someone started pilfering my breakfast. I would eat half, and leave half for the next day.

That meant, when they stole it, I went hungry until lunch time.

I thought it was the cleaning crew-- but then came in late one night for work and it was still there- but was gone the next morning so it was a co-worker. A well paid professional.

I was tempted to go around and find whose trashcan the wrapper was in. I was also tempted to have some kind of staining ink in it. Then other people started to complain their closed containers were being pilfered too.

Finally, the departmental secretary started letting me put it in her private frig. I still think they should have put up a camera and busted the ass of the person doing it.

community refridge, you should expect it to be used. Half and Half is different, because it's more expensive, and unless it's a huge container, not suitable for community use.

I once caught someone using my half and half, so when they put it back, I chatted the up, the casually drank from the carton, commenting on how I love the taste of it.

KA

funny, they threw their coffee out.

No. But actually I think that people abandoning things for too long in the communal fridge is a bigger problem than people using things that aren't theirs, at least in my experience. Everyplace I have worked, someone will leave their crap there for ages and ages until it stinks to high heaven, until eventually someone else gets sick of it and cleans the fridge out. There have been times I have wished I knew whose rotten stinky junk it was so I could deposit it on their desk! Ugh.

AND it could also be that maybe they are just the folks that need a little mustard.

As you noted those that habitually just use and use, even a little, and NEVER buy are not being kind to their fellow office workers. But I'm not sure they are the ones that stand in the doorway (I hate those people!).

"No. But actually I think that people abandoning things for too long in the communal fridge is a bigger problem than people using things that aren't theirs,"

Funny that you should mention that, I once found a pasta salad way in the back. It was so old that it had completely dried out. I moved it to the front and put a note on it for the owner to deal with it. It was still there days later, so I threw bowl and all away. It was a nice bowl too, obviously part of an expensive set.

A month later, there was another pasta salad, in the process of drying out, also in the back of the fridge. Once again I moved it to the front, this time with a note stating that bowl and all would be tossed out (like the last one) if the owner didn't deal with it. The next day it was gone and I never saw a pasta salad in that fridge again.

When I first started at my previous job, each person would take a turn at going to one or more restaurants and bringing back food for everyone. Most of the time they also brought back packets of condiments and any left over packets would go into a drawer in the fridge. Since it was impossible to tell how old a packet was, nobody ever used them. The fridge hadn't been cleaned out in so long that there was scummy water in the bottom and somthing sticky running down the back wall. It took me 4 hours to clean that thing out, it was so messy. And, I threw away all of the old packets of condiments too. The next day, one of my coworkers wanted some mayo and couldn't find any. But at least the fridge was still nice and clean.

At my company,

Food is cleared every friday night- no exceptions.

And the last friday of the month, everything is cleared- no exceptions.