Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

March 31, 2000

PILFERING INGRATES

   The homemade cheesecake with its "Happy Birthday" message was placed in the office refrigerator to await the festivities planned for later in the day.  But when the party for the cherished co-worker was to begin, the worst was discovered: The cake was no longer there. 

   "It had simply vanished. It has never been seen since," said an employee of a Sacramento, Calif., company who recounted the exasperating incident. Such tales of pilfering from the communal company refrigerator are common. It is a sad but true fact that in many American workplaces, one's bologna sandwich is not safe from one's colleagues. 

   Take the case of Donna's tub of chocolate chip cookie dough.  She put the tub of cookie dough she bought as part of a school fund-raiser in the office refrigerator with the intention of taking it home that night. But when quitting time came, the tub had vanished. Infuriated, Donna fired off a lengthy note of indignation that said, in effect: "I hope you are enjoying my cookies. My children were looking forward to baking these cookies over the weekend. Now you've disappointed them."  She couldn't have been more angry if it had been her grandmother's brooch that had been stolen, one of her friends recalled. Donna's name has been changed for this story. For that matter, all who were interviewed for this story requested anonymity for fear that their offices would be forever branded as hotbeds of stolen yogurt. They all spoke with deep disgust, however. These crimes of the stomach are not soon forgotten or easily forgiven. People steal from company refrigerators, according to the victims, because: 

• They are lazy and rude. 

• Everyone else seems to be doing it. 

• They rarely get caught. 

• They think no one would ever suspect them.

   "This just rationalizes and justifies their behavior. It doesn't mean it's right. It just gives you your own reason for doing it," said Frank Bucaro, the author of "Taking the High Road: How to Succeed Ethically When Others Bend the Rules." "It's just nuts. People feel their turf is being violated. If my name is on the bag and the bag is gone, I am being violated here," he said. "Part of the problem is they don't realize what the effect is on those around them. I equate the decision [to steal food] to throwing a rock in a pond. No matter how small or big the rock is, or thus the decision is, it makes ripples. It affects other people."  And if someone is brazen enough to steal a banana, what else is he or she taking? Bucaro asked. "That's what I call the 'moral spiral.' One issue leads to another, leads to another leads to another, leads to another." 

   A 1999 survey from Michael G. Kessler & Associates, an international investigative and forensic accounting firm in New York, turned up some pretty astounding facts on office theft of all kinds. About 79 percent of employees steal from their employers to the tune of more than $120 billion a year. In fact, the study concluded that "not only do employees steal, they out-steal shoplifters." 

   Nan DeMars, an office ethics expert, columnist for OfficeClick.com, and the author of "You Want Me to Do WHAT? When, Where and How to Draw the Line at Work," asks how much is too much?  "We all know that we take pens. We use the telephones for personal calls and the fax machines and the copy machines. I go down to two words: 'reasonable use,' " she said. "I think most companies are putting in their [employee] handbooks the simple statement that all of these things can be 'used' by personnel if it is 'reasonable use."   

But taking someone's croissant was over the line with her.  "Stealing somebody's lunch probably isn't reasonable use. Just common courtesy tells you that you should at least ask the person," she said.  No one asked Lisa, an administrative assistant for a Sacramento nonprofit, if her Snapple could be taken. That happened several times. And one day, someone swiped two bottles of Snapple.  "I'd write my name on them but people were still helping themselves. It would happen during business hours, which meant it was one of my co-workers," she said. She stopped short of insisting on random Breathalyzer tests or dusting the refrigerator for sticky fingerprints. "When you go to grab one in the afternoon and it is not there, you get a little upset," Lisa said. "I put a note up on the refrigerator: 'Whoever stole it, no questions asked, just please replace them. You don't have to tell me who you are. Just leave them on my desk.' Of course, I got no response." 

   The types of things taken without permission from the office fridge are quite baffling: At one downtown Sacramento office building, a worker brought in some muffins only to later discover that someone had eaten all the tops. One woman partially ate one half of her sandwich before re-wrapping it and putting it back in the refrigerator. Someone unwrapped it, took the uneaten half and rejected the nibbled portion. Another worker was looking forward to the won-ton soup he brought in for lunch. But someone drank the broth, leaving the noodles behind.  One person even sent out an office e-mail: "Would the person who keeps stealing my lunch out of the office fridge please let me know if you need the money. I'll be happy to pay for your lunch. Just leave mine alone."