AIBU to feel uncomfortable after builder helped himself to fridge drinks?

Yeah, no, it's not me picking away incredulously and repeatedly at what drinks other people have in their fridges and their motives behind giving them out😁

I earn just above min wage and if it’s hot I offer what I’ve got. Postman usually asks to fill his water bottle up. Guys working on the roof, and it was really hot so I offered water or a can of pop and an ice pop
if I have someone in doing work I offer whenever I’m making something so a brew or cold drink, yes a bacon barm or toast or cake
i like cooking for people and don’t get to do it often enough!

I understand your annoyance, but setting up hidden cameras inside your home to film people is gross.

YANBU. It’s theft and a breach of your trust. Perhaps they’re young and thoughtless? Perhaps they see you as a soft touch because you’ve give them ice lollies and bacon sandwiches? I’d speak directly to the person doing it and tell them the fridge is off-limits. I wouldn’t mention the cameras, but I’d use the cameras to check if they complied. If they didn’t, I’d tell their boss, if they did, I wouldn’t tell the boss.

I’d also stop giving them premium pop. Water and cheaper stuff is fine, along with tea and coffee. It will then be routine food and drinks to them, not anything that tempts them to rifle through your fridge.

What is an ethical drink in the first place? why does that have to be even part of the sentence…? I’m certainly not angry about cans of pop but it’s all over performative nonsense half the time.

Mumsnet is bonkers i won’t take that back. Of course their is a diverse community but there’s also a lot of over exaggeration.

@Furrypaws18 have you said anything to the main man yet?

it’s all over performative nonsense half the time.
Ah, so that's it. Because it's not a can of something very mainstream like Coke or Tizer but what the poster calls an 'ethical drink' that involves fruit juice and fizzy water (personally I'm imagining my favourite, Dalston's Cherry Soda), it's 'performative'.
There certainly is a section of MN that is bonkers and scoffs/has a conniption/comes over all Citizen Smith if anyone dares mention that they eat organic/like real coffee/shop anywhere but Lidl.

what a stupid message. I'm sure op can think up something more grown up than that

It was reasonable for @Rainbows246 yo ask what an ‘ethical drink’ was. You’ve responded as if they should have known but it wasn’t clear what @Anyahyacinthmeant by that phrase. She wrote:
“I hand him a can of pop..an ethical one that quenches thirst..fruit juice, sparkly water..”

The ellipses give the above paragraph ambiguity. A possible interpretation (albeit probably not the correct one) of the above could mean the poster gives the postman a can of pop or fruit juice or sparkly water.

Writing like the above is performative imo. Just be clear and use proper sentences.
Personally I’m amazed at how many posters refer to fizzy drinks like Coke as “pop” and I find that performative in a few instances as no one I know does.

@ABoldStatement it is called pop in northern England and the Midlands

Thanks, must be some parts only though, definitely isn’t the whole of the north. My mum’s northern (very up north) and her and her very large family don’t call it pop.

Bloody hell, it's like doing an English Language A level again.
I thought it was pretty obvious, given the context, to read the ellipses as equivalent to commas or round brackets. It's not arcane knowledge that canned drinks exist that involve fruit juice, fizzy water, less or no sugar and no artificial flavourings; and it's not difficult to infer that 'an ethical one' means one of these drinks.
If a person is struggling with that, it's easy to google (just tried it and the info is clear and extensive).
I'm not sure if you're saying her writing is deliberately performative and therefore it annoys you, or unclear and therefore you/people find it hard to understand.
I'd think 'pop' for e.g. Coke was easily understood, even if it's not a term you use yourself.

I'm interested; what do they call it? And how north? I was amazed when I went to live in Scotland that people called things like Coke and Irn-Bru 'juice' or 'ginger'.

Let it go. Its cans of pop. Please don't complain. It will make a really uncomfortable atmosphere.

YANBU. I had tradesmen in my house this week and had to be out for around 4h over lunch. They stole Indian takeaway i had in the fridge as well as my kids leftover pizza. So outrageously rude. Like you say it's the loss of trust and the violation, not the stuff itself.

@AlwaysExtraHot

Oh that brings back memories - I have not heard the word ' ginger ' for a fizzy drink for years.

That IS outrageous.
And I know it's all bad, but I am particularly exercised about the leftover pizza. If I have pizza and there's some left, I wake up the next morning excited about getting to eat it. I'd be gutted.

Me either! (left Scotland in the early 00s). It mystified me at first; I couldn't work out why people only talked about drinking ginger-flavoured pop

I presume, given your opening sentence, that you actually intended to be condescending and rude?

Anyahyacinth didn’t use (or format) the ellipses properly, so it wasn’t clear. I got what she meant but I can also understand if others didn’t. It can be particularly hard for people who are neurodivergent to sometimes parse sentences that aren’t constructed properly.

Just because things are obvious to you, doesn’t mean they will be to others. Likewise, just because you would google something and not ask what something means on MN doesn’t mean others will. I'm surprised that you - who apparently is quick to find things obvious - haven’t realised this from even a modicum of MN use. MN is full of people asking questions. That might irritate you, but I mean, MN is a discussion forum, it's par for the course ...

As I said, I got what Anyahyacinth meant but to answer your Q, I found it performative for both the reasons you suggest.

Get a fridge lock from Amazon. Under a tenner and you can remove it when the building work is done. I'd be tempted to wonder what else he might be stealing though.

Don’t replace the one in the fridge

You must be paying them thousands for the work, in this heat I genuinely wouldn't rock the boat for the cost of a couple of cans of drink a day and potentially create an issue which could escalate and cause you more issues if they decide do a shit job from now on.

Given its going well and you'd use them again maybe just don't put anything pinchable in the fridge when they're going to be there.

See now myself amd everyone i know who has builders in makes them s cooked breakfast and lunch depending on the time.
I work in construction and its the norm