Cake theft at work

[Villagegreenpreservation]

I work in an office where people bring in cake or treats pretty often- think every birthday/ anniversary/ rainy day/ Monday.
Usually the last to leave wraps them up and then we tuck in to any leftovers the next day.
Could explain my weight gain but I digress. We now have strange happenings however. For three weeks, any leftovers have disappeared. Not just the odd doughnut/ slice of cake but whole, unopened cakes and whole boxes of doughnuts and tubs of chocolate.
We have been told the cleaners likely think it's a perk and to take them and we need to communicate they should be left in the office. I think this is odd. Shouldn't you just leave the stuff especially if unopened and not immediately going out of date? Cleaners are external agency if that makes a difference.

In my experience the people quickest to blame the cleaners are usually the culprits. Especially if they then are particularly vocal about suggesting elaborate and impractical ways of finding out who it could be, that they know would never be implemented. Yes Tina who would go round the office at 6pm nicking anything that was not nailed down until finally being caught and sacked I am looking at you

I would send an email to everyone asking who has been taking the cakes....

do you really want to eat say-old donuts that have be left overnight?

My rule is never to touch office stuff that’s not been brought fresh but then I work in a very old building with a massive rodent problem...

Reporting the cleaners for theft is fucking ridiculous. They haven’t been told not to take the cake so if it is them, they may just think the cake has been left for them. Ask them first, it might not even be them.

I don’t think the police will be interested in a staff member taking leftover cake home.

Honestly if all these cakes explain your weight gain. I’d be glad someone took them! They’ve done you a favour

This cake in office really is out of hand these days

I also highly doubt it is the cleaners. The people who clean this office would never take anything.

My colleague on the other hand who always happens to work later than usual when treats are brought in often blames missing food on the cleaners. We found crumbs on his desk once

Reminds me of...

In our place it's a woman in a very senior position on extremely good money who swipes everything not nailed down. Not the cleaners, interns or graduates on a fraction of what she earns.

On a more serious note, is someone struggling financially and can't afford food? Has someone an eating disorder? Tred carefully.

That didn’t take long did it? 🙄. There’s always an apologist.

Is the cake being left out/put in a tin/fridge? You shouldnt leave food lying around on a desk

People who blame cleaners for things like this are vile.

Seconded shambles

I'm sure that there are greedy, dishonest cleaners about - there are also greedy, dishonest office managers, receptionists, typing pool slaveys, accountants, personnel managers, security staff etc.

I WOULD BE VERY SURPRISED IF IT'S THE CLEANERS !!!

a new cleaner took this to mean any food left about, even . . . . a large tin of roses, at end of day was to be binned

you should be grateful.

Roses are total shite these days.

(Of course, if it was in the Glory Days of Roses, then you would have been justified in nailing her to the walls of the city . . . )

I doubt it's cleaners, but have you left a note saying please do not touch on them? Where are they being stored?

More likely a CF worker taking them home.

@DimensionalShambler Not even surprised. My mum worked in M&S a few years ago and one of the upper management staff was caught robbing proceeds. Some people are just incredibly greedy.

I was working in an office. I had bought cheese sandwiches in for lunch which I left in the fridge. When I went to get them at lunchtime, someone had taken the cheese out of them!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Blimey!

That's even worse than our CF. "Someone" (we knew who, but couldn't prove it, IYSWIM) was stealing our biscuits, sugar, tea coffee, mile etc - and then had the nerve to post on FB that "The Schadenfreude lot's biscuits are cheap rubbish!"

They obviously realised later what they'd done and took it down, but not before it had been screenshotted (is that even a word?) and reported - they had shot themselves in the foot.

I was once in my office well after hours as I was finishing an assignment for my part time degree course. It was dark and the way my desk is positioned means I could see people coming into the office but they couldn't see me unless they craned their neck looking for me.

A security guard came in to do a sweep of the place and then he did a double take as he passed the break room, popped in and came out with a HUGE handful of our chocolates.

My colleague once came in early and found a cleaner sitting at her desk, gabbing away on her desk phone, drinking tea out of the mug her son had given her

Of course it shouldn't be assumed that it's the cleaner/security but these things do happen.

We have been stopped from leaving (even wrapped) food out because of the risk of vermin (which has been an issue in our building.) Anything left out gets thrown by the cleaners, even if it's unopened - mice do eat through cardboard after all! Maybe it's that but the message hasn't got through?

Everybody's noticeably slimmer since she left.

(I shit you not, for a meeting of 12 people she would bring 14 different full boxes of cake and biscuits 'so everyone would have something they like')

Out of interest, any idea where she works now?

Are you asking for a friend, Pickwick?

Again apologies. No slight is intended towards cleaners. No negative connotations were intended. Someone here said cleaners due to their access. I have my answer though from whoever put that cakes are out so there for the taking and this was my AIBU. i say it's not ok to take stuff just because it's there no matter who you are or where you work. They become suspects as last person to leave said they were still there and only the cleaners enter the office after hours. Perhaps I should have used the words "night shift"to remove the word cleaner and subsequent discussions. And yes I'm fat. And yes I know it's my fault.

We now have a policy at work that all Perishable food is disposed of at the end of the week OK, not at the end of the day. Could there be something similar going on where you work?

In a previous job we had a spate of food going missing off a table in the office. I had a couple of people blame me as I was last to leave at night. We started putting things away in drawers, the manager thought we were overreacting and needed to get over it, until it stopped being the odd biscuit and they started taking stuff out of drawers including his expensive parker pen! Luckily we had CCTV on both doors into the office and HR caught a newly appointed night shift warehouse manager go through one door with nothing and out through the other door with a bag full of our stuff! Got him sacked but serves him right!

Perhaps it's someone who's struggling for money and doesn't have much food. Definitely use some kind of camera to find out, but go easy when trying to work out the motive.

Either leave a sign on the food saying (Please do not take the food) or a really mean one, Leave boxes that are empty, but when they open it the words " Petty thief " are written inside. Sounds more like a misunderstanding to me, unless their are rats in the office, or a hungry cat, but I assume the food is in a cupboard.

There are so many possibilities. I hope you have something leftover today so we can have an update tomorrow