Customer eats employee lunch

Mom and I went to lunch at The Boardwalk (burger and pizza joint) one afternoon. There was a group of office workers finishing up when these three dudes sit nearby.

After the group leaves, one of the three dudes gets up, circles the office group's now empty table and picks up all the left over pizza slices. Then he goes up to the counter and asks for a to-go box. He sits back down and starts chowing down. The other two dudes are embarrassed as heck.

Before we leave, Mom gestures to the scavenger and asks, "You want my left over fries?"

Mom and I had some great laughs over the years.

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Me and Mom - circa 1961
 
My point is that if you have a refrigerator in an area designated for customers, along with snacks and drinks for said customers, I could easily see a customer assuming anything in said refrigerator was fair game.
ESPECIALLY Euro-premium car dealers (and repair shops)! The folks that go there LOVE being pampered. And they're narcissists, at a greater percentage than the general population. They'll probably be back in 5k miles for the next oil change wondering where those delightful free salads went!

These people have sticky fingers and aren't often told "no."

The real problem for morale is your boss doesn't have enough fridge space for his people. They should either do a Friday 5 pm clean-out every week or just get another fridge. They're free on the side of the road!
 
ESPECIALLY Euro-premium car dealers (and repair shops)! The folks that go there LOVE being pampered. And they're narcissists, at a greater percentage than the general population. They'll probably be back in 5k miles for the next oil change wondering where those delightful free salads went!

Yep to the level of service they may be accustomed to.

Not all are Narcissists, however. You find Narcissists across all walks of life.

Some people just like high-end cars, and may be used to being pampered while having their car serviced. I think it very well could have been a customer that didn't realize they had done anything wrong, and were just enjoying what they thought was a nice perk.
 
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Things happen. They probably though you guys are really great in hospitality. I guess the manager / boss should start adding another fridge in the employee area to prevent this from happening again?

If I were the manager / owner I would probably just buy the employee another salad to make her feel better. It is not something worth demoralizing the staff over.
 
When I was a sales manager at a large IT provider, we had a community fridge on each floor. Without fail, one of our engineering specialists would go into the fridge from time to time, and grab someone's lunch and eat it. Still blows my mind, but apparently, it's not that rare that it happens.
Sometimes accident happen. People having the same container and sometimes people have to leave early and grab the wrong box heading home, or took out someone else's lunch to eat at a friend's company and found out it is someone else's lunch after you are 5 miles away.
 
Some people just like high-end cars, and may be used to being pampered while having their car serviced. I think it very well could have been a customer that didn't realize they had done anything wrong, and were just enjoying what they thought was a nice perk.
I once met a client / vendor at a Lexus dealership for a $100 oil change back in the mid 90s for 5 quart of dino oil. I was asking him why and he said he likes the service.

Gotta say they have the best looking admin ladies though, and he was already 75 years old and rich, so I guess why not spend the way he wants if it makes him happy.
 
I respectfully disagree. Drinks and bagged snacks look like public items. A solitary pre-packaged chicken salad does not.

It "could" look like that's so popular they are gone within 1 hour and this is the last one left. Honestly, things can happen like someone toss out a left over "free snack" to the crowd.

We had IT department putting left over party snacks inside cable vending machine (we had those so people who need a few cables don't have to bother human and it saves labor cost). Obviously they are gone fast.
 
What is mankind missing here?
There has to be a sealable bag, lunch box or pouch...something in which to place your lunch to make it singular.
Heck, a paper bag with your name on it will do, unless the perp WANTS/PLANS to steal.

Best:
I found a lunch bag made of wet suit (scuba diver) material scraps. It insulated wonderfully.
My sister, who worked in a busy lab featuring wizard chemists, administrators to packaging and shipping guys, requested it.
Nobody ever touched her lunch.

Honorable Mention:
I worked with a guy who made his lunch to fit in a brick sized box. It took up minimal space.
He wrote "Turd Sample" on the side. The box was OK but he was told to change the wording.

to bdcardinal: Re going out, ain't it the truth.
The many times I had my lunch with me but still went out...just to get out for a while.
 
So then your coworker shouldn't store their unmarked, store-bought, common pre-packaged container lunches in the customer waiting area fridge and your shop owner should stop being a cheap skate and buy a normal sized fridge to keep the employee stuff separate from the public area.

Personally, I would have never taken it considering who would spend money for chicken salad for a customer waiting area outside of granola bars and the overly ripe banana but I wouldn't excuse the lack of planning from the employee that went into storing such a lunch in a publicly accessible area.
 
One time we ordered a pizza on the weekend (Before we had kids and there were leftovers lol) so my wife packed a leftover slice and an apple into a plastic grocery bag and placed it into the breakroom fridge at her office each day for the following work week. On Friday at lunchtime, she went to retrieve her lunch and it was missing... She asked everyone what happened to it, and one nurse piped up: "It was in there since Monday, so I threw it out!" My wife replied "No, it was a new one every day!" 😞
 
This is hardly a new phenomenon. There are freeloaders everywhere, and always has been. I have concluded the people with this mentality know nothing will happen to them. This individual got a free lunch. They were never going to be charged with theft, asked to leave (there a customer) or told not to come back. So they did the math in their head and figured there was zero downside, because they simply have no morals nor care what we think.

500 years ago they would have been beat to a pulp by the lunch's owner. Modern society has defeated natural selection.
 
If it is not mine, I don't touch it. Simple common sense. I did have a lunch pirate when I was working at a place in my mid 20's. My wife would make 7 layer bars (coconut condensed milk, graham crackers, and CHOCOLATE) Needless to say, this was the lunch pirates main target. he would always take that and every so often take the sandwich. So 75% Exlax went into the next batch and I made the pieces he took a good 40% larger. Nothing was ever taken again. But then again, I taped everything in plastic bags with tape that would not allow removal from the plastic bag without destroying it. The only way in was tearing through the plastic. I was a bit paranoid of payback.
 
I once met a client / vendor at a Lexus dealership for a $100 oil change back in the mid 90s for 5 quart of dino oil. I was asking him why and he said he likes the service.
And these guys, the upper-middle-management twits, looove getting their status symbols serviced. That's why they always have it done during business hours. They even try to get a low level secretary or someone to give them a ride to the Jaaaaaag dealer just to reinforce their ownership of a Jaaaaag. And if the car needs more than normal maintenance it's a flex that they get the time off without consequence to take care of their Jaaaaag.
 
Exactly why is a refrigerator in the customer waiting area???

Cold water or other small drinks. I've been to a few shops/dealers and medical offices that do this in the waiting area. The real concern is why the owner isn't buying a properly sized fridge so all the employees can store their lunch away from the front of the house. IMO it's disdainful at the owners for being cheap and making the employees store their stuff where the general public can access it; because situations like this happens.
 
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