Employee buys a new fridge for the office after unknown coworker keeps stealing her lunch: 'I put a little lock on it just for extra peace of mind.'

She took matters into her own hands!

There's something particularly egregious about stealing somebody's lunch out of the shared work fridge. They packed that lunch specifically for that day, and some genius took it, thinking they wouldn't miss it! IMHO, it's much worse than accidentally stealing something from your roommates' shared fridge. At least in that case, it makes sense that you might mistakenly think one of the three packages of provolone cheese is yours. If your roommate leaves a pizza box full of uneaten pizza from the night before on the countertop, you can probably assume they didn't care much about preserving it for the next day: otherwise, they would've wrapped it up and put it in the fridge. Obviously, with roommates, you can't just assume that the food they specifically prepared is up for grabs, unless you've already discussed it. But prepared food brought to an office fridge cannot be mixed up the way that food in a regular fridge is. I know I didn't pack a ham sandwich for lunch today, so if I just happen to come upon one, I know it must not be mine.

If you've worked in an office with ample snacks and beverages, you know that there's a big difference between snacks for everyone and a lunch that one specific person obviously packed. If you can't figure that out, you might not be the brightest crayon in the box.