Woman fired for stealing pregnant colleague's lunch every day

Would you be brave enough to steal from a pregnant woman every single day? Photo / Getty Images

Leaving your food in the communal work fridge can be dangerous at the best of times. You may have experienced the odd colleague pinching your yoghurt - or your less generic beef stir-fry sandwich.

You could probably let it go if this crafty colleague pinched your lunch once or twice, but what if it was every single day?

A pregnant woman has taken to Reddit to share her daily ordeal with a fellow staffer who seemed hell-bent on taking the lunch the woman's husband, a chef, prepared for her each day.

She wrote: "I need to eat well because I'm naturally thin, I'm still breastfeeding my toddler and I am pregnant - so I began labelling my food hoping that would deter the thief. It didn't.

"I even put a note on the fridge that said: 'Please stop taking my food. I am pregnant and breastfeeding and this is negatively affecting my health' - that didn't work."

Trying to find a solution to the problem, she sent an email around the office letting whoever stole her food know that her husband could, in fact, make their lunch too if they paid a small fee.

While several people came forward wanting to take her up on the offer, the thief did not. Instead, they continued to steal the woman's food.

The chef prepared lunch was being stolen every day from the work fridge. Photo / Getty Images

"By now, other people who I worked with were eating the same food as me but mine was still being taken," she continued, explaining that her lunch was clearly identifiable as she brought it in a special container.

If that wasn't rude enough, the thief would leave the woman's dirty container in the sink for her to clean.

Forced to get HR involved, she bought cameras to catch the thief in the act.

According to the post, soon after, an older woman in a senior role at the company was caught stealing the lunch.

The pregnant woman went on to share that she outed the woman in the most satisfying way.

She added: "The thief was a middle-aged woman making triple what I am making, if not more. I often sit in on her interviews with executives to take minutes and help flip through the slides.

"So when the lunch thief was doing her Q&A, I put the image of her stealing my food up on the screen - people in the room started chuckling, and she turned back to look at the screen in horror."

The woman noted her bosses were extremely angry to find out who it was. One of the other executives was also pregnant. And instead of receiving the promotion she was going for, she was fired.

"She was terminated," the poster wrote on the Reddit thread: "Am I the a**hole(?) I didn't want her to get fired, I just wanted her to stop."

"If they'd talked to me about it, I wouldn't have wanted to get her terminated.

"If I found out it was a janitor or someone on the breadline I would never have done such a thing - but I truly felt there were no excuses and this was a bit threatening. So am I the a**hole?"

Over 2000 people responded to the story, with most supporting her actions and insisting the staff member was wrong and should not have been stealing in the first place.

One person responded: "You didn't get her fired - she got herself fired by being a thief despite many opportunities to stop and not get punished."

Another agreed: "Her actions are what got her fired - exposing her for being a thief doesn't make you an a**hole at all - behaviour like this shouldn't be tolerated in any work environment."

"You are definitely not," said one user. "She was stealing from a pregnant woman - this could've adversely effected your pregnancy and your milk supply. She deserves to be fired!"