u/GlobeCoder

I work in a mid-sized office and for the past three months I kept noticing my lunch was either gone or partially eaten when I went to get it from the break room fridge. I meal prep on Sundays it takes me two hours because I have a specific dietary restriction and can't just "grab something." Every week. Gone.

I assumed it was a mistake at first. I put a sticky note with my name on it. Still happened. I started putting my lunch in a bag with my name written in marker on every single container. Still happened. I mentioned it to my manager vaguely and got a generic "please label your food" email sent to the whole office. Cool. Very helpful.

Last Tuesday I came in early and set up my phone propped behind a coffee machine to record. Sure enough, at 11:47am I watched my coworker Sandra who I sit NEXT TO and say good morning to every single day open the fridge, pull out my clearly-labelled lunch, smell it, shrug, and walk off with it.

I confronted her calmly. I said "Sandra I saw you take my lunch, that's been happening for months and it's not okay." You know what she said? She smiled and told me I was a "really good cook" and that I should "take it as a compliment." Then she walked away.

I went straight to HR. I had the video. I had three months of documented instances I'd quietly been keeping track of in my notes app. HR was... actually shocked. Apparently Sandra had a prior written warning for the exact same thing at this company two years ago that I didn't know about.

She's been put on a final written warning. She has to reimburse me for the estimated cost of the stolen lunches (HR asked me to calculate it it came to $340). She had to formally apologize to me in front of HR, which was the most satisfying four minutes of my professional life.

She still sits next to me and hasn't spoken to me since, which honestly? Perfect. I will meal prep in peace.

ETA: for everyone asking yes I did label my food, no I did not eat "smelly food," no I don't think I "drove her to it" by making food that looked too good. She is a grown adult who made a choice for three months straight. The compliment thing is NOT a personality quirk it is deranged.

I'm 29. My brother is 17. When our dad died four years ago he left some money behind not a lot, around $11,000 and because I was the oldest and the only one with a bank account that made any sense at the time, it ended up sitting with me. My mom trusted me with it. My brother trusted me with it. They never asked about it because why would they. I was supposed to be the responsible one.

For about two years I didn't touch it. It just sat there. Then sometime last year I started reading about trading, watching videos, feeling like I understood things I didn't actually understand. I told myself I'd grow the money. That I was doing something good. That $11k could become $20k by the time he needed it and I'd be the one who made that happen for him.

I lost almost all of it. I have $1,200 left.

I've been trying to win it back for six months. I found this app and set alerts and these trading stuff. For a while it was working. I clawed back maybe $3,000 at one point. Then I made a decision the app specifically flagged as high risk and I ignored the flag and I lost it all in two days. That was on me. The app told me not to. I did it anyway because I was desperate and desperate people are idiots.

My brother texted me three weeks ago excited about a college fair he went to. He's thinking engineering. He's the smartest person in our family by a distance. He has no idea there's nothing there for him.

I haven't slept properly since March. I've been doing extra shifts and putting every dollar I can spare back into that account but I'm at $1,200 and I need $11,000 and September is in four months and I don't know what to do. I can't tell my mom. I cannot tell my mom. She's already been through so much and this money was one of the last things my dad left.

I just needed to say it out loud somewhere because it's been eating me alive and I haven't said it to a single person.

I know what I did. I'm not looking for anyone to make me feel better about it.