“I worked with a woman who stole my coffee cups (I’d bring my own cups to work), apparently whenever she felt annoyed with me. I had no idea who was stealing my cups – four of them went missing – until we were looking for a replacement printer cartridge – they were nowhere to be found and weren’t on the shelf where they usually were. My coworker and I decided that since the lady in question was the person that normally replaced the printer cartridges and was in charge of ordering them, that the cartridge might be on or in her desk.
So we went over to her desk (she wasn’t there at the time obviously) and opened up the only drawer big enough to hold a big honking printer cartridge to see if one was there. We were NOT snooping and got a manager’s permission to take a look. There were my cups. And she hadn’t been taking only my stuff. She’d been filching stuff from other people and collecting it there too. Why she kept it at work instead of taking it home, I have no idea.
I put them all on my desk where she could see them. Instead of apologizing she became outraged that I’d gone into her desk and began screaming at me and saying how dare I violate her privacy and tried to rally the office against me. She didn’t look happy when the other people she’d stolen from silently put their retrieved property on their desks and glared at her.
She was gone by the end of the next week.
The crazy thing was she seemed like such a nice person. I would never have suspected her of doing anything like that. Just goes to show that you never can tell.”