Label your food!!

[Midorikawa]

I suggest a better rule: If it's not your food, keep your hands off of it!

Except then the fridge never gets cleaned. The one here in the Dungeon(tm) I work at is jammed full of rotting food that a few someones brought, never ate, and left to rot. I couldn't even fit my 1liter water bottle I throw in the freezer to chill while I drink something carbonated, plus my sammiches I'll eat today. I have almost no sense of smell, and opening the fridge today brought tears to my eyes from the stench.

Today, my mission is to don a hazmat suit, grab a 12 gauge, handle the zombies in there, and then clean out the fridge. Anything unlabeled goes. Nice sentiment, but doesn't work in practice, sadly. :-/

[Bright_Star]

I have to say though, I resent the idea that food gets thrown out if it's not labeled. All the more reason to buy lunch in the in-house McDonalds so I don't have to worry.

I suggest a better rule: If it's not your food, keep your hands off of it!

Well, if it's NOT labeled & someone goes to clean the fridge, then how are they supposed to know how long it's been in there? Does someone wait till it got mold & fungus & who know what manor of nasty things growing on it before it's meant to be thrown out? Cleaning out the fridge & throwing out questionable items is meant to prevent people from getting sick. Now maybe some people don't care about that BUT I do.

[Dave1982]

There's no reason why anything needs to be in there for longer than a typical work shift. At the end of the day, it ought to be EMPTY. Take your shit home!!!!

I agree with everything except this bit. Sometimes what I do if I'm working several days in a row where I get a meal break I get some deli meat and a pack of rolls and leave the meat in the fridge and make sandwiches for a few days.

Of course, the difference here is that the meat has a date on it, and I don't abandon it. If I don't finish it I take the rest home.

[Ben_Who]

Yeah, I had an overzealous staffer throw away my lunch before. On more than one occasion. Always the lunch that I had brought in THAT DAY. Interestingly enough, she had left behind frozen food that had been in the freezer long enough to glaciate.

I don't see anything wrong with bringing in a week's worth of lunches. I mean, what is a week's worth of lunches? A loaf of bread, a bag of cold cuts, and a small jar of Gulden's Mustard? I'm not storing food for a flood; I'm just bearing in mind that I can't remember to bring a lunch every single day and nothing is open at 10PM when I finally get my lunch break.

I don't know whose life is so disorganized that they go through the trouble of bringing food to work and then forget that it's there until it turns to compost, but I think that rather than just being a big non-confrontational chicken about it and throwing away everything except the light bulb, a policy should be placed in the break room and those responsible for transgressions dealt with on an individual basis.

Love, Who?

[Solumina]

We have a policy of everything gets tossed on Fridays, it never actually happens though. I think I was the last one to toss someone else’s stuff, I got rid of the sandwich fixings that were left by someone that doesn't work here and some stuff that had been there since before I started in April (thankfully that was all in containers so I don't know the true scope of their horror).

[Android Kaeli]

I, myself, have no problem with people leaving things for their work week. I've done it before, other people have done it before.

Unfortunately, 8/10 times we STILL have to throw stuff away because things have been sitting in there for WEEKS. I was looking through the fridge today because the new ASM [poor thing] is going to be cleaning it out, the MOD at the time was in the breakroom with me. I look in the freezer and found two frozen dinners in there, with a reciept, that had been in there since late February and a frozen breakfast sandwich that was moldy.

Also the MOD had to throw out a few bottles of salad dressing, because the bottles had expired in April. There were a few other things in there had been left that had to be thrown away, because we didn't know who brought it in and when.

I'm all for people thinking ahead when it comes to bringing in lunches and snacks for their breaks, but at the same time they don't think ahead when it comes to taking it out of the fridge and home with them. Quite often management has to throw out half full 2 litter bottles because said bottles have been in there for a week or two and no one finishes them off/takes them home.

Honestly, I think it'll save a lot of time, effort, and wasted annoyance if everyone labels their food and drinks with a date.

[Difdi]

I'm the designated fridge-cleaner for my place of business, and there are four rules that are clearly enumerated to new hires:

1) You can put your food in the fridge, and even leave it overnight if you work more than one day in a row, but it goes home with you if you won't be working in the next 24 hours.

2) Food gets labeled with name and date, or it's considered unowned.

3) Anything unowned, or owned by someone who hasn't worked in the last 24 hours gets tossed out at the end of the day shift. No exceptions.

4) Don't abuse the privilege with oversized items.

We had to add rule #4 after one guy wanted to store an entire frozen turkey in the freezer (completely filling it) and he had a "lunchbox" in the cooler section that you could fit four one-gallon jugs of milk into. Naturally, he was the first employee to arrive that day, and there was literally no room for anyone else's food after he stored his stuff (he had to rearrange the wire shelves to make room for his "lunchbox" ).

[Magpie]

I confess to having stored the results of shopping in the fridge a few times. I worked really close to the farmer's market once, and I'd stick fruit in the fridge when I came back. But since it was after lunch, no one was using the fridge anymore anyhow. (Office job, no shift workers, so everyone had lunch at about the same time). I do it here too, but there's normally room in the fridge. It's mostly used for holding supplies for people to assemble lunches, rather than that day's lunch. I figure if we have someone from the second floor using our fridge (yes, they have one), then there's enough space in here for me to stick a couple of baskets from the on-campus market. And I take them home that night.

[JLG]

Our fridge gets cleaned out every Friday and no name or date means it goes in the trash.

I have been guilty of bringing a few days worth of lunches to work because it is nice not to worry about lunch for a few days, especially when the weather is over 100 degrees outside. But I buy frozen stuff and label it with my name and date.

Right now some chick at work has a huge lunch bag in the fridge that has been there for weeks. I have not seen her open that bag at all. She usually only works four hour shifts and goes outside to smoke on her one break. I am afraid to put my lunch next to that bag.

We are also not allowed to store plates, bowls or cups in the cupboards we have because so many people would leave their dirty used plates, bowls and cups on the breakroom table If you bring some in and forget to take them home it gets tossed.

[telecom_goddess]

Guess we are lucky....we have 2 big fridges for each floor we occupy in this building....and they get cleaned out once a month. If you have stuff you want to keep in there you can keep it as long as you want as long as it's labeled with a fairly current date. Condiments tend to be left alone cause really they don't go bad for like YEARS.

[Shalom]

Today, my mission is to don a hazmat suit, grab a 12 gauge, handle the zombies in there, and then clean out the fridge. Anything unlabeled goes. Nice sentiment, but doesn't work in practice, sadly. :-/

At least you don't need a flamethrower...

[Merriweather]

I have to say though, I resent the idea that food gets thrown out if it's not labeled. All the more reason to buy lunch in the in-house McDonalds so I don't have to worry.

I suggest a better rule: If it's not your food, keep your hands off of it!

A lot of people prefer to bring food from home in order to eat cheaper or healthier than buying fast food each day, or for dietary restrictions. But they shouldn't have to store it in a filthy fridge filled with molding food left for months on end. Unless you have spectacular employees who never leave anything in there, there's really no way to keep the fridge clean and healthy without tossing old stuff, and only way to know what's old is to make everyone label it.

Advance warning should be given, and a set rule on "how old is old", combined with a box of some type of sticky lables and pen kept handy would certainly make it more fair to everyone, but I see no problem with tossing out someone else's food when it may be a health hazard to others.

Former co-worker had a VERY expensive bowl and plate on the breakroom table. Very expensive bowl and plate isn't being used at the time, totally empty, bowl and plate get thrown out when cleaning time comes around. SM gets bitched at and asked to pay for said bowl and plate.

Why on earth would anyone take an expensive bowl & plate into work? When I worked in an office (only place I've worked that actually had a fridge for employees) I wouldn't even take my lunch in my good Tupperware, I used those "reusable" containers. And though I kept a fork and spoon in my desk drawer, it was ones I picked up at a garage sale, not out of my (non-expensive but matching) set from home.

[MadMike]

It's pretty simple at my job. They clean the fridges on one side of the building every other Monday, and they clean the ones on the other side of the building on the opposite Mondays. Anything left in there on the designated cleaning night gets tossed. If you need to leave anything in there overnight on a Monday, put it in one of the fridges that's not being cleaned that night.

As far as I know, it works quite well. I've never had anything vanish, except to the occasional food thief. But that's a whole other rant.