I work in what I guess would be called a medium sized office environment. We have one refrigerator in the lunchroom where everyone of course puts their food and snacks. One Friday, I brought in some newly purchased food to last me for a few days, a few apples, a few cans of soda, some dried fruit, some cheese for crackers. About $15.00 worth of food, all kept neat and nice in one large ziplock bag and place don the door of the fridge.

Some of the employees here have a habit of leaving leftovers in the fridge. Forever. The amount of leftovers gradually builds up, food is squashed, things leak, things get moldy, the fridge becomes a disgusting mess, as was the case that Friday. However, seeing as my food was nicely sealed and tucked away on the door, I thought it safe. I was wrong.

I come in Monday and find the fridge bare of all food and nicely cleaned. Fine, that’s nice. But where is all the food I just bought. It must be in the large trash bag fool of rotting, leaking food sitting next to the fridge. This is not a good way to start my Monday morning.

It would seem that the owner of the company took it upon himself to clean out the fridge, and forsaking all common sense, threw out everything, including things that should have clearly been recognizable as new or fresh food. For example, unopened cans of soda. But no, it was all tossed.

I don’t make a proper salary, and I have a mortgage and bills to pay every month, so I can’t really afford to have $15 thrown in the trash like that. Additionally, I now had no food for the day as well, so I would have to spend more money. I was pissed. But I kept my composure and approached the boss to mention that he could have made an announcement that he was cleaning the fridge, and I would have gotten my food out of there.

He becomes suddenly enraged, screaming that he isnt going to sift through our disgusting food to read expiration dates. I said to him, “I didn’t ask you to do that. I just thought it would have made sense to make an announcement, since not everyone had old food in there, some of it was obviously new, and not everyone is a slob.”

He starts screaming, “You want your fucking food! Here, here it is.” And proceeds to rip the trash bag out of the can, rip it open, and spill all its contents onto the floor of the kitchen. And this was a completely full, economy-sized trash bag. Then he storms off. His daughter, who witnessed the the incident, now expects me to help her clean up.

So not only am I out my food, but Im supposed to pick up trash now too? I dont think so. I tell her he’s the boss of the company, maybe he can afford to throw food away, but I can’t. And I’m not picking up his mess either.

I tried to be civil, his reaction was just ridiculous. But at least he wound up having to clean his own mess, since he fired the cleaning person the week earlier.