Theft

You'd think operating rooms would not be a den of thieves. I would have, until I worked there, and was warned. I've never had more than a mug stolen, but then as a paranoid Detroiter, I never left anything else out, not unlocked. Food left out, on tables in the lounge, is considered fair game, mostly in the form of treats in bowls. Staff descend like locusts, and it all vanishes. Unless I know who brought it, I generally keep away. Even with parties, food brought specifically to share, I eat only after others have had a go at it, since I never bring food. Anything left in the fridges is susceptible to depredations, but most of us consider it theft when it's a person's lunch. Condiments brought, even if labeled, are pilfered.

At a former hospital, early on in my OR time, I came into the lounge to eat, a surgeon sat eating a packed lunch. I didn't think much about it, until another staff member came in and said, "That's my lunch!" Surgeon stops a moment and says, all innocence, "Oh, you wanted it?" No joke. Entitled as all hell. I don't know how much I used the fridge before, but I never used it again. I'll risk my food going a bit off rather than lose it altogether.

A rash of thefts from a scrub who tended to leave her locker open "only for a minute!" Perpetrated by one of the sterile pack people, both now gone and unlamented. Med students only passing through, anesthesiologists floating over, it's rarely about actual need, more a sense of entitlement and lack of consequences.

I hear that police stations have much the same problem. I'm sure, despite the pervasiveness of thievery, that it is still a minority actually doing it. But it makes everyone feel unsafe, suspicious, angry.