Woman Sparks Debate With Her Method For Making Sure Coworkers Stop Stealing Her Coffee Creamer From The Office Fridge
Her exasperation is understandable, but did she go too far?
Kindel Media, DAPA Images | Canva Work is hard enough without our coworkers' infuriating habits — like stealing our food from the office fridge. One woman from TikTok got so fed up that she resorted to drastic measures.
The woman sparked controversy with her method to stop coworkers from stealing her coffee creamer.
Having your lunch stolen from the office fridge is an experience nearly all of us will have eventually if we hang around a cubicle farm long enough. It's so universally exasperating that a guy famously went mega-viral a few years back for using his job's security cameras to catch the culprit — while practically all of Twitter hung on the edge of their seats waiting to see if the criminal would be caught.
I, too, once caught a coworker stealing my Chipotle burritos from the work fridge this way. I can attest that this particular form of justice is so very sweet and delicious — even more so than the $50 Chipotle gift card my boss gave me when the footage proved my accusations were true. (To the thief, wherever you are, I hope you have indigestion until the end of time!)
So TikTok creator @they_love_lulu_2 resorting to drastic measures when her colleagues stole nearly an entire bottle of her special coffee creamer is definitely understandable. But the drastic measures themselves? Well, that's a different question.
The TikToker added laxatives to her bottle of coffee creamer to stop coworkers from stealing it.
"Y'all gonna learn to NOT touch other people’s belongings," Lulu said in the caption to her TikTok, which she filmed in her car after discovering that the big jug of flavored non-dairy creamer she bought for herself was almost entirely gone.
"I just bought this," she said in exasperation, shaking the almost entirely empty bottle. "I probably used it three times!" She then filmed herself dumping a bottle of laxative into the creamer, along with a bit of magnesium citrate "for a little urgency" and a bottle of flavored coffee to make sure the "creamer" still tasted good.
"Got some creamer for your [behind]," she said as she made the concoction, before smiling at the camera and telling her coworkers to, "enjoy!"
Some people found Lulu's trick hilarious, while others criticized her potentially dangerous method to stop coworkers from stealing her creamer.
Lulu's video left most people on TikTok howling with laughter — especially those who've been through similar debacles at work.
"Whole office gonna be struggling to get to the bathroom," one woman joked, going on to suggest Lulu "pretend you gotta go too so they can’t say it was you lol"
"Friend you goin to jail!" another woman wrote. "But imma help bail you out because it’s the principle," she joked. "Sis I feel you, I really do," another person quipped, "but rule number one of doing possible crimes: never film it."
But not everyone was laughing — Lulu got plenty of blowback from people who were horrified that she would endanger her coworkers in such a way, with several citing that her prank could even land people in the hospital if they drank enough of her laxative-laced "creamer."
Lulu herself was unmoved, however. In a follow-up video, she showed her office's swank coffee set-up — including multiple types of free flavored creamers — as well as the office fridge her stolen creamer was in, which is clearly for people's personal food and not community treats.
She couldn't believe she was getting blowback from people angry at her "instead of being upset with the people that touched my property." She added, "It's the principle, it's the audacity and entitlement for me."
Lulu's video is likely a joke — because her prank is actually illegal and people have been prosecuted for it.
It's almost certain Lulu's video was just for the laughs — a viral video of someone essentially poisoning their coworkers is a one-way ticket to the unemployment line at best, and criminal court at worst.
As employment lawyer @attorneyryan has explained in videos about similar pranks, though we don't think of laxatives as "poison," the criminal codes in many states absolutely do. And although her coworkers were stealing her property, her actions would constitute "setting a trap" because she knew her coworkers would drink the contaminated creamer.
Given that Lulu still has her job — she posted another update of her hilariously loitering outside the office bathrooms to "see whose sticky fingers are gonna be running to the bathroom today" — it's likely everyone can just chill and have a good laugh at her diabolical plan for revenge.
And if nothing else, the office fridge thieves of the world can hopefully learn something from this. As Lulu put it in her video, "Buy your own [stuff]!" because you never know if the food or drink you're stealing is that of a person at their wit's end, bent on avenging both you and your bowels!
John Sundholm is a news and entertainment writer who covers pop culture, social justice and human interest topics.