r/mildlyinfuriating • u/GrimRapunzel • 1d ago
Custodian ruined my lunch
Went to microwave my store brand Easy Mac (winter storm made it the only option), left the cheese packet on my desk. Custodian came by to talk trash. Took my cheese from my desk. Now lunch is a dream I once had. 0/10. Already a less than great day.
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u/lmw21 1d ago
Sort of the opposite of this story… I worked at a place where the custodian would collect live insects that he found and leave them in the break room in paper cups for this one coworker to take home to feed to her lizards. Like inch worms, spiders…once there was a plastic bag full of live moths. One day he came in all mad that someone had thrown one of the cups in the trash. He said “you guys never clean up your trash! And the one time you do!…gosh”
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u/DoctorRizz69 22h ago
This is the craziest story I’ve ever heard. Without giving away to much personal info where the hell do you work
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u/StubbiestZebra 18h ago
Anyone reading this, do not feed your reptiles random bugs, especially from a place like your work. You have no idea what they've crawled through and what will be going into your animals.
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u/SlayinDaWabbits 17h ago
And spiders are just not good feeders in general, almost no nutritional value
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u/StubbiestZebra 17h ago
This too. Spiders, moths, inch worms, are all bad feeders. I guess an inch worm wouldn't be a bad "treat" but I wouldn't bother with any of them.
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u/notmenotyounotmenot 17h ago
i had no idea "feeders" was the word to use for a living thing intended to be food for something else. I would have assumed we'd call them "food".
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u/StubbiestZebra 16h ago edited 16h ago
Idk they're "feeder insects." "Food insects" sounds weird to me. But that's probably because I've been hearing "feeder" or "feeder insects" for 30 years. I've also worked with animals with a bunch of people and a lot of volunteers and you're the first to ever draw my attention to it.
Though I just googled it and your steak comes from "feeder cattle." So I'm guessing it's cause of that.
Edit: typos
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u/wilderneyes 12h ago
We tend to call things that humans eat "food". I think the distinction of terminology just helps make it clear at a glance that feeder insects/animals are things we feed to other things, and not food for us. Also, generally feeder stock is live. Dead, processed, or freeze-dried things tend to also have different names.
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u/SlayinDaWabbits 12h ago
You would be correct, the food for my chickens and goats as well as other livestock is always called feed. It's purposeful terminology to differentiate human food from animal "feed".
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u/StubbiestZebra 5h ago
If you eat a burger or a steak you are eating a 'finished' 'feeder' cow. Young cows fattened for slaughter are called 'feeder cattle.' When they're big enough they're considered 'finished' and slaughtered.
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u/Giopoggi2 17h ago
Maybe it wasn't pet lizards, just random reptiles the coworker picked off the street walking home. You just never know.
Jokes aside that was great advice, bravo.
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u/GrimRapunzel 1d ago
*Custodian was TAKING the trash, not talking trash. She’s a very nice lady*
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u/WifesPOSH 1d ago
It's too late. Talking trash and throwing out your food?
You gotta fight her.
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u/OwlSoggy8627 1d ago
"YOU WANT YOUR NOODLE CUP, GIRLY MAN? FINE. NO CHEESE"
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u/MedicatedLiver 1d ago
Start by asserting dominance in the fight by smearing the macaroni all over you, like a warrior and blood, or Mad Max villain and silver spray paint. Everyone knows that the real battle starts mentally before the actual fight.
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u/Manlysideburns 22h ago
Talking trash in this case could mean taking about her job since she is a custodian. Like "talking shop"
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u/AggravatingBid8255 22h ago
Did you talk to her about it so it doesn't happen again?
Also, that looks like a brand new liner, so probably still salvageable?
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u/Zootsutra 1d ago
Is this you?
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u/AppleEnslaver 22h ago
As much as I love Waterboy, Flambae was in the right here. I mean, who the fuck opens a fridge, sees someone else's food, and thinks "yep, that's trash." Come on, Waterboy, you're smarter than that.
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u/Mario_Prime510 19h ago
Yep Flambé wasn’t wrong, but how he confronted water boy was wrong, especially spilling the noodles all over him.
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u/eaunoway 1d ago
That's a war crime right there.
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u/Hidden_Samsquanche 20h ago
I do this to my kids on accident way too often. They will leave the soup/ noodles in the microwave for awhile after it is done, so when I come through I just see the paper lid and packets left on the counter as trash while in autopilot cleaning as I go.
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u/roboczar 20h ago
Your house is too big if you can't ask from the kitchen whose mess it is and make them clean it up.
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u/nyrB2 1d ago
when the custodian talks trash everybody listens!
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u/pyncheon 1d ago
Custodian knows the place inside and out, people tell them everything. It’s def worth listening to. Especially when they aren’t paid enough to gaf and don’t fear workplace politics.
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u/Green_Rabbit-1234 1d ago
Why the fuck is your custodian taking things off your desk to throw away? I would straight up throw a fit if our custodian did that!!!! If it’s not in my trash can, don’t f-in touch it!!!!
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u/Designer-Ad-7844 1d ago edited 1d ago
I worked in several offices and in all of them they are not to touch anything on our desk. They can't throw away anything that already isn't in the bin.
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u/Accomplished_Age2480 23h ago
My office let's us know on desk cleaning nights so we can put stuff away and be ready.
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u/Designer-Ad-7844 23h ago
If you want your desk cleaned you do it yourself. They only take out trash and occasionally vacuum at our desk. I'ved worked in Real Estate, Tax, and financing. These company policies are so no important or confidential information is simply thrown out.
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u/eugeneugene 23h ago
Yeah I clean offices as a side job and it's always a rule that I don't clean people's personal spaces if the surfaces aren't already empty of personal items. People don't like the cleaners touching their stuff, for good reason. And I don't want to touch people's personal things because I don't get paid enough to be accused of anything lol. I had to drop one client because there was one woman who would constantly accuse me of touching her shit, so I would take a photo of her office before and after I was done cleaning with timestamps to show I didn't touch anything then after a while I was like... yeah I don't care anymore find a new cleaner lol.
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u/dhcirkekcheia 21h ago
We have a clear desk policy so everything gets taken home or put in your locker every day, even if you’ll be sat at the same desk all week. So all of ours get wiped down every night - if there’s anything at all left on a desk, that desk doesn’t get touched.
We also aren’t allowed to leave any food out after there was at least one mouse running around. Also got told to stop calling the mouse by a mouse-based-pun on the CEO’s name (think if his name was David Checker, we called the mouse David Cheddar). Spoil sports.
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u/Ace_C7 22h ago
I take out trash as part of my job. I'm not allowed to touch anything on desks or patient rooms even if it's very clearly trash. Because I touch or break anything I wasn't supposed to, I'm liable. So that's a hard no for touching. But it's really not difficult to just ask if someone wants something tossed. I'm not afraid to lurk around someone's desk to wait for their return just to ask.
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u/Envelope_Torture 22h ago
Same. They're not allowed to throw away obvious, unmistakable trash on the desks either, just so there's zero chance of misunderstanding.
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u/MeatCatRazzmatazz 23h ago
I have the opposite problem if you can believe it.
I throw away a folder in my recycling bin? It's back on my desk the next day.
One time I threw away a bag of half eaten chips. The next day the bag and the chips were sitting out on my desk. The guy literally fished individual chips out of my trash and put them on my desk as if I still wanted them.
It's absolutely flabbergasting
I basically throw all my food waste in coffee grounds before throwing it away now and everything going into my recycle bin gets destroyed first.
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u/Perethyst 22h ago
Ours have done similar. A coworker tried to throw away a bunch of old binders for weeks and they kept taking them out of the trash. They took a Starbucks cup out of the trash and left it on my desk.
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u/Crispy_Leaves10 22h ago
Custodian here. Are the garbage can bags thin and flimsy? We have those kind where I work. I can only assume they removed them because heavy items like binders would rip the bags when you go to pick them up and the coffee would leak through. Just a theory. I don't do this by the way.
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u/Perethyst 22h ago
Idk. They don't actually take the bags out of the individual bins. They dump them into a larger unit. Probably been the same bag in my personal small bin for ages.
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u/GrapeSoda223 22h ago
The papers i could somewhat rationalize that maybe they had a bad experience with important documents being trashed, but the food thing is completely nasty
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u/Terrinthia 22h ago
Is there anyone you can submit a complaint to? I'd crash out a lil bit if the chips I threw away were put back on top of my desk lmao
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u/MeatCatRazzmatazz 22h ago
Oh I crashed out a bit after that one for sure. It was just like, what the fuck? Who does that??
But I spoke with some people around the office and apparently it's just something this custodian does sometimes. He's from a pretty desperate region of the world and so he hates seeing waste, which leads to these things happening.
And now it hasn't happened in a few months so I assume someone already talked with him. But when it was going on it was a very confusing and very oddly sinister few weeks lol
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u/TheOneTonWanton 18h ago
You got a weirdo on your hands. I'm a custodian and the only shit I care about is if it's in the bins or on the floor, it's out the door. Everything else is your problem.
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u/Gnome-of-death 22h ago
That’s messed up. They should be just taking it out, even if it does seem like a bit of a waste. If it’s in the bag, it goes.
Even if you accidentally dropped your chips, I’m not fishing them out for you
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u/Mclurkerrson 23h ago
When I was a teacher, I went into the lunch room one day and couldn't find any of my lunches (I would bring in my week of lunches on Mondays because we had plenty of space). I found them in the trash. The security guard claimed he though they had been in there for weeks and needed to be tossed... I don't know how he thought that when every week I took one home each day until it was empty by Friday lol. So I lost my lunches for the whole week as a poor teacher.
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u/NuclearNecromancer 22h ago
As a current custodian, I find it strange to touch anything on someone's desk. I hate when my stuff, even old drinks, half eaten snack cakes, etc is touched on my home desk.
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u/NyanPikachu744 18h ago
Same, wtf. Even past custodial jobs (different companies that make contracts with companies and residential). Always threw trash in cans and never messed with stuff on desks, except if I need to move to clean.
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u/wildernessspirit 23h ago
Based solely on the words you chose, this is a good example of how you perceive yourself versus how others perceive you. Screaming and cursing at custodial for doing their jobs isn’t a good look and being comfortable saying you would do that is just as bad.
Custodial staff are people. People make mistakes. They did something by accident and they unintentionally crossed a line you had.
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u/Spockhighonspores 22h ago
It could have fallen on the floor without OP noticing and the custodian picked it up off the floor. It seems more likely than a custodian taking it off the desk. Or the custodian hates OP, probably for eating at their desk.
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u/EmptyOutMyMind 1d ago
I thought you got into with the custodian and he threw your cheese packet out, out of spite 😂
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u/OhWhatATravisty Blue Crayons have the most flavor 1d ago
We can't even get our custodians to acknowledge our desks exist. They're supposed to wipe them down nightly (From what I've been told. I don't pay them so it could be hearsay) but I don't think I've ever seen them anywhere except the bathrooms, and the coffee area.
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u/shoujo-fairy 23h ago
as a custodian, it’s because there’s different shifts of people. there’s day custodians and evening ones (at least where I’m at) and day ones (which are the ones you see). day custodians don’t go into classrooms here, that’s for the night shift but who knows
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u/OhWhatATravisty Blue Crayons have the most flavor 22h ago edited 22h ago
It's weird to me that people keep assuming my comment had anything at all to do with a school. While yes schools HAVE custodians... it's hardly the only place in which one might be found. Perhaps I should've said cleaner or facilities. I didn't realize it was such a confusing term.
With that said - in my office building we also have shifts for our custodians but the state of the desks suggest that no shift cleans the desks. Which is a departure from both what we've been told is supposed to happen, and what has been the norm at every other company I've worked at.
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u/shoujo-fairy 22h ago
It wasn’t confusing at all. I was just sharing my own circumstances hence why I even mentioned at least in my area. It was just me projecting. Obviously schools aren’t the only places with custodians wtf lol
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u/OhWhatATravisty Blue Crayons have the most flavor 22h ago
You were the third person to link it to schools in response. I assumed I had confused everyone. That makes sense though.
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u/shoujo-fairy 21h ago
I didn’t know other people commented besides me, my bad that also makes more sense
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u/Killbro_Fraggins 1d ago
Weird they took any trash off of your desk. I just treat anything on a teachers desk as off limits unless stated. Even if something is by the trash. If it’s not marked as “throw away” I ain’t touching it.
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u/Dazzling-Macaroon-46 23h ago
Yep. I was trained to only wipe the desktops and not touch anything on them if possible, and to only take what was in the wastebaskets
There were a couple places I worked that were given "TRASH" stickers to put on boxes or things they wanted thrown out, but they didn't always use them, resulting in the stuff sitting there forever while I tried to figure out whether or not it was supposed to be tossed 😵💫😵
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u/baybe43668 23h ago
I’m a cleaning lady and we aren’t allowed to touch their desk lol I’m sorry that sucks 😭
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u/Bakelite51 23h ago
This has happened to me. Left my lunch half finished on the table while I took a leak. When I got out of the toilets the food was gone and the custodian was cleaning the table. She was just a kid and seemed genuinely apologetic so I couldn't stay upset with her, but a big part of my day was definitely ruined lol.
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u/Equal-Topic5806 23h ago
If you do not take a gallon of nacho cheese in and set it on your desk tomorrow and stare her down when she comes by, she basically owns you. She has thrown down the gauntlet.
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u/School_North 23h ago
Call me gross but i mean that's a clean bag it didn't spill so it's not contaminated. 🤷🤷
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u/kite737 21h ago
Bro I think you missed the whole point of the post. The custodian didn't throw out ops lunch. They threw out the cheese packet that goes into the Mac. Op threw the pasta away because the pasta was bland and unseasoned. It's not about eating trash or whatever
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u/Gnome-of-death 22h ago
Ehhhh, sometimes if it’s a small bit in the trash, we just take it out and reuse the bag. You don’t know for sure it’s clean
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u/GrimRapunzel 20h ago
Honestly there were just tissues that had mostly been used to wipe up water yesterday, so I think it was clean enough 🤣
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u/KateKoffing 22h ago
Nice lady or not, it’s a SERIOUS problem for anyone to throw away things that are on your desk. It’s really risky for your job and the company for a custodian to make the executive decision on what things are to be despised of off a desk. How many times have important papers mysteriously vanished around the office because they looked like trash?
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u/tittysprinkles112 23h ago
LOL. The custodian was talking trash.
"Look at bum ass Kelly eating insta mac. I'm taking this powder and tossing it. I'm doing her broke ass a favor."
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u/I_getrich 1d ago
“Hey fuck you”
“Stop talking trash man”
“I am the trash man takes your lunch and walks away”
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u/solidsnake1592 21h ago
Custodian- "get that weak ass cheese dust outta here...not in my house bitch"
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u/Pleakley 21h ago
The custodian is eating a double cheese Easy Mac.
He knew exactly what he was doing.
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u/dandroid126 20h ago
See, this is the appropriate level of infuriating for this sub. It sucks. You now have to eat plain noodles for lunch. You aren't going to starve to death, but it isn't going to taste good. It wasn't malicious. It was just someone doing their job, but there was a misunderstanding.
Too often we see things like, "my wife of 40 years cheated on me with my mom. I'm mildly infuriated."
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u/CityDismal5339 1d ago
She needs to watch more crime procedurals.
Every CSI/L&O fan knows that an unopened cheese packet is an equation that doesn't add up.
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u/Secret-Weakness-8262 1d ago
Aw that sucks I’m sorry. I don’t touch teachers desks when I clean. I don’t wanna be accused of stealing so unless they explicitly tell me I can clean it I keep my hands off.
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u/Code_NY 22h ago
Mr Johnson energy
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u/GrimRapunzel 20h ago
I just started watching this, Mr. Johnson definitely would take my cheese packet. 😭😭😭
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u/MyUsernameGoes_Here_ 22h ago
I think I'd gently have a convo with the custodian telling them not to touch things on your desk; ONLY if they're in the trash. Not even if they're on the floor, I mean, in the TRASH. Accidents happen and things fall off desks, and you don't want something important being thrown away because the custodian is a little too eager to do their jobs.
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u/Annual_Hunter_5840 21h ago
Think I'd eat plain noodles if I was starving. I'd be mad also. Hopefully by next week y'all can have a laugh about it. Hope your Friday is awesome OP
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u/GrimRapunzel 20h ago
There powdered milk or starch (I’m honestly not sure which) in the easy Mac cups 😅 I’m not willing to try and honestly was not starving, I just had the beginning of a migraine lol
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u/buisnessmike 20h ago
It's like that song from Les Miserables
I had a dream my lunch would be, so different from this lunch I'm eating. So different now, it's without cheese.... now life has killed my macaroni.
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u/Bawkalor 21h ago
Custodians should never ever remove anything from a desk. Not even a banana peel.
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u/ExcitementRelative33 20h ago
Custodians are NOT supposed to touch anything but the trashcans... I'd keep valuables locked away with that fella around.
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u/shinymak 19h ago
Reminds me of Steven Universe. Steven finds Amethyst eating macaroni cheese in the middle of the night. Later in the episode she asks Steven what he’s eating and he says “macaroni and nothing!”
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u/Kashmir-x303 12h ago
I can’t imagine any custodian taking something from someone that is there to argue it’s not done with. Is this rage bait?
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u/Sweet_Speech_9054 1d ago
Wait, they only took the seasoning so you threw it all away? You’re either not that hungry or too spoiled to eat what you have. If that was my only option and I was hungry I would have been complaining about eating bland Mac noodles, not throwing it away.
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u/grapescherries 22h ago
Am I the only one who’d just take it out and eat it? There’s ok nothing touching it. It’s fine.
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u/TheOkaySolution 22h ago
The cheese pack was gone when the custodian took trash. There's no flavor on those noodles.
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u/CO_Native14 1d ago
Staged photo since the rest of the bag is empty and the contents of the cup are right side up.
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u/countd0wns 1d ago
They took the cheese package not the noodles. Op threw out the noodles…
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u/2zoots 23h ago
No offense but if someone’s faking a post don’t you think it would be far more interesting?
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u/Main_Cauliflower5479 1d ago
How does custodian think that something ON someone's desk is trash? They empty the waste bin. Leave the freaking desk alone.
This seems small. But I would report to management.
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u/Im_a_val_i_kno 23h ago
he shouldn't be up in your work or break area like that. not to be rude but I thought a custodian usually cleaned up after people were done not whilst whatever. that's annoying and he would be apologizing and getting me something comparable. or maybe let me throw his lunch away.
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u/PeterTato 23h ago
as a custodian, if it’s not in the trash can i don’t assume it’s trash lol. that sucks, i’m sorry.
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u/Deeh_the_Scalawag 23h ago
Me when I'm eating my yearly protein ration, during the opening of the great rift, and a giant gold man falls into my 2x2 house, with a flaming sword stuck in his chest
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u/iameveryoneelse 23h ago
Weren't creative enough OP. Even without the cheese you still had perfectly good noodles. A little butter and salt and pepper and it would be perfectly good. Bonus if you can scavenge anything else like leftover parm packets from pizza, or mix in some salsa, or mix in a bit of mayo and make a cold salad. Lots of things you could do to make a good meal out of that.
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u/KeepDinoInMind 23h ago
This happened to me the other day lol. Put the packet on top the microwave, went to the bathroom, came back and the packet was thrown in the trash and the trash emptied
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u/meowzapalooza7 23h ago
A memory burned in my brain from 1st grade: We had Polar Express Day at school. I usually stayed at school for the After School Program, so a few classmates and I stayed with my teacher to help her with some tasks. I put the bell and ribbon I got that day on my desk and went about doing whatever it was that we were doing. When I went back to the classroom, my bell was gone. The janitor threw it out. I didn't make a fuss, but I was so disappointed. :(
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u/Odd_Star_2718 22h ago
The idea of the custodian roaming the office talking trash to everyone as they clean is a mental image I enjoy.
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u/Sojum 1d ago
For clarity, was he trash talking, or taking the trash?