2. Sack perpetrators.
3. Put a notice on the drinks machine that, through use of polite informality, makes it clear what was going on and that it would be appreciated if people didn't take the mickey. ("Inform, don't instruct" should be a rule of management.)
Identify the perpetrators but don't sack them immediately. Investigate them thoroughly. Assuming they're well paid, resorting to carting off a fridge full of soda every week is a disturbing way to behave and I'd want to understand their motivation and identify if they behaved this way in other areas of their work-life. They likely thought (1) they'd not get caught or(/and) (2) the value of the theft was so low that they'd likely not get in trouble. I'd be concerned most about the "I won't get caught" people at any company that a large part of their profits are from selling closed-source software. Sharing loads of source code might also be seen as something they'd think they wouldn't get caught doing. I'd still be concerned about anyone with the moral flexibility to brazenly steal large quantities of even inexpensive items and expect, if caught, to get away with it. At a minimum, that's not the kind of culture you want to spreading and it probably speaks to their intelligence slightly.
Generally, people hate "passive-aggressive notes". At a previous someone placed a note on the sink asking everyone to clean up the microwave after using it. Someone had heated up pasta and left the tomato sauce all over the interior. I took the note down and kindly asked the person responsible to be more careful in the future. It was equally effective, but without pointing the finger at every person on the floor. In the case of the soda, skip any note and let the word spread through informal lateral communication ("gossip" channels are rarely used effectively by management).
Funny, no one has ever put up a sign to tell me not to tear down the signs.
I've learned that passive aggressive can work both ways. ;-)
Identifying them for further investigation will generally turn up more ethical and performance issues, safely justifying reassignment or outplacement.
No, it wasn't. The problem was that you had people working at RedWest who would steal suitcases full of sodas.
-That- was the problem. Not people like me who might grab a can of Talking Rain as we left the office for the commute home.
So when the smuggling ""problem"" amounted to thousands of dollars a week of goods going missing from one building/floor alone, then yes, they drew attention to it.
As for his other points:
- Microsoft has its own inhouse printing departments. It was hardly a project in itself to arrange for a small plastic sign to be made and glued.
- Yes, Catering has people whose salaried, 40 hour a week job is to handle the logistics of food ordering, and predict supply and demand. People like this are needed when you have upwards of 50,000 people working in your facility.
- a $100,000/year theft problem is worthy of most people's attention. If you're stealing multiple commercial fridges-worth of soda a week, it's not even that you're taking it home - you're almost certainly reselling it. So it's not even a perk, it's a commercial gain. Maybe I should have been raiding the Office Supplies and selling them, a la Dilbert.