This is exactly a thing I would do and a reaction I would have to it. Yep.
Sometimes when you demonstrate community feeling and community behavior for people, they pick up on it. They say, oh, neat! community! I can do that! And they do. And sometimes they...just don't. For whatever reason or reasons. They don't. They assume that the paid cleaning staff are doing the dishes as part of their paid work, rather than a community member to make things nice for each other. If they think about it at all, which mostly they don't; mostly communal things are like rain, happening at about the right amount, only worth noticing if inconvenient in one direction or another, certainly nothing to do with an actual person and work. I can't spot which times are which, I just know that sometimes it just...doesn't sink in.
The only explanation, which is not an excuse, about the cutlery disappearing is that it is small. I think it's easy for people to tell themselves that it's no big deal, that if they take a spoon in their instant ramen cup and take it out to their car with them and then, shit, what is this non-disposable spoon doing in the car when I'm cleaning out the car at home, whose spoon is this...because it is a spoon, they are not motivated to identify it the way they would a sweater. If they found a sweater in their car they would canvas their friends: whose sweater is this? did you ride with me after we had lunch at Pat's? was it after Angie's party? this is a whole entire sweater and it is not mine, whose is it.
Some of them. Some of them would just shrug, try on the sweater, give it to Goodwill or their niece if it didn't fit or let the cat sit on it. But a lot of them would look around for whose sweater it was. But "hey whose spoon is this": if they wanted to put in the time and effort, they could identify: this is a work spoon. I took this spoon from work. I should return it to work. But it is small, so they let themselves...not.
And: they are used to identifying things AT work WITH work. So even if they think "this is a work spoon," they are probably letting themselves think "work spoon" rather than "co-worker's spoon." And I bet they feel better about stealing a thing from "work" than they would from "that one specific person at work."
As I said, I don't think this excuses it. I think you're absolutely right to feel that it breaks community, it's inconsiderate and sad and they shouldn't. But that's my best deconstruction of what is likely going wrong in their heads and what will likely KEEP going wrong in their heads. I'm sad that I think it will. I wish it wouldn't.
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Sometimes when you demonstrate community feeling and community behavior for people, they pick up on it. They say, oh, neat! community! I can do that! And they do. And sometimes they...just don't. For whatever reason or reasons. They don't. They assume that the paid cleaning staff are doing the dishes as part of their paid work, rather than a community member to make things nice for each other. If they think about it at all, which mostly they don't; mostly communal things are like rain, happening at about the right amount, only worth noticing if inconvenient in one direction or another, certainly nothing to do with an actual person and work. I can't spot which times are which, I just know that sometimes it just...doesn't sink in.
The only explanation, which is not an excuse, about the cutlery disappearing is that it is small. I think it's easy for people to tell themselves that it's no big deal, that if they take a spoon in their instant ramen cup and take it out to their car with them and then, shit, what is this non-disposable spoon doing in the car when I'm cleaning out the car at home, whose spoon is this...because it is a spoon, they are not motivated to identify it the way they would a sweater. If they found a sweater in their car they would canvas their friends: whose sweater is this? did you ride with me after we had lunch at Pat's? was it after Angie's party? this is a whole entire sweater and it is not mine, whose is it.
Some of them. Some of them would just shrug, try on the sweater, give it to Goodwill or their niece if it didn't fit or let the cat sit on it. But a lot of them would look around for whose sweater it was. But "hey whose spoon is this": if they wanted to put in the time and effort, they could identify: this is a work spoon. I took this spoon from work. I should return it to work. But it is small, so they let themselves...not.
And: they are used to identifying things AT work WITH work. So even if they think "this is a work spoon," they are probably letting themselves think "work spoon" rather than "co-worker's spoon." And I bet they feel better about stealing a thing from "work" than they would from "that one specific person at work."
As I said, I don't think this excuses it. I think you're absolutely right to feel that it breaks community, it's inconsiderate and sad and they shouldn't. But that's my best deconstruction of what is likely going wrong in their heads and what will likely KEEP going wrong in their heads. I'm sad that I think it will. I wish it wouldn't.