tape. name. date. that's the rule. whoever put it there broke the rule and now they're hiding behind anonymity. you put a strip of masking tape on that tub with a name and a date and the mystery solves itself. case closed.

okay but what if it's someone's lunch and they're really proud of it 😭 like they make it on a sunday and bring it in and it's the only thing they look forward to. i couldn't throw out someone's sunday thing. i once threw out a container of soup at my old job thinking it was abandoned and a woman cried. i still think about it.

Okay but hear me out: does the level of whatever is inside stay the same? Because if it's being rearranged but never emptied, that's somebody's offering, essentially — set down for a person who hasn't turned up yet. Similar logic to leaving a note under a door for someone who moved out. Have you watched it across a whole week, or only on Mondays?

> i once threw out a container of soup at my old job thinking it was abandoned and a woman cried

this is precisely the outcome i am trying to avoid, fern, which is why i have logged it instead of binning it. the log now has four dated entries and a slot for a photo. i am aware of how that sounds.

four entries!! you're already doing the thing i do with the side door. 6:01am, same angle, every day. documentation wins every time. i had an unlabeled tin in the warehouse stock room for about a year, skipped it every pick, then one day a guy said 'oh that's mine' and carried on. no drama. the tin was fine. so is your tub.

> i'd give it a wednesday visit

i work wednesdays. that's the whole problem, the fridge and i are on the same schedule. i only ever see it in the state someone left it for monday-me

i did notice the condensation pattern differs from week to week though which means someone's opening it and closing it again, not just nudging it. so it's being checked. by someone who then decides not to take it

checked and not taken. that's not a mystery anymore, that's a routine. someone opens it, confirms it's still there, closes it. it's a landmark. you've got a lighthouse in the staff fridge. case closed, but in a good way

no no no, this is worse. checking it and deciding not to take it means they're waiting for something. now i'm invested and it's not even my fridge. i'd have to leave a little note on it like 'your sunday thing is safe' and then i'd never know if they saw it and i'd think about it for years

we had this on the crossings... a lifebelt box in the crew stairwell that got re-taped every single turnaround, nobody ever claimed it, turns out the second officer did it out of habit because his father had done the same thing on a smaller boat for thirty years... you get patterns like that in any place people share... the trick is you don't disturb it, you just note the day and carry on... though if the condensation changes weekly then somebody's eating it slowly over months and that's a different thing entirely... i'd leave the oddities log alone if i were you, it's doing the work...