Today’s story comes from Stu Orefice, director of dining services at Princeton University, who tells a tale of a pepper thief and how he met his match.
“When I worked at another university the dining department had to operate a temporary faculty club for about a year while the club was under renovation.
To separate the dining area from the seating area we purchased several large planters and filled them with tall plants. Each day the manager noticed that a professor who would take one or two cherry peppers from the salad bar, eat them whole and then place the stems in the middle of the planter. This was quite troublesome to the manager. The manager later found out that the faculty member was a high-profile member of the community and considered for a Nobel Prize. As one can imagine, accusing a high-profile faculty member of theft can be a bit awkward and might lead to a debate that a dining professional will never win. So we came up with an idea to place a cup in the planter with a sign that read “place your cherry pepper stems here” in the location where he would put the stems each day.
The moment of truth came. The faculty member consumed his cherry pepper and turned to put the stem in the planter. He saw the sign, turned as red as the pepper, looked up at the manager, smiled and said, 'you got me.'”