What Is the Best Punishment for Someone Who Steals Your Office Chair?

Yesterday afternoon, I returned to my office after the holiday to find that someone had taken my good rolling chair—a very comfortable Herman Miller Aeron, thank you Nick Denton—and replaced it with another one which was not only shitty (old, covered in pilly black fabric, a vestige of the former occupants of the Times Square building where we just relocated), but it was BROKEN, unadjustable, and had me sitting at my desk so low I felt like a goddamn child.

To remove this chair, and replace it with the broken one, a person had to come INTO my private office, violating the sanctity of my space; ROLL the chair to their desk somewhere in our vast and rather labyrinthine new office layout; and then ROLL another chair back to my desk, entering my private office without permission not once but TWICE. Additionally, last week I noticed that a throw pillow had been taken from my office, but I did not complain then—it was old and the feathers were coming out, so I wasn’t really attached to it—but stealing my nice office chair is an unforgivable offense. We have mostly eliminated the possibility that a night custodian simply moved the chair, because it did not turn up in any nearby offices, and is highly unlikely they would have rolled a chair to another wing of the office. I have requested the return of my chair in an all-company Slack, no questions asked, but so far no one has either confessed to the crime or returned my chair. Perhaps they are afraid of me screaming on them, which is a fear that is definitely founded. I would be afraid of me, too, frankly.

Since moving to this new office, there has been a plague of thefts, some of which could have been chalked up to the general chaos of moving a 300-person office in one week, but most of which were due to the mercenary nature of the move and a scarcity of supplies. For the first two weeks after our relocation, it was truly Hunger Games up in this shit; other items that have gone missing include Jezebel Culture Editor Clover Hope’s laptop charger, Head of Audience and Social Jon Eiseman’s white mug, and Jalopnik Social Editor Aaron Brown’s BAG. Aaron told me via Slack:

i left my bag out, i dont have an office

and so i was probably out of the office for a little over a week

and when i returned it was gone, but some of the items i remember having in the bag were still there (my passport and some jacket liners)

it’s a gray kappa backpack that is slightly egg shaped. i got it for 30 euros at the kappa wholesaler in austria and it is truly dear to me

In one instance, someone traveled one flight downstairs, took a large plant from an office, carried it back up one flight, and placed it in their own office. The plant was recovered, and it was an honest mistake; the “culprit” in the plant debacle, who has chosen to remain anonymous, said this: