'AITA for calling my coworker out for his obsession?' 'Now things are a bit tense in the office.'

"AITA for calling my coworker out for his obsession with another coworker’s lunch?"

We are all in our early to mid-30s, and this has been frustrating me for a while. My coworker Dan’s wife Ann (who is a friend of mine) packs him lunch every day. Ann is a great cook, and Dan brings these bento boxes that look immaculate. They look straight out of one of those food anime.

My other coworker, John, has always complimented how amazing Dan’s lunch looks compared to whatever he’s got, but then it turned into him also casually taking something from Dan’s bento box. I think he used to ask for permission before, but now he just sits around while we’re eating and goes...

“Oh, that looks good,” and just grabs it. I didn’t think much of it because Dan didn’t say anything, but I did notice John kept grabbing the biggest fritter/sausage a few times and thought that was kind of rude. But not my business, so I kept my mouth shut.

I randomly brought this up while talking to Ann, and she was clearly annoyed by this. I think she communicated that with Dan because he started becoming more protective of his lunch. He would loudly say how starved he was before opening his bento, jokingly looking over his shoulders and stuff.

This, however, did not stop John, and honestly, it’s been painful. Watching Dan get more and more frustrated, I started making comments like, “That’s almost half of his lunch, John,” and John would mumble something like, “But they’re all stuck together,” and proceed to take three dumplings.

Dan tells the table that he doesn’t have enough to share, and five minutes later, John “forgets” and just casually takes his food. Dan tells him specifically that he needs to eat his own lunch, and John will say that he just wanted a nibble (it’s not) and act like Dan is making a big deal out of nothing.

I knew Dan was stressed about this, but I didn’t know how bad it was until Ann told me about Dan telling her to stop packing him lunch, combined with Dan not eating lunch with us in the common area. I spoke to Dan about it, and he was sick. of. John’s crap.

Apparently, now that he is not bringing lunch/skipping lunch altogether, John asks him about his plans for lunch every single day and gets visibly disappointed when he learns there is no bento. This went on for about a week.

Last week at lunch, John said something about how he really misses having Dan around at lunch, and something in me kind of snapped. I don’t remember exactly what I said, but it was something like, “John, you know why he stopped coming to lunch, it’s because you’re always taking his food.” There were two other people in the room with us and they kind of chuckled.

Well, John got extremely red and started raising his voice at me, so I was like, “Guess we’re not having lunch together either,” and left. Now things are a bit tense in the office. Ann thanked me for speaking up, but I can tell this is affecting Dan from what Ann told me, and I’m starting to regret saying something and causing tension at work, thinking that maybe I shouldn’t have gotten involved.

ADDITIONAL INFO:

additional info: Dan and John are both Koreans and John is older than us. I know there is this whole thing around age and respect within the culture and I wonder if that has something to do with their dynamic (which is why I feel like I may have overstepped).

I met Ann long before starting my current job. Dan and I are friendly, but we don’t interact much outside of work.

Here's what top commenters had to say about this one:

Traditional-Pay-1065 said:

You said what needed to be said, the only one offended by your comment was the offender. Your NTA for speaking the truth.

Gennevieve1 said:

NTA. Let him stew, at least someone has finally called him out. But TBH I don't know how Dan didn't nip this in the bud when it all started. I would have slapped his hand the second time he tried to take something from my plate.

BigEnvironment628 said:

NTA. I would go a step further and talk to HR. What he's doing is theft and work place bullying. He's a grown man and knows better.

Spinnerofyarn said:

NTA, but this could have been prevented by Dan saying, "John, stop stealing my food. Get your own food. You've eaten enough of mine to know to get a bento box yourself and you know what the food is, so you can look up recipes and cook it yourself."

Lucycrash said:

NTA, but, assuming he didn't, Dan should have said "stop helping yourself to my lunch" and gone to HR when it kept happening.

kindofana$shole17 said:

NTA. John is an ahole, and an oblivious one at that. I'm honestly kind of miffed at Dan for being such a pushover and letting it go on for so damn long, even when it was obviously bothering him, but make no mistake...

The guy taking food from someone without asking is the asshole here. Something needed to be said; the guy clearly wasn't going to stop and frankly he deserves whatever embarrassment he's feeling right now for getting called out.