With finals and thesis deadlines coming up, stress levels among grad students at UC-Berkeley have been running high (which means attention to the finer points of, say, apostrophe use, are running low). And now there’s a lunch thief on the loose!

Sadly, says our submitter, the note’s multi-pronged approach (guilt, threats, helpful advice) seems to have had no effect; the lunch thief remains at large. The next course of action? “We’re considering planting laxative-laced desserts.”

related: It must have been a pretty big bite

This note represents pretty much everything about office culture that makes me cringe. Appropriately enough, I can’t even bring myself to call out the specifics — it’s just too overwhelming. (But the sign will always be there…every day, taunting me.)

World-renowned troublemaker Troy McClure forwards this e-mail from his department’s secretary in Sydney, Australia.

No big deal, you say? Take a second look at the addressee list. (Yes, JONATHAN, I’m talking to you.)

related: Just in case you didn’t catch the sarcasm

Zakir in Montreal came home one night to find his roommate, Tristan ferociously scribbling this note for his other roommate, Vincent.  Apparently, Tristan was baking cookies on Saturday night (aww) and when he turned on the stove, the entire apartment filled with smoke from the charred cardboard from Vince’s frozen pizza.

Says Zakir: “Vincent’s reply to the note was gold. He yelled: ‘Well, maybe next time you should CHECK the oven before you turn it on….WHAT IF THERE WAS A BABY IN THERE?!’ and then slammed his door behind him.”

Adds Zakir: “I’m not sure if those are hearts or flames all over the note, but I do know Tristan‘s face was scrunched with anger as he wrote it.”

Meanwhile, in Clemson, S.C…there is a baby in that oven.

related: must have been a pretty big bite

In the office kitchen, expecting your coworkers to wipe up the spatters from their exploded Hot Pockets seems like standard enough microwave etiquette. And a ban on charred popcorn and leftover tuna casserole? Eh, fair enough. But this note — from an anonymous office worker in Baltimore — is the kind of thing that leads to out-and-out mutiny.

UPDATE: There’s a copycat on the loose!

UPDATE 2: They’re multiplying!

UPDATE 3: The meta-madness continues!

UPDATE 4: It continues!

related: Who are you calling OCD?

This oh-so-subtle note was posted by Mary’s former boss, “a pathetic professor in a backwater institution” where 90% of the graduate students happened to be Korean, Japanese, or Chinese.

“Nevermind that he doused himself with great lashings of Brut in an attempt to jazz up the bald-up-top-ponytail-in-back look he had going on,” Mary says. “There were a lot of things I could have said to him on a post-it, but I decided to be the big kid and quit.” Luckily for us, she swiped this note off the breakroom microwave first.

Interestingly, it seems fish-hating office workers elsewhere also share an affinity for clip art.

related: No smelly foods

Ashley in Chicago says her roommates are the king and queen of passive-aggressive notes. (“If they ever found this site, they’d think it was a self help group,” she says.) The latest example:

Ashley’s still fuming over this one. “I mean, come on. Just throw it away yourself! You’re probably exerting more energy writing the email and stressing about it,” she says. “And why do you think I’ve been spending so much time at my boyfriend’s anyway?”

This fridge saga (from a Boston-area university lab building) comes to us with a confession on the part of the anonymous submitter: she started it, sort of.

It all began when she discovered that her salad dressing had been mysteriously disposed of. Sad that she had to eat dry lettuce for lunch, she left a note (1) for the black hand responsible “in the least bitchy way I knew how.” She didn’t realize that her soundoff was actually a declaration of war.

Adds our submitter: “Needless to say, I think we have all been spending a little too much time in the lab.”

related: Great, your OCD just caused a diabetic coma. Happy?