Heard today about a great invention that prevents co-workers from stealing your lunch.  It is a regular sandwich bag that has green splotches printed on both sides.  It makes your sandwich look inedible, thus preventing it from being snatched.  Brilliant!

I suppose you can make your own, or you can check them out here.

It is so simple.  It doesn’t take a psychology degree to realize why someone will be dissuaded from stealing your sandwich.  There are several ways that the designers might have arrived at this product, and it can be a lesson to us all about how to approach our work more cleverly:

1.  Observation

Why is it that the only food in the fridge at work is the ones that border on scientific experiments?  Someone might have observed this trend and thought of a way to not “fight the system,” but clearly play within it.  What trends or practices exist in your industry?  How can they be used to your advantage?

2.  Testing

They might have tried some different things.  They might have tried a padlock on their lunch bag.  They might have tried leaving a note.  Installing a webcam in the fridge.  They might have tried putting a fridge under their desk at work.  They buried their lunch in the back of the fridge, and forgot about it.  Then, the options started coming together.

3.  Derivatives

Perhaps it was a note, written in Sharpie pen on a Ziploc, that read “This is my sandwich.  Keep your paws off!” that got them thinking about inking the bag in the first place.

4.  Looking Inside a Joke for the Truth

Perhaps the whole thing started a prank.  Someone accused of swiping sandwiches had their lunch transferred to this kind of bag.  Then, strangely, the prank became a real product because it touched a real need.

5.  They asked a kid

We may not be smarter than a 5th grader, but couldn’t you imagine that this is the kind of solution that a 10 year old would come up with.  They wouldn’t mind that it is a little gross.  They wouldn’t mind if the sight of their sandwich made them lose their appetite.  So, share your problems with a kid and get a different perspective altogether.