My only experience with 'stolen lunch' actually turned into a valuable cultural lesson for me. It was decades ago, at the start of my IT career, and I was cont

My only experience with 'stolen lunch' actually turned into a valuable cultural lesson for me. It was decades ago, at the start of my IT career, and I was contracted to fly out to a remote Aboriginal community (I am in Australia) to do some IT work. It was a full day thing, as there was only one commuter flight out to the community in the early morning, and one return flight in the evening. So I packed a big lunch with snacks to see me through the day. When I arrived at the community, I went to the main council office, found a fridge in the kitchen, put my lunch in it and went about my work. At lunch time, I went back to fridge, starving, and opened it to find that all my lunch had gone. Every last speck and extra snack! I was fuming, and sought out the council manager to complain about this. He just gave me a strange look during my hypoglycaemic meltdown, which kind of stopped me in my tracks, then said "Look, this is an Aboriginal community, and all their cultural rules apply. Traditionally, the men would go hunting and bring the spoils of their hunt back to the community. Whatever was brought back belongs to all, as per tribal rules. Any food that is left in the shared fridge is traditionally there for everyone to share in". That completely shook me to my core to look at the situation in a completely different light. And true to the spirit of their tribal culture, the manager offered me some of his lunch to keep me going that day.