‘The problem is that you need to have evidence,’ Matthew, the security guy said as we watched the video of a man picking up Natasha’s Macbook Air and iPhone (but not her BlackBerry) off her desk, putting it inside his parka and nonchalantly walking out of our office while we sat in the nearby meeting room with the door open.
‘You can’t get more much more evidence than this,’ our boss said gesturing towards the footage.
‘That’s true,’ Matthew continued. ‘Things are different here, though. If he returns tomorrow we can’t do much; we can only ask what he is doing.’

The suspect was already known to the security team and the police, Matthew acknowledged. He had been checking each floor alongside another security worker when I had found him in the corridor and alerted him to the robbery. No one in our building had been warned to be extra vigilant but Matthew had been heedful of the no-eating-in-the lobby rule when he had approached Natasha and I eating our cookies on the sofa during our lunchbreak the previous day.

As Natasha and I left work, we shared the lift down with one of our office neighbours and asked her if she had heard anything about a criminal on the loose. As we departed ways she said, ‘Ladies, try not to let this incident ruin your weekend. These things happen but there are more important things in life.’

This reminded me of other infuriating things people say (namely in relationships):

• If we resolved this issue, there will always be something else for you to complain about.
• Why are you always causing problems?
• You don’t appreciate how hard I work.
• You’re too good for me/I can’t make you happy.
• You’re being dramatic.