Colleagues keep using my milk!

I wouldn’t keep it on view on the desk pr people will try to sneak a bit while OP is out of the room. Keep it in a drawer, preferably a lockable one.

Use a vacuum flask that keeps milk cold all day and keep it on your desk. You are never going to stop people using your milk.

They could just have milk though, obviously 🤨

It does seem rather a sad state of affairs when workplaces provide a fridge for the use of employees - except nobody can use it, and instead everybody has to keep their lunch and milk in a cool bag or buy a mini-fridge for under their desk - because of thieves.

The epitome of 'this is why we can never have nice things'.

People are arseholes.

Lots of lunch stealing going on so I just take my stuff in an insulated lunch bag with ice pack and lock it away.

I worked in a place where milk was centrally provided. Each dept had to collect their own and log it. Then on the late shift and night shift other depts would raid our fridge when they ran out. 🙄 And within our team people would use the last of it up and never go to collect more. It was meant to be for cups of tea and coffee but they used loads for cereal instead of buying any.

Take some milk in a metal water bottle and store that in the fridge. People are unlikely to use it then, as they won’t know what’s in there or whether you drink it directly from the bottle.

A male friend got so annoyed at this that he bought a 1 litre milk, poured some out and pissed in it, before replacing in work fridge. He was delighted to see over the course of a couple of days that several people had obviously enjoyed a splash in their coffee…

Of course they won’t buy their own. They don’t need to, they have the that one you buy. I would put yours in your own small container and take home each day.

In our office, someone will bring milk in but it isn’t one particular person and usually if there is no milk left, someone will nip out to get some.

Yes, please - we need to know!!

Did you challenge the Queen Bee over the croissant crumbs?

That's the CF's textbook MO: only ever take and take and take - then when you say enough is enough and stop giving and being treated like an absolute mug, then YOU are the one who suddenly doesn't understand what 'acceptable behaviour' is.

I agree about UHT being vile. I used to work with a puerile prankster who loved to “accidentally” spray uht milk as it opened and point and laugh and make comments about semen stains. I haven’t been able to open a uht milk without remembering that little snot.

UHT is ghastly..in tea certainly…I’d rather take it black then stick that in, I can taste it a mile off..,nasty stuff

Cancel the cheque

Put it in a thermos?

I once lived in a house share and the same thing would happen to me the same person taking my milk. I mentioned it and they said I was being tight, I replied isn't it you that's being tight for never ever buying any? I honestly can't get my head around how other people's minds work, they need to know it's yours and you want a contribution or the udder lock looks like a great idea, pop that on and watch their faces when they open the fridge door

I repeat - WTF?

Put lock on and write on milk buy your own

OR get one if these ! Then they will really get the picture 😂
amzn.eu/d/757D7Gf

Also, it's a very common CF belief that, if somebody has purposefully stocked up on something in advance, deliberately so that they don't need to worry about going to the shops/remembering/paying for it for a good while, this means that they have 'more than they need', 'plenty to spare' and 'won't miss it if I take a few'.

It's a perfectly normal and wise thing to plan your time and budget ahead, with a big one-off task to tick off the to-do list rather than having to do it over and over again - just like most people don't just put a litre of petrol in their car, use most of it, then go back for another litre (unless they're seriously on their uppers) - but advantage-takers love to 'justify' their behaviour by suggesting that it was somehow your fault in stocking up and not theirs in deliberately stealing somebody else's belongings.

Funny how they never seem to use the same principle by shoplifting from Tesco, on the basis that they have loads and loads of tins of beans or toilet rolls.

I take a small empty water bottle with milk in every day. I too got fed up with people always pinching mine and NEVER bringing their own. I also used to have a tub of those tiny jams in, in my desk drawer. Once I had filled it up to the top but a few weeks later I went to get some out and about 8 had gone! Some people are just thieves, plain and simple.

Yep - binge eating disorders are horrendous things to have to live with; but it's perfectly possible to buy the food that you binge on yourself.

@TreacleTarcleSparkle

We need to know what happened next! Did she sob and beg for your forgiveness, or did she try to style it out and insist that the (identical) box of croissants and associated mess was already in the cubicle when she got there?!

Could you make a polite and reasonable appeal to the boss that they buy some milk to go with the tea and coffee to avoid the ill feeling and wasted energy of communal fridge wars?

Most of my workplaces have done this, the only one that didn't caused me to take up drinking black coffee instead of tea with milk.

Indeed. I bet they wouldn't shoplift in the supermarket if they realised they'd accidentally left their purse/other payment methods at home.

When being disorganised means that you end up taking advantage of and/or stealing from other people, the answer is to take steps to become more organised; not to shrug and think "It's just the loveable, endearing little way I am".