Colleagues keep using my milk!

Do you work at a desk? Could you bring milk in a flask each day? You shouldn’t have to but it would solve the problem.

My milk (non filtered) seems to happily last a good couple of weeks in my fridge. I only get deliveries once a fortnight and I my milk is never off.

BTW, My Cravendale milk which is in a very cold fridge, has been open for 8 days and is definitely on the turn. It has a use by date of 25th January.

When I experienced something similar, I bought a lockable cash box, and put that in the fridge. It is not much bigger than a tupperware box.

I suppose you could also get one for your desk biscuits.

I mostly drink espressos at work so don't have it a lot.

I'd have personally gone for the suggestion to decant half into a cooler container to store in the fridge. People tend not to use stuff when they aren't too sure what's in it, and don't want to take time sniffing a unknown liquid. Chances are there will be one horrid jerk amongst the free loaders that will be upset by your tactic and sabotage it.

Use a flask to store your own milk for five or six weeks. You must endure this temporary inconvenience while you train your thieves. Before the first week of flask usage, buy a small bottle of your preferred milk. Leave it somewhere warm until it has noticeably gone sour. Not horribly curdled and separated; just enough to fail a sniff test and make a drink unpalatable.

Place this bottle in the communal fridge. Make sure it has your name written on it. The thieves will quickly discover that it’s off and either discard it or begin to ignore it. Repeat this process over a few weeks until the thieves have made a powerful mental and visual connection between your small bottles of milk and it being off every time they try it. You must make sure that you use the exact same milk, bottle size, writing, and place it in the same place each week.

People are extraordinarily quick to learn to avoid things they find distasteful. In a short time your distinctive little bottle will become invisible - even repellent - to them and you can start putting identical small bottles of fresh milk in the fridge again, reasonably sure that it will be left unmolested.

Although tempting, adding laxatives is unlawful.

Agree. There will also be people who because they are paying will think they should have their preferred kind of milk available whether that is full fat, semi skimmed or skimmed. And milk buying rotas don’t work either. There will always be someone who forgets it’s their turn or who says “sorry, couldn’t get milk today because x”

Agree.

In cases like this, I always think to myself, "What's the easiest, least dramatic work-around?" And it's this.

As an aside, your milk lasts an entire month? boak.

Don’t send email just creates drama and it’ll go on & on
Decant into metal water bottle , unlikely they’ll use that

No the office manager sorts all that out.

OP has clearly said that there's no shortage of space on the fridge for those who use milk.

I'd love to see the thieves' faces when they see the milk lock. I think that's the best way of (hopefully) bringing it home to them. For all they know, you might have started using a different container for your own convenience - but a lock comes right out and screams "Thief!" at the thieves!

This happened in my office but with someone's bread. He started charging £1 per slice 😂

I hope that was a joke

It's the time hassle of having to go out and buy it regularly because it goes off so quickly. They could potentially ask a staff member to pick up some on their way in.

My advice would be to put some laxatives in the current carton of milk that you have. Then on Monday I'd bring in some milk in a thermos and use that. Leave the current carton untouched by you.

Then I'd circulate an email saying that you felt that you had been left with no option as you are not providing free milk to your colleagues and while the fridge might be communal for storage, the contents are not free for use.
I might even consider transferring some milk to a thermos that I could use during the day and not even show them that I'd bought a carton lock until absolutely necessary. In a few weeks time after you are no longer providing them with their daily dairy, you introduce the lock on your milk.

Our kitchen space at work has 40+ people using it and a tiny fridge. Honestly OP we'd be well pissed off with you bringing in a month's supply of milk.
Just get a chillies bottle and keep the milk on your desk or in your bag, it stays cold for a good 12 hours.

We had this problem too. I started bringing in a small flask of milk each day, and kept it on my desk. Another colleague put hers into a baby's bottle, with the words breast milk written on it. No one touched it, ever!

You've never worked for the NHS!

@Immo8 please update us when people realise. I fully expect CF ‘cereal milk’ person to moan 😂.

Are you in charge of getting the milk, though - to see how much is used?

You may well work in a place full of respectful non-CFs; but if you did have milk thieves, they'd hardly be open and obvious about it.

UHT is nasty, though. That's a bit like deliberately burning your house down just so that nobody can burgle it

Did the LA charge you for electricity to run the fridge? Wouldn't put it past them.

Temped for solicitors years ago, senior partner goes mental at me for charging my phone in their sacred socket - using their precious lekky - but it wasn't me, one of his colleagues came running out to fess up when he heard the commotion. Weirdo and I didn't get an apology.

Off topic, but this thread reminded me of a contractor who would do her weekly shop on the way to work (only one day in the office), she'd empty the office fridge of people's lunches etc and stuff her shopping in till the end of the day. She'd be very put out when colleagues complained.

A company who provides tea and coffee and not milk is not really providing tea and coffee as most people don't drink those things without milk.