Colleagues keep using my milk!

What's a baghead?

Previous posters have mentioned that didn't stop some people 😳😳😳

A problem as old as time.

I don’t think there’s anything wrong with a short polite email to the team.

They already provide tea and coffee, how much of a stretch is it really to add milk to the list?

My company provides tea, coffee and milk, as well as cereal. As far as I'm aware no one is taking loads home

This happens everywhere. I did an unpaid placement for a few months and very senior staff stole my milk. In my current role I'm only in the office 2 days a week so I bring in a small tub of powdered milk instead. Its not great but I've got used to it!

We have a milk thief. I bring my milk in a flask each day. Keeps it cold and only I use it.

Gentle version: Decant your milk into another container or perhaps a goat’s milk carton, nobody will touch it.

Extreme version: This involves wasting one pint of milk though or part of, add epsom salts to it.

I used to finish the milk and then pour new milk into the old carton, no one would touch it as they thought it was out of date.

I’ve had to start taking my milk in a flask because I was fed up of going to make my very much needed 3pm coffee and finding all my milk had been used.

This happens in every office. A different container (small water bottle etc) is the best way of avoiding it as people won’t know if it’s out of date.

if people ask say sure, it must be your turn to bring the milk in next week.

Gosh loads of places I've worked in don't provide anything, cups /hot water etc. The NHS for example.

If people are in the office infrequently, the company could just get in a stock of UHT for staff. I prefer fresh, but it's a small price to pay for working from home for most of the week, and to not have to waste my time bringing in tiny amounts of milk and worry about people nicking it.

@Immo8 Don't know why you're bothered about being polite TBH!

Put a big photo of Liam Neeson on it and a note saying ' Keep the fuck off my milk! If you steal it, I will hunt you down and kill you'

Some people may take this as a challenge .................... but it'll make your working life more interesting 😎

It's nice if your employer provides free drinks, but it's by no means your right to them if they don't.

As there are already milk thieves, they probably know that, even if they did provide free milk, people would abuse it by taking vast quantities of it home with them - same as the people who never buy bog roll for home, but just see it as a 'perk' to regularly steal whole rolls/packs of it from work.

It's also another task for somebody to take on, to have to keep checking and replenishing it every day/few days - especially if vast quantities are regularly 'going walkies'. At least with tea and coffee, you can order in a huge box that will last for months.

Moreover, there's the potential H&S risk if it gets left out of the fridge for long periods and makes somebody very ill - they could theoretically even be sued for it.

Bloody hell :(

I’m guessing public sector? I’ve worked in public sector and we couldn’t even accept freebies worth more than a tenner let alone be bought milk!

Why is the company so stingy?

Me and 3 colleagues bought a mini fridge to keep near our desks for our milk as the same kept happening. We stuck a tenner each in and it was totally worth it

Stick it in a baby bottle and write “breast milk” on the label. Nobody will go near it

I would strongly advise NOT to set up a milk kitty.

For starters, some people will falsely claim they don't use it, and so won't pay into it. Others will agree to join in, but will constantly 'forget' to ever pay. However, because they are supposedly 'part of the milk kitty club', they will gladly help themselves anyway, without any hesitation.

Worst of all, the people who currently steal who do agree to pay - and actually do pay - will expect great 'value for their money'. So might others who join and pay who didn't previously steal it.

Because they are 'paying good money for their milk', many will go out of their way to maximise their usage. They may start drinking full glasses of milk/milkshake and/or deliberately having cereal every morning. You may well get some regularly filling up big cartons from the communal milk to take home with them - 'because they've already paid for it anyway, so it's silly to pay again for milk for at home'.

However much milk you buy, it will 'run out'; then, when it does, you or whoever runs the kitty will be 'thanked' for it by being blamed - at best for supposedly being lazy; or at worst with suggestions that you're pocketing the money yourself and not buying it, as you agreed and they trustingly pay you for (or should but don't).

Yep: the thieves will blame you for thieving, as a direct result of your actions to stop them from thieving. Do not do it.

I wonder if some of the thieves live in houses where somebody else - spouse, parent, whoever - buys the milk in; and they're so used to just taking whatever milk they want from the fridge, they can't/won't behave appropriately when they aren't at home.

I agree that they (other than cereal CF) probably think that a splash of milk is such an inconsequential amount that it doesn't matter; but of course, when you get loads of people doing it several times every day, of course it quickly adds up.

Unbelievably Horrible Taste

get a small flask and bring milk in daily, then you won’t need the fridge at all

I would start an office collection from everyone and a rota for buying milk for everyone to share.

I hate to tell you this but someone at a previous workplace put some sort of lock on her milk bottle lid. Some bstard stabbed a hole in the side of the bottle and poured milk out from there instead 😡.*

That would definitely be time for the mass email at that point. Wow.