Someone keeps stealing my mug!

[ScottyTeapot]

A petty little grievance here, but I have an oversized coffee mug that I keep at work - it’s pretty, and is personalised with my initial. At the end of a day, it goes into the dishwasher with all the other mugs and the cleaner puts them back in the cupboard for the next morning.

However – my mug keeps going missing!

I work for a company that provide oodles of branded promotional mugs, of which there’s loads available to staff – I do feel that the size of my super-mug is the reason it goes walkies.

Can’t work out who it is – I’ve never caught them I the act, and it could be a case that whoever it is, doesn’t know it’s specifically mine, as our offices are all quite separate. However, it’s blatantly someone’s personal mug!

But how do I stop them doing it?

Thought about a pass-agg message in the bottom, written in Sharpie, but it wouldn’t last long.

As I said, it’s not important in the grand scheme of things, but it’s just so bloody rude!

Help me get them told, MNers!

Dog Tag the handle with a sign saying knob off thief OY! Property of Teapot stop nicking it!

I am really territorial about my work mug. I wish I weren't because I'm aware it turns me into some kind of petty tyrant, but it is very precious to me!

On the occasions mine has 'gone missing' (been used by some other entitled, selfish bastard), I have emailed the entire office (who I realise probably now spit in said mug every time they make me a drink) with a photo of the mug and asked for it to be returned asap. It has been very effective.

[Margo wanders off wondering why she always hears feet running away from her at work, unaware that she now repels all of her colleagues, who while away the hours laughing at her mug issues.]

I wash my own mug and keep it on my desk. Easy.

Alan Turing used to chain his mug to the radiator at Bletchley Park.

Put up wanted posters, let everyone have fun with it offer pack of biscuits as reward for info pertaining to where abouts of said mug....

Wash your own mug and keep it on ur desk - are you ok thinking that someone unhygienic could be using it and then it’s not getting washed properly. Yuk.

I would t use one of he mugs in he office and keep a couple of personal mugs in my room. Other people don’t always have clean habits. Same with cutlery - I keep my own stick o that in my room. Some of my colleagues have disgusting dirty habits

Yes, just keep it on your desk and rinse it before you use it.

I was the office mug knobhead once, when someone kept using my treasured John Shuttleworth mug. I emailed the whole company saying “please don’t use my mug - it’s a collectors’ item and very rare”.

Soon after, we had an office outing to see John Shuttleworth in concert. On the merchandise stall in the lobby was the most enormous, gigantic pyramid of mugs exactly like mine.

Didn’t I look a chump.

OP - we need a picture :)

Can you ask the cleaner nicely to leave it on your desk instead of in the cupboard?

Ah you know the only sensible solution is to wash it yourself. It's hardly manual labour.

But I feel your pain. As a non-hot beverage drinker I had a large glass at work. It amazed me the number of times it disappeared into other people's desk - only a couple of small glasses in the office.

It stopped the day I found it on a colleagues desk full of their drink. I emptied it out, washed it and refilled it with mine.

Of course it was also after that occasion that I would wash it up and lock it away at the end of every day. But on days where I might have forgotten, my glass would be where I left it the night before.

I keep forgetting to put mine away. The cleaner comes and collects the mugs and put them through the dishwasher. I agree about cutjery and bring my own. After they are washed the cleaner puts the mugs into
The cupboard apart from mine i’ve Seen her once so I can’t have annoyed her lol

My work mug has been stolen too! I'm thinking of making a passive-aggressive wanted poster... It was a present from my old boss, and is very obviously MY mug

Depending on what you drink in it don't wash it just rinse and put it back on your desk. After a couple of drinks it will have tea stains that won't effect you but will deter anyone looking for a 'clean' mug.

@ScottyTeapot My friend bought me a silly gift of a mug that is covered in what can only be described as “sparkly rainbow unicorn cats”. I do try to wash it, but sometimes I have to rush out and as I share a desk don’t want to leave it there and so stick it in the dishwasher, like you say it’s not actually the end of the world and usually returns eventually. One colleague went hunting for it for me once and found it on one of the Gen Z intern’s desk which makes sense as it’s all instagrammy. HOWEVER 99% of the time if it goes missing it is found in the CEO’s office. He is a man in his 50’s who runs a charity and you would not guess for one minute would like my mug, and yet although we have 30+ mugs it is almost always mine I find in his office: it has no benefits such as large size that would explain it, clearly he just secretly loves rainbow catticorns. I went on mat leave yesterday and planned to take it home but I was too embarrassed to ask for it back and didn’t want to be found in his office taking it!

Exhibit A!

I think this requires a whole organisation email send out to everyone in every department even if they have never been to your site.

Send “my pretty initial large mug has gone missing!!! Please return it to the kitchen as it is very personal to me and myself and said
Mug have made some very fond memories. No questions will be asked”

The time it went missing for days I sent an all staff email saying:

Subject: Sparkly Unicorn Cat Mug

“If anyone has seen my mug lying around then I’d appreciate it making its way back to the kitchen. I don’t mind their magical cat powers being used for caffeine-based good around the office but it’s nice to see them return home to the cupboard so they can recharge their magical cat powers.”

It should be noted that I work for a small charity where we don’t get 1000s of emails and generally send emails about snacks in the kitchen etc so wasn’t wasting 100’s of peoples time!

My work mug setup is almost identical to yours OP. I only work part time and somebody clearly got used to using it when I wasn’t in, I stalked round a few desks but never caught the culprit. Then one day it was just gone, never to be seen again. I think the fucker took it home. I feel your pain.

This happened to me once and I now somehow work up the energy to wash one mug at the end of the day.
Just wash the damn mug and keep it separate!!!!

Ahh, but Powkin - you told people you didn't mind. That's why the CEO uses your cup. Easily identifiable, and they have prior written permission...

Buy a personalised mug that clearly has ur name on it big writing or an embarassingly photo/quote.

Wash it up yourself and put it in your drawer.

It's hardly rocket science, is it?

Write at the bottom of it with a sharpie pen, your name. So when it's upseide down they'll know it's not a shared mug but belongs to someone. I don't think it's intentional. I never used the dish washer for this very reason and washed it by hand.

I used to have a Cath Kidston mug, one of the big ones, with a toadstool design.

It was successfully transported from the UK to Aus. And then some bleeder nicked it from my desk one day when I was off (I deliberately washed it myself each day to avoid the dishwasher/cupboard situation). I searched high and low but it was never seen (by me!) again

Anyway, I can recommend washing it yourself - even just a quick swill with some boiling water - and hiding it in a drawer!

Alan Turing used to chain his mug to the radiator at Bletchley Park.

That's Genius in Action, that is.

I used to wash my own mug and hide it in my desk at the very back of the file drawer with the chocolates.

I HATE anyone using my mug - same here at home. I have a mug for coffee alone, and while I am happy to use any one of four tea mugs, and have others share them - that's MY coffee mug, and it has cartoon cats on it (by Quentin Blake - is fab!) and I don't even like people looking at it in case their eyeball gravity wears off the illustrations.