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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

Biscuit police -AIBU?

242 replies

Supermagicsmile · 20/01/2017 07:16

There is no rule on buying biscuits, if the team are gifted any we put them out in the staff room and all enjoy them.

One woman at work had taken it upon herself to monitor and ration the biscuits/sweets as she sees fit.

Yesterday we were given a box of chocolates. I was looking forward to having one but they were not in the staffroom. I was told X had put them away because we already had some biscuits out (they were the dregs of a Christmas box that no-one wanted to eat.)

She will often appear at random times with a new box of sweets/chocolates that were donated and she was keeping 'safe.'

I also noticed that at the end of our break last week she took the whole box of biscuits with her to stop anyone eating them when it wasn't our collective break time (we don't all have breaks together everyday so feel this is unfair as when we are in the staffroom there is often nothing to eat at all.) she has not bought any of these herself so has no more 'claim' on them than anyone else.

Aibu to think it should not be up to her what we eat and when?

OP posts:
MiscellaneousAssortment · 21/01/2017 09:48

I wouldn't make a biscuit requisition form as she may well think it's a terribly good idea!

That's the problem with people who've got a 'thing' for controlling others, they're so rigid and extreme they lose all perspective...

mya83 · 21/01/2017 09:58

.

BigGrannyPants · 21/01/2017 12:56

Someone should just confront her and tell her it is not her decision nor her place to ration or monitor the biscuits. They are not her biscuits and she can't make this her unelected 'job' if she thinks people are eating more than their fair share of biscuits then she should buy her own and keep them locked in her desk drawer. This is disturbing behaviour and if allowed to continue, may extend to other things like printer paper etc she should be told to stop it!

2ndSopranos · 21/01/2017 13:21

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

StealthPolarBear · 21/01/2017 18:03

I've noticed this thing about draining boards, my parents and ils seem horrified when stuff is left on there. The clues in the name as far as I'm concerned. What do people who it annoys use draining boards for?

wowfudge · 21/01/2017 18:11

Ime people leave stuff which has been rinsed rather than washed on the draining board. Yuck.

Very irritating when people dump used mugs and crockery in the sink at work when there's a dishwasher a foot away. You can't wash your hands without the water splashing up at you from the crap in the sink.

There's also someone who shares the kitchen who opens packs of biscuits in the cupboard, reaches in and takes a handful but leaves the rest to go stale rather than putting them in the tin we have.

Sammysquiz · 21/01/2017 18:16

NeverSay that's cos people who click on a thread about dentists and too much sugar are a more serious bunch than those of us who are excited by the concept of 'biscuit police' Grin

StealthPolarBear · 21/01/2017 18:19

Ah. Mu stuff I'd always thoroughly washed and air drying

cherrytree63 · 21/01/2017 19:03

Super do you work in a lab by any chance? You're describing to a t someone I used to work with.
Oh the venemous wrath if someone dared to start the 2nd layer before all the top was finished.
A colleague brought in biscuits in a really lovely tin, and said she wanted the tin back.
Come 2nd break time, the tin had gone. Found in the biscuit controller's desk. Cue a massive screaming match with the biscuit controller going crazy because jer right to horde the biscuits was being challenged!
Custardcreamgate...

HappyFlappy · 21/01/2017 19:06

Maybe everyone should take to calling her 'mother'?

Or Stalin.

HappyFlappy · 21/01/2017 19:10

Buddha

f I thought I'd get a sash and a whistle I would be everything monitor! Grin

Magicsmile

She is not your mother - she has no right to treat you all like children. If they all get eaten in one day by one greedy individual, then that is the cross you have to bear, but it isn't up to anyone else to ration the biscuits. We are not at war.

MrsBlennerhassett · 21/01/2017 19:21

YANBU this would wind me up something shocking. Especially if i had purchased the biscuits myself for people to share. Can you find whoever has paid for them and tell them whats happening or buy a tin yourself for everyone, then when she tries to take charge of it you can legitimately tell her that you bought it and its for everyone to have out and share from as they see fit whenever they like?

HappyFlappy · 21/01/2017 19:30

Geeky

recently sent out an company wide email with a photo of a teaspoon on it. It was missing from the set of six. Her exact words were (punctuation included) If this spoon has come into your possession, by accident or deliberate design, please put it on my desk at lunchtime and no further action will be taken.

Jesus! I know this wumman! Do you work at a prestigious Northern university (Yes! They do exist!)? Is she tall and very thin and wears a chenille jumper the colour of a baby seal? Does her husband walk around looking as though he is longing for death?

She is the Spoon Police! I have posted about her before, I'm sure. She used to send university-wide e-mails to ALL departments, with the red exclamation marks on them and everything "Will the person who has removed a teaspoon from the kitchen return it immediately!." etc.

I'm sure the Chancellor loved getting her missives and checked all of his desk drawers for errant teaspoons.

I'm afraid that, being a sarky bugger, I often sent her links such as the following:

crookedtimber.org/2010/05/23/the-case-of-the-disappearing-teaspoons/

aschoonerofscience.com/recent-research/radioactive-decay-of-teaspoons-in-the-workplace/

I once even succeeded in finding a pair of ear-rings made out of stainless steel teaspoons which I wore provocatively in the office (mmm - I wonder where thy are now Oh, well . . . >)

People like this spend more (expensive) time chasing round after sod-all than they do doing their paid work. It used to drive me crackers until I started tormenting her (as above). I felt better after that.

HappyFlappy · 21/01/2017 19:52

Why a hedgehog? What's a hedgehog got to do with changing the loo roll?

Are you intentionally speciesist Morgan? Or can you just not help yourself?

HappyFlappy · 21/01/2017 19:57

I like that idea Marmite - ginger nut suspended over a cup of hot tea, Kit-Kat on the point of being snapped, digestive with a gun to its - er, head.

This could work!

HappyFlappy · 21/01/2017 19:59

What do people who it annoys use draining boards for?

They are there for show, Bear.

Everybody knows that,

FurryLittleTwerp · 21/01/2017 20:06

My DM & DMIL put dirty dishes on the draining board before washing up.

NO this is completely wrong - arrrgghhh!!!

CaspoFungin · 21/01/2017 20:22

One year at my work we didn't get any chocolates for months, it turned out management were keeping any biscuit tins etc donated and then they 'gave' us all a box at Christmas as if they'd bought them for us!

BreakfastAtStephanies · 21/01/2017 20:27

Geeky - your post had me laughing out loud. The teaspoon earrings - brilliant. Love the half-life of teaspoons being 81 days. That happened to us at home, think DD was chucking out her empty yoghurt corner pots complete with teaspoon. DS wants to know if the decay of the teaspoons is exponential or a straight line ( doing A-level Physics).

BreakfastAtStephanies · 21/01/2017 20:40

We have no biscuit police at work. However there is a colleague who likes to keep the cupboards organised.

Cupboard is stuffed with boxes of cup-a-soups, crackers, bottles of squash, bread, etc, belonging to everyone who wants to make lunch for themselves.

I bring lunch from home. I have one item in the cupboard - one ! It is a bottle of balsamic vinegar which I might pour onto a salad from home or an avocado pear. I don't use it very often.

Every couple of months this colleague asks me if my vinegar is ok in there. As if it might spoil or need removing for some reason. It's in a sealed bottle, it does not smell. Surely vinegar used to be wine, and can't go off any further ? What does it become next ? It tastes fine. I am thinking of removing it because it seems to bother her that it is still there after 2 years.

SDTGisAnEvilWolefGenius · 21/01/2017 21:53

I have come up with a refinement to my 'buy lots of packets of biscuits and replace them every time she hides the last one' plan.

Buy hundreds of identical packets of biscuits. Put them out one at a time. Every time she removes the pack, put out another identical one.

Repeat until her head explodes.

TrapDoorInACanoe · 21/01/2017 23:58

GrinGrinGrin WolefGenius

Mamawingingit1234 · 22/01/2017 00:50

Please tell us you are going to say something!!!
In my old job I was assistant to the owner but also had the admin girl report into mean was unofficially the office manager. The boss was a little OCD about things and would routine get me to take pictures of dishes being left in the sink and send out arsey emails about it. I'm mean it was gross and totally lazy especially since we had a dishwasher but didn't I feel like the biggest twat when I had to threaten removal of crockery until people had learned a lesson! Thankfully it did come out that it was him rather than me when he called a company wide meeting about it.
On the plus side we did keep the office in biscuits and cakes non stop not to mention take away Tuesdays and wine on a Friday

Freyanna · 22/01/2017 01:59

Ha ha this is a great thread! ROFL at GeekyWombat's teaspoon post!

dylsmimi · 22/01/2017 05:20

I had a colleague who decided to restrict everyone's cake intake one day. She is lovely normally but I had bought in homemade brownies and she walked back in from the kitchen. Saying 'you're brownies are a bit rich so hope you don't mind but I've cut them up smaller'
I walked in to find them all in tiny child like portions so j looked like a rieal wierdo who had made brownies and cut them up teeny tiny for everyone! I couldn't say who had done it. Surely if you don't want the size of the slice there you cut off the bit you want not cut up all the brownies? It was one step away from feeding them all to us like an aeroplane spoon!