Colleagues keep using my milk!

[Immo8]

I don't want to sound petty as in the grand scheme of things, milk isn't an expensive item and maybe I should leave this be, but it's really starting to grate on me...

Work in an office with around 30-ish staff, the majority are on shift work including weekends so people are in & out a lot. I work standard hours 4 days a week. The company provides tea & coffee but staff bring in their own milk etc. I buy a large filtered milk every month as it lasts and I only have a few cups of tea a day so makes sense.

However, over the last 6 months or so, people will ask me if they can 'borrow' some milk. I would never say no to someone asking but they NEVER bring in their own milk or buy one to replace mine that they've used over the weeks...

Today, I brought in a brand new milk, name on it, placed it at the back of the fridge so hard to find, and I've just gone to make a cuppa and it's been opened without asking, and a 1/4 of it has gone!

How do I word an email to my colleagues (if people think I should) that is polite and doesn't sound too petty?

I'd write a 'dated opened' on it that was several weeks ago, or keep it in an opaque carrier bag (people are generally too lazy to rummage inside) or write homemade yogurt 'contains live cultures and kefir - not suitable for tea/ coffee' on the carton!

Someone stole my breast milk! This is possibly outing!

I don’t drink milk but my 3 office colleagues had rage that their communal milk was always being used by other teams. They were frequently left with no milk and felt like they were subsidising a whole bloody dairy farm for the organisational staff’s coffee break needs.

At this time I was expressing milk and had an insulated caddy with bottles I’d leave at the back of the fridge. This would obviously go untouched.

My colleagues asked if they could decant their milk into the front compartment baby bottle and store their milk in my caddy.

This deterrant worked a treat for ages.

Then one day some fucker drained most but not quite all of all three bottles!

It was years ago and I still lie awake with an identity parade of suspects in my head.

The very fact that someone needed to invent this shows how many CFs there out there!

I never understand people who help themselves to other people's food and drink. Maybe it's because I grew up poor, but it just wouldn't occur to me to do this. As far as I'm concerned, that's their food and it's nothing to do with me. I could be starving and I wouldn't think it was okay to touch what someone else spent money on for themselves.

This makes it even harder when my boss helps herself to my food. She likes to eat about half of something (without asking) and then leave it sitting open and exposed to the elements for a day or two, until I get back. Sometimes I don't discover she's done this until I'm sitting down on my break and it's too late to go out and buy replacement food. I'm not going to eat something that has been open to the flies and left to go stale, so I go hungry.

I don't understand the mindset. Lately I've been thinking I might start pouring small amounts of her milk down the sink when she's not around, so she runs out faster. I'm lactose intolerant, so she'll know I'm not drinking it, and would have no idea what's happening. But the thought of her going to pour milk in her tea and not having enough feels like it might be a satisfying petty revenge 😁

take some in each few days - enough to cover the bottom of the bottle for about an inch - looks like you haven't much in there - I bet people wont finish it or ask to use it if it empties the bottle - a) they would have to clean bottle and throw away when they know its yours - label it - b) then they look tight not replacing it

spit in it and put a label on saying you spit in it. end of

Ridiculous that you have to buy your own milk. Your fridge is big enough for 30 cartons?

Id be emailing the big boss, asking for milk to be provided. Tight f*ers.

Honestly, bring it up with HR. They’re consistently stealing from you. It’s low grade and it’s boring but HR are obliged to do something about it.

Take a flask of milk and keep it with you. Put a second bottle of milk in the fridge( different from your usual brand so no one thinks it's you) but put lots of salt in it. Enjoy the results

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

A small thermos in your bag is probably the best way to go.

They're horrible though - you can always taste UHT milk and it's not nice.

its not petty, a method i used was a different container think eg almond milk etc and used normal milk in it

OMG - utter bastard! There would have been milk dripping all over the fridge!

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.

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

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

Unbelievably Horrible Taste

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.

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.

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

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

Why is the company so stingy?

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!

Bloody hell :(

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.