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?

https://amzn.eu/d/gF9zvU5

Get a milk lock, we've done this is our office, problem solved 😊

Keep it at home and take a flask of milk in each day …::.

NHS it depends on the trust. Some do provide tea,coffee,milk, Some don’t.
I imagine the press being scorching about it. Lazy staff drink tea at your expense
Ahhhh the tea kitty- I worked in a team that had a formidable woman who got everyone to pay. She left. It fell apart

Are you based in the south east, and if so, have you got any vacancies?

Don't go sending emails about this. You can't do it without sounding petty because it is.

Decant your milk into a vacuum flask and keep it with you if this is really getting to you. Personally, I like blue milk and the office only supplies green, so when I'm in I take a one litre bottle and don't mind The Borrowers as long as there's enough left for me - it does hack me off a bit when people make their porridge with it, mind.

A dear sweet colleague minded on my behalf and started to put my initials on the lid with permanent marker. I had to beg her not to.

Don't do this. Famously someone tried it with a pint of beer and got back from the loo to find someone else had written "PS so have I."

In my work fridge there is a bottle that says "X's milk do not drink" it's Sharpied.on it and no one touches it.

Just do that. Maybe decant into a bottle that says lactose free or something to help dissuade people.

Start a milk kitty

Ah, so they'll see how much is used, then - and if the use is 'reasonable' or not.

But either way, they probably won't care that much. It really changes the dynamic if it's provided by work, as the manager presumably just keeps on buying it when needed and the company pays. That's very different from when you've spent your own money and people are continually stealing from you personally.

I'd take your own milk with your Udderlock and leave another one in their but add some salt to it, that'll stop the CF's!

Cancel the cheque

I’m from an office full of thieving skinflints: three suggestions for you. Labelling it ‘breast milk’ will apparently entice any curious young males to take a sip, just to try it. A curious young male assured me of this, and said he used to put a scraggy piece of loo roll or tissue over the top of a regular milk bottle before screwing the lid on, and nobody touched his. But two more things that worked for me: one was to use a feeding bottle, with teat, to store my milk (nobody wants what they think is aptamil in their tea, apparently); the second was to stick a note on said feeding bottle to request, do not touch; milk contains medication. Nobody wants to take unknown medication. This is only credible for a short period. It never got to the point where I replaced the milk with milk of magnesia, which was my next move 😂. I’d go with the feeding bottle. If someone takes some: stick on the note about the medication alongside a recommendation that the person who took some contact their GP - at least you’ll soon find out who the culprit is, when they come begging to know what they have ingested! 🤣

Could you write I AM STEALING SARAH'S MILK / PLEASE INFORM HER on the carton?

Yeah but then you get the busybody fridge wombles who will just "do you a favour" and chuck out your "sour" milk.

Or a large photo of her on it, wagging her finger and shaking her head? Maybe also rigged up like one of those old intensely irritating musical birthday cards, to play a tinny version of Feargal Sharkey's 'You Little Thief' when the bottle is opened?!

Please let us know how it goes with the milk lock. If someone breaks into that I think it’s fair to add laxatives. But you can’t email everyone telling them you did that as you can get in trouble.

It's mad, but you can get into a lot of trouble if you spike food or drink that's kept in a place where a thief could easily steal it - if they experience personal discomfort or unpleasantness as a result.

There was a case some years ago where somebody who liked very spicy food took a super hot curry in for their lunch - clearly labelled with their name - and left it in the office fridge.

Somebody else, who wasn't at all used to very spicy food (and wasn't expecting it to be so hot), brazenly stole it and underwent the phenomenon that I believe the young people call FAFO.

They actually had the audacity to complain to the bosses, who at first took the thief's side, and they accused the victim of the theft of deliberately trying to injure anybody who might decide to steal their lunch and merrily leave them to go hungry all day. It was just normal foodstuffs, as the victim genuinely liked to eat for their own lunch - not laxatives or anything else similarly 'medically powerful'.

My employer provides tea, coffee, milk (regular and soy), pays for biscuits or cake once a week, and a fruit basket twice a week. Public sector, but not in the UK (obviously).

In a previous job .. the ‘queen bee’ of the office .. always on a new fabulous diet .. always had a new ‘fabulous’ fiancee etc etc .. well a lot of mine and other colleagues foods would go ‘awol’ from the staff rooms kitchen

I had nipped to the Waitrose practically 2 mins away from the desk so super convenient to grab last min bits for the evening when home

I had bought a huge batch of lovely croissants as had people visiting the next morning .. and the box went missing within minutes!

I then nipped to the ladies and was refreshing and topping up make up/lipstick etc and someone in the cubicle had seemed to go silent (like didn’t want to come out as could here me enter after they’d gone into cubicle and could still hear me near the mirrors etc) then I heard ‘rustling’ noises .. of what not only sounded of a newspaper page turning from said cubicle but the noise of plastic wrappers then by a big faux par on the mystery person in cubicle .. huge flakes of croissants dropped/flew on the floor from
under the cubicle and outside it!

My croissants!!

I then went to the heavy door to exit and pretended to leave but actually tiptoed back in! And the dieting ‘all about herself’ office Queen bee exited from the cubicle! Large flakes/crumbs of croissants all over her chops and down her gorgeous silk karen millen blouse and trousers ! And a pile of croissant crumbs left all around the toilet!
She had the empty croissant box/wrapper in one hand and a newspaper scooped under her arm!

And these croissants weren’t even opened and obviously not in the fridge (or a cupboard etc) to be taken they were in a waitrose bag with other groceries (funnily enough there were fat free greek yoghurts and strawberries but she didn’t take these even though she was on a diet)

I’ll never understand how people and people who seem well educated, great in social situations, beautiful manners and beautifully spoken etc etc seem to think any food (or in your case milk OP) that the same manners or acceptable human behaviour doesn’t seem to apply when in a shared workplace!

Suggest setting up a milk fund so those who take milk can contribute fairly. Either have a rota for who brings in milk each week, or if you have a shop near your office someone can be tasked with a trip to replenish.

Alternatively, get a tub of powdered milk to keep in your desk.

Not sure if this has been suggested but put it in a flask so they can't see what's in it. Or decant it into breastmilk bags and label it breastmilk.....that should put them off!

People who are too tight to buy their own milk but happy to take others’ milk aren’t going to contribute to a milk kitty. I think a flask or milk bottle lock are the only options here.

I did a similar thing. I used to pump at work so people know what my breast milk collectors looked like. I no longer pump but take my milk for tea in those so others won’t use it.

I’ve had my last tea bag used and my sugar. Which when I’m working a night shift and need my cuppa at 4 in the morning I could cry.

What about a note - "this is breastmilk, if you want it direct 1pm behind the front trees" Be funny if the big boss turned up!

If its in a carton, I expect someone will take the scissors to it.
You'll need to keep the key on a chain round your neck, you cant leave it in a drawer, they'll sprint for it when you go to the loo!
& the people who ask to "borrow" some, you'll have to say, "Sure give me 10p. Cos I never see you bringing in milk, and I am no longer subbing the whole fucking lot of you with my salary"
or
"No. Im no longer being the office puppet"