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?

Yes, a lock on a milk carton is, if anything, rather over-engineered when compared to the bottle itself.

I always think the same about those little lockable (thin) metal cash boxes that people have for market stalls, club subs money, personal money or belongings etc. The lock makes it clear to honest people that it's private, so no peeping; and it might stop an opportunist from dipping in and stealing a few quid; but anybody who wants to can so easily just take the whole box and smash it open with a hammer at home, if they're determined.

As much as they may protest or bluster to the contrary, or even turn it back on to you as the 'pathetic selfish meanie who's too tight to even let me borrow a splash of milk', these people have very much determinedly made up their minds and planned their routines around stealing and never paying their way. I know it's hardly diamonds from Hatton Garden, but the selfish principle is still the same.

Very frequently, all that will do is make the thieves feel that their using the milk is legitimised, and to make sure they get their money's worth, as they now pay for it... well they would if they didn't keep 'forgetting' to contribute every single time...

But it’s not balancing out for the OP.

Not everyone can afford to subsidise milk for random colleagues.

Sorry but you do sound petty. Why not start a milk kitty or rota instead.

Simple solution - label it “PUMPED BREAST MILK - Do Not Open or Move from Fridge” … maybe a smaller storage bottle from home will make it a more believable ruse but I’d be prepared to bet no one will touch it!!

Bloody hell, label it breast milk? Nobody has suggested that yet!

It’s a creative solution to the problem without compromising the milk for her to use and it would make me laugh internally to think of the milk pilferers’ faces 🤣 I actually transport my milk for the day in a small baby bottle atm as we still have them for my baby and they don’t leak in my handbag 🤣 no one drinks it incidentally!

I don't think she sounds petty.
We have this problem with butter. We get milk and coffee at work but many times a colleague or I bring butter for toast, leave it in the communal fridge and it is all gone in one day.
Butter is expensive now so I don't think other people should use it full stop.

Suggest you send an email around that due to the lack of company milk you are willing to provide it once a week for all that contribute. Then walk around with a jar and have everyone contribute £3. You'll still be buying milk, but not (rightly) resentful of subsidising others, and everyone can then have milk in their coffee without stealing.

But you'll just get the usual suspects lie that they bring their own/have it black/don't drink tea or coffee, so they don't need to pay... and then steal it anyway.

Them, if the thieves go OTT in how much they take, the people who have paid will be cross at OP and blame her if there's no milk left.

Put the name of the manager / boss / most senior person on the bottle.

Buy a bottle of strawberry or chocolate milk, empty it out and clean it then decant your milk into it and add food colour.

Bring in your usual milk bottle but add something to it, either something that spoils the taste (have your own small supply of 'clean') or that will look disgusting, toy insects / bugs / worms. Or something like marbles that will make a splash wen poured.

I worked in an office with free tea and coffee stations on each floor. The milk used to be in a dispenser like this https://drinkmilk.co.uk/product/milk-dispenser. It held 20 litres.

They suddenly began to run out quickly. Turns out a few colleagues -unsure which dept they worked in, ate cereal and got water bottles and filled them with milk to take home. Then we got those UHT single serve pots.

My employer provides milk but folk take their own in if they have different preferences and peoples own milk is still stolen. there’s been emails, signs on the fridge, keep off post-it’s and yet it still happens. Seems to be pretty universal in workplaces especially if it’s a big office and you’re unlikely to be caught.
i think the only thing you can do is get some sort of flask or bag to hide it in at the back of the fridge - but it’s so annoying that you are having to do that!

Because they’re a pain in the arse to administer. I speak from experience. Every single rota I have known at work for domestic rather than work stuff has fallen apart eventually because people don’t stick to it. Person whose turn it is rings in sick, books leave and arranges to swap but the swappee forgets etc etc or people just don’t honour the rota. And anything that involves asking people for money - oh I haven’t got it on me today can I give it to you tomorrow - is pretty well doomed.

How negative !

Yes, they have

I sometimes get the UHT mini pots. Rather surprisingly, my milkman sold them if I left him a note (probably supplied to offices) but in trays of a hundred or some such number. The shelf life is not as long as the full size cartons, I think the seal is not as good.

I don't really like UHT but it's tolerable in hot drinks or for cooking.

I speak from experience.

Label it 'breast milk'

I think it was sarcasm.

A zillion people have suggested the hysterically funny ploy of labelling it breastmilk, which is of course bound to work like a charm. 😑

@MysticCatLady RTFT. Did you really think that in 400 posts nobody would have suggested that already? Join the other 30 or so people who dropped in that "unique" insight on this thread without reading.

I know someone this happened too. Bit more extreme than your case as the other person was coming in and swinging back the milk straight from the bottle in front of him, after he had asked her not to.
Eventually, he filled the whole thing with salt.
She never did that again.

I couldn't be bothered to read 400 posts about milk

Well, can't really blame you. But like the 3rd reply on the first page says pretend it's breastmilk. 😂

@SnoopyPajamas This is your boss?/!!! Just wow at the cheek.
Have you thought of pouring away some of her milk and topping it back up with water 🕶so her water gets weaker and weaker.
Or just asking her to pay for your food! Just such a cheek!