Colleague stole my mug

[NewtMumLife]

Would you take someone else’s mug in the office?!! I had to rescue my mug from someone’s desk which was half filled with cold coffee yesterday and I think it’s really rude to just take someone’s mug without even asking, especially as there are plenty of other mugs they could use. The colleague didn’t even wash it up and didn’t apologise. The mug was a present from my husband. AIBU?

This 100%

I think you are the mug here.

You're in the wrong. If it's a special/personal mug you wash it and put it away after you use it, don't leave it in the dishwasher.

You need to find contacts in the underground world of organised crime. They will know how to dispose of a body.

Leave it a few weeks or the mug related motive will lead the Police straight to you when she dissapears.

Wear a hazmat suit and burn everything once you have done the deed.

🪓

I once had a special mug my partner made for me. It had an image on it of a dog with one paw smaller than the other one and the text "Jeremy Beagle" on it. It always used to cheer me up when I was having a bad day.

Communal mugs? Urrrrgh, no

My partner always brought in mugs that were about £20 each as he likes nice things, sometimes other people would use them and after a few weeks they would just disappear from the office - the office doesn’t supply mugs (or cutlery or plates) so everyone brings there own and it is hybrid working you could see how someone may borrow a mug if someone was out and you didn’t have your own. He had at least 3 mugs stolen over the years until I bought him a plain one from Sainsbury’s and now everyone leaves his mug alone.

If it was in a general cupboard how was your colleague to know

if it’s your own mug then keep it on your desk. At our work anything in the cupboards is fair game.

I’d be speaking to her with my coffee cup in hand so she gets the hint you’ve got your prized mug back!

Write your name on the base in permanent pen, or nail varnish. Then when its upside down in the dishwasher its not fair game at all.

It's the basic ethics, not to use someone's stuff be it the mug. People really need to learn basic ethics.

This is the point that many here are missing. It’s basic good manners and respect not to use a mug that you know is someone else’s personal property.

I had a colleague lay claim to a mug and then ask me to get it out of the cupboard for her. I lifted it out and asked " this one? "
"Yes, its my new mug" she said.

"No. This is my mug these are my fingerprints. I made this"....

She actually had the cheek to be annoyed she had to find another one.

It's amazing how many people either seem to think that workplace theft is not really theft, or otherwise think it's perfectly OK to do.

Using something that can be washed and replaced is one thing; but taking other people's property home with you - or indeed stealing somebody else's lunch from the fridge - is just disgraceful.

I bet they told themselves "Oh, it's only a mug" (i.e. a cheapo thing that nobody cares about) - quite conveniently ignoring the fact that, if it had been a generic cheapo mug, they wouldn't have stolen it; they've only deliberately done so because it's a special, good quality, expensive mug.

I've worked in an office environment twice in my life. I dont miss the insane pettiness one bit. Office workers are on a whole different playing field.

They didn’t steal it. They merely used it. Words matter. To steal means ‘with the intention to permanently deprive’. If OP doesn’t want them to USE her mug, she should label it or store it where it can’t be inadvertently used by a normal human being who just grabs any old mug from the staffroom cupboard to make a drink in. Or take the bloody thing home and bring a crappy one that she has no sentimental attachment to.

It's always the people who take what they want and are the worst to be around, that downplay and tell others to "get a grip" about their behaviour when it is called out.

Agree, this is how it's been at every office where I've worked.

Bring in four mugs you don't care about losing. Then if they are all in use, you can choose someone else's. or bring in a couple you love and keep then in a drawer or a bag under your desk.

I had a colleague that was always borrowing my mugs (2)
She broke both of rhem 😬

Is it possible the cleaner lifted it from the desk, washed it and put it with the commual supply which was then picked up by colleague?

Yes. If it’s in a communal cupboard then all staff can use it. I’d only think twice about using it, if it had your name splashed all over it.

Wash your mug and keep it in your desk drawer if it’s for you, and you only.

I’m so glad I work with just one other person

Stealing doesn’t have to mean permanent and you’re being pedantic about semantics and avoiding the point which is the same whichever term you use.

I’ll repeat myself - people shouldn’t have to lock their mugs away, others should just respect the fact that it’s not their mug to use and there are company mugs available or they can bring in their own.

Someone stole my mug.

I had it in my desk at the office I traveled to one week out of the month for 5 years. When they consolidated the offices I asked if someone could send me my mug (I stopped traveling there due to covid and a reorganization) I was told that ‘nobody had seen it’

Yeah right…🤨.

The mug in question ⬇️