My colleague has thrown my lunch in the bin

[DidYouBINmysushiyouTWAT]

What is the correct etiquette please?

You need not quote directly from Debretts.

If I weren't in the queue for the soggy salmonella sarnies left in Tescos- I'd write a longer OP.

Part Two here: www.mumsnet.com/Talk/_chat/a2631196-My-colleague-has-twat-me-over-the-head-with-a-courgette - edited by MNHQ

ime passive agressive 'spielchen' will not achieve anything.
you have raised it with her directlya number if times, it's now time to hand over to hr/management.

I used to work with one of these. She also had the ultra-annoying habit of referring to everything in the entire workplace as "hers". Not to us, her colleagues, but to external people. You would overhear her on the phone saying "I need my photocopier serviced", or "I want my cobblelock out front power washed". Weirdo.

Once, when she was away on holidays, I checked her desk for something and found 3 calculators, 4 staplers, several hole punchers, numerous rulers... basically she had been going around taking and hoarding all the office supplies. They were all neatly arranged in her drawers

Joking apart (and yes, I have laughed at the suggestions) most of them could end up with OP being accused of bullying - this colleague sounds like she would be capable of raising a bullying/harassment case (I'm not allowed to use the communal fridge) so tread carefully.

As you were! 😄

This thread has really made me want to go back to work - i live for this shit! It's the only good part of office work.

I have so many stories of when i have been left open mouthed and blinking at a colleagues outrageous behaviour.

My particular favourites (both public sector/charity jobs).

Milk - we had i pint a day paid for by work. Which for the amount of people in the office covered a splash for a cup of tea/coffee for us. But one colleague used to make porridge with half a pint and a milky coffee by heating a whole mug of milk then putting the coffee in. She would get in early like me, i would make a tea and she would then use the rest. By the time the others came in there was none. If someone brought their own in (me) she would just do the same. When i said something she would tinkly laugh as if i was joking and say 'i think (insert employers name) can cover my breakfast after all the work we do for such shit wages' and i would try to point out she wasn't taking it from them but from everyone else who then couldn't have any tea. Blank look.

THE bowl - My Nan had bought me a bowl, plate and mug set when i started my first job after uni. I kept it in my drawer at work and one colleague kept helping herself to it out of my drawer. I would only know when it wasn't there and i would go looking round the office and find it dirty on her desk. She wouldn't wash it up but say 'oh yeah i've finished with THE bowl, you can take it now'. This would piss me off as she always referred to it as THE bowl as if it was communal property. Even when i told her repeatedly that it was MINE and was in MY desk.

One day at about lunch time she came into my office a bit annoyed and the conversation went:

Twat 'Do you have ANOTHER bowl?'
Me 'no, just the one i always have...'
Twat [hufff] 'well i need to eat my soup and i've just dropped THE bowl on the floor and it's smashed'
Me 'What?! you've broken MY bowl?'
Twat [looking like i am being really dim] 'YESSSSSS, that's what i said and now i don't have anything to have my soup in, do you know where another bowl is anywhere?'
Me 'So my bowl is completely broken?'
Twat [Really annoyed that i'm not getting the main issue of the situation] 'I've already told you that! i'm going to have to go to the canteen and borrow one now' .
Me

I went into the kitchen to find my broken bowl still in pieces on the floor.

And don't even get me started on the boss who gave my bottle of nice white wine to a client then replaced it with a bottle of Mead

Oh without a doubt the best day in office life ever was the day that a woman got a telling off from her boss, so she stormed out of the office, smashed a PRINTER on the floor, called him a cunt, flounced to her desk and chucked her plates and papers on the floor, picked up her handbag and flounced out.

She then had to flounce back in to pick up her pass so she could actually get out of the building

Then flounced out a second time

Even of others won't confront her directly, you need to -ideally - get all of you to sign an email to the manager & HR /whoever appropriate for your organisation - or more likely, at least two others, complaining about both the lack of storage - suggesting that everyone do their shopping in lunch break, rather than inconvenience you all - & H&S implications. Also the deliberate opening and discarding of your lunch is a visible sign of discord in the office, and a massive negative for them, causing unnecessary angst and waste of company time.

Separately, it would be sensible to do a pa letter to them asking if someone else could also be provided with a key as it is unpleasant having to wait 10 or 20 minutes when it is raining. Again, see if at least one or two others can do separate letters.

That way, you aren't focusing on her but the welfare of staff and the company.

We had a fridge raider in one of my previous jobs.

He was blatant about it ; seemed to think he was funny and endearing. . . .and as a mainly female team we should be 'looking' after him!

Dickhead

He once had the cheek to complain that my dinner was a bit too spicy.

MIL makes paratha that are a slow burner; once the chilli kicks in it can change the way you walk for a week; and thats her 'normal' version.

I asked to make some extra spicy ones; even DP with his asbestos linded mouth thought they were a bit much. They looked so innocent.

Left it in the fridge clearly labeled as being mine.

Everyone labeled their food with my name after that; and he started bringing in his own food

Management must be very bored in most workplaces. Management would expect us to sort it out as adults and tend to focus on work issues, not facilitiesm

And that works Stealth, when your colleagues aren't wankers.

We had one in my last job. He used my butter but instead of being polite about it he gouged it, left blobs of jam or marmite and his crumbs in it and generally didn't care for it.

I named it.

One day he came out of the kitchen waving it about taking the puss out of me.

So I told him in front of the whole office that if he treated it better is share but as he was a slob who left it grotty I wasn't sharing with him. I was polite and firm. He went back in and just used someone else's butter.

Is that a suitable placemark? Or should we discuss biscuitgate??

'MIL makes paratha that are a slow burner; once the chilli kicks in it can change the way you walk for a week; and thats her 'normal' version.

I asked to make some extra spicy ones; even DP with his asbestos linded mouth thought they were a bit much. They looked so innocent. Left it in the fridge clearly labeled as being mine.

Everyone labeled their food with my name after that; and he started bringing in his own food'

I'm shocked that many employees have to buy their own milk, we get milk and butter out of petty cash as and when we need it, thought this was the norm.
Looking forward to the update

Your bowl story is horrifying MrsKoala. A special present from you nan for your first day at work? I treasure the mug my parents gave me for the same thing 30 years ago. It's retired because I couldn't bear for it to break.

I would have broken my non-interventionist rule and killed her on your behalf. But sneakily, in the winter dark as we crossed the bridge at high and fast tide when the Thames was freezing and full of heavy and relentlessly slow-moving rubbish barges. Everyone would think it was a tragic accident.

I used to think about it a lot .

I work from home so placemarking for vicarious office conflict

Oh no, I think you need to discuss biscuitgate, now you've brought it up, magrat...

Stealth is right. This is not a matter for HR. They are not your mummy. You deal with it yourself or collectively or appeal to the office manager to talk some sense into her. If she is the office manager you revert to to option one.

I really hope you have taken some lunch to put in that fridge!

Oh the broken bowl post is DEFINITELY a suitable defence for murder!

Stealth all joking aside this woman is creating a hostile work environment, depriving OP of food, leaving OP out of pocket, and stealing from her employers by being repeatedly late! Frankly if i were her boss (and I've been a boss) I'd sack her!

Yes limited, like Arthur Savilles crime. I used to walk over vauxhall bridge to get to this job and would regularly fantasise about the same thing

proper gonna out myself here

i used to work in a shop within a supermarket. my manager made us all sign something that we wouldn't put the supermarket stock in our staff room unless we had a reciept for it. He however would constantly leave reduced/out of date stock in our fridge for days on end until one of us gave it back to the supermarket to bin properly. He also labelled a locker with VIP and kept his snacks in it. I may have eaten on of his cupcakes that he left on the side for two days just to hurt him

What's biscuit gate?

Biscuitgate....

My work, when I started, were very generous and always bought posh Ringtons biscuits for the staff. So once a month we'd have a delivery. The favourites were the triple Choc so the generally accepted rule was you could only have one of those each delivery.

Only there were only 8 in a pack and 10 of us in the office so you sometimes missed out. Fine. It happens and it's only biscuits. Until the day that our admin support lady was off sick and we urgently needed some paperwork that was locked in her drawer.

Manager had a key to all the locks just in case so opened the drawer to get the client document and there were LOADS of the triple chocolate biscuits.

Turns out she's take more than her fair share, like 4 of 5, and hide them. Those of us who missed out just sort of assumed that it was an unlucky months, it was k my biscuits so we didn't exactly discuss between us.

When she came back we called her on it. But the fury for the 4 or 5 hours after we found out and before she came back was crazy. Very little work was done as we analyses the biscuit thief and how long we'd all been missing out.

She wasn't even apologetic, just said that they were for everyone. But she KNEW it was wrong or she wouldn't have hidden them.

A couple of months later work just stopped buying us biscuits. A sad day.

*was only

I'm shocked that many employees have to buy their own milk

One place where I work has a free chilled milk dispenser covertblackberry! I can hardly believe the generosity. I'd rather they paid more and left me to buy my own milk, but still...

I don't drink tea and coffee during the day. Just water (from the equally free chilled water dispenser!) or a glass of cold milk with a dark chocolate digestive. I'm the only person who drinks milk on its own. I share the biscuits with my immediate colleagues but woe betide the person from another department who sees them on the desk and thinks they are for general office use.

I wish someone would throw things out of our work fridge. Blueberries with fur on them etc. The culprit picks out the furry ones and eats the other ones.

There was a small salad in the fridge and I asked who it belonged to yesterday (Wednesday) the culprit replied with "oh, that's mine from last Thursday, it's probably mouldy by now" then walked away.