The Cleaner in work is pouring full fat milk into the low fat milk.

[AwayWithTheFairiesX]

I work in an office of a factory. We get 8 litres of full fat milk a day delivered . I asked around to see if I changed 1 of the bottles to low fat milk if anyone one would mind. They all said ok so I was given permission by the accountant to change it. The cleaner seen the low fat milk in the fridge and freaked out . interrogating everyone to find out who changed. she demanded I change it back even though i don't answer to her. She is feer mongering anyone who drinks saying ' I can't believe your drinking' 'that's the last bottle of that you will see' . Hiding in the back of the fridge and refuses to put it inth same section as the other milk.. But the worst of it happened this morning when i realised she poured over half a litre of full fat milk into the carton of low fat milk. What the hell do i do in this situation because i know if i go to management they will laugh at its ridiculousness and wont take it seriously. I don't like confrontation so i dont know how to best approach.

I'm surprised you have full fat milk at work. Everywhere I have worked at for the last 20 years has had semi skimmed milk.

I don't get why people are saying she should bring her own. Company provides her with the milk she wants, why does she need to pay for the same thing privately, just because the cleaner objects?

Surely some drink 'low fat' (semi- skimmed or skimmed) because they prefer the taste? I know I do. I'm happy to cook with whole milk but find the flavour overpowering in coffee and tea (though dislike both black).

Not everyone who chooses semi-skimmed milk because they've been duped by the diet industry! 🙄

This is bonkers.

I agree that most people want semi skimmed or other milk. My work supplies milk and tea/coffee etc and they have soy/almond and others as well as lots of semi skimmed.

My colleague drinks lactose free and I usually drink full fat both for dietary requirements so we just bring our own as those aren't supplied but I'd go mad if someone was interfering with the milk.

In our case it's a big company with lots of kitchens/fridges supplied so there is really no point interfering with their current system to suit us as we might be on a different floor/area every time we are in the office so they'd never know where to supply and there would be the chance that if it wasn't our own personal milk, that it would just be used by others.

Could you initiate a survey to see what milk people actually want? You might find that 40% don't care the other 60% are a fairly even split. I'd suspect more semi skimmed/skimmed drinkers though.

I drink skimmed because I prefer it
Tea with whole milk tastes really weak and claggy

This is a really dull fun fact but full-fat milk is actually the most processed milk. All milk is stripped down to low fat and then the fat is added back in to be semi-skimmed and full fat.

My best friend is a dairy farmer. We know how to party.

Not all milk, surely. We get ours directly from a farm. They only sell whole milk and no other type because they don't remove any fat at all. They just pasteurise the raw milk and sell it as it is.

What the actual fuck. Report her now. If she is doing this she is probably doing all sorts of other mad things like doing things badly or stealing things. Report her right away for everyone's safety. WTF could. she be putting in the milk? Piss? People DO do that

Ah, so she's a thief then.

Decant low fat milk into breast milk storage bags 🤔 you can even freeze daily portions for convenience 👌🤣

I'm not seeing what's funny about this?

Its batshit, potentially dangerous, and people are taking the piss.

FFS, talk to management and stop being stupid about it.

Confront her directly. Tell her you have a medical issue which requires a low fat intake. And if she ever tampers with your food/drink again, there will be hell to pay.

Can’t you just have a chat with her? Doesn’t need to be aggy. Just say you’ve had permission from management and if she could be a love and leave that one alone you’d be grateful (sort of thing)…

She needs taken to task and not allowed to get away with it.
It's not like you hot the whole order changed.

Tell her with full faux innocence that you have a dietary condition which flares up with fatty foods/ liquids and that you’ve had a flare up despite drinking the skimmed milk. You’ve also noticed that the level of the skimmed milk has gone up so you can only think that someone has been mixing the two. Whilst you’re sure it was a mistake you’ve been advised by your dietician and doctor that if it happens again you should insist that only skimmed milk be kept in the fridge closest to you to avoid it happening again, so you’re going to ask that all 8 points be changed to skimmed if it re-occurs.

I would say she’s decanting the full fat milk into the low fat carton to use as evidence that no one is using the low fat stuff as it’s hardly been used. Report her, and no it’s not ridiculous. You folllowed procedure but she thinks she knows better and answers to no one, mention the “it will be the last bottle of that you will see”. As well as deliberately interfering with the milk you requested. Don’t bring in your own milk, this person needs spoken to by management.

But why?

Why does she care? I don't get it.

Ask her. No need to involve management, just explain that you've had permission and to please not do anything with it or to it. And find why she's so passionate about it, while you're at it.

Just a mad idea. Maybe, she saw two opened, half full bottles of milk in the fridge and decided to consolidate them into one without clocking that they were different fat percentages. By doing this she would be tidying the fridge whilst cleaning which is, I think, within the role of an office cleaner.

Whilst I appreciate that this detracts from the many posters who believe she is an insubordinate, cheating, stealing, food tampering, dietary fat zealot, I belive this might just be a simpler explanation.

I appreciate it wasn't the best idea given people's very strong views on the fat content of milk but surely a 'Hi Sue, would you mind not putting the low and full fat milks together next time, I'm watching my diet' would suffice.

But, hey, you could just take the nuclear options suggested above if you like drama in your life.

Cleaner sounds like they are properly overstepping. Are they actually employed by the company directly or are they from another company? Our cleaners are employed by a different agency, even though they are full time staff. They’d have absolutely no remit over the milk. That would be the canteen staff (who are also from an outside agency but work on site full time).

"They'd have absolutely no remit over milk".

I don't think I have enjoyed a sentence so much in many years. I think I may have reached peak Mumsnet.

They shouldn’t be mixing even the same type of milk though due to potential cross contamination (different expiry dates, Dave’s swigged out of one bottle etc). The cleaner, if cleaning the fridge is part of the job, should just clean the fridge, not police its contents. In theory they shouldn’t even by throwing away out of date food without prior permission.

As it's a factory I assume people need the extra calories from full fat milk. That aside, she has no business tampering with food in the fridge. That would put me right off. Also, because it is a factory (I've worked in a few) management are indeed highly likely to laugh their bloody socks off about this. They don't usually have a "sensitive" HR department, in fact you're lucky if they've got anything resembling HR.

Why is a cleaner dictating what staff drink?

She sounds unhinged, why does she care? I thought the only people who drank full fat milk were under the age of 12 to be honest.

Yes someone with gallstones for example could be severely unwell if they had full fat milk . Swopping food labels is idiotic and selfish.