How to catch a milk thief in the public service?

I used to use UHT mini cartons. I’ve now moved to decanting milk into empty 600ml water bottles. I can write an expired date on it and leave it at the back of the fridge. We don’t have regular fridge nazi cleanouts so it is pretty safe.

Prior to using the empty water bottles I also used a 1L carton at my new workplace .,,,,, I did catch someone using my milk. They did not realize it was mine. They were making a coffee as I walked past. I stopped to say g’day as they made their coffee. As I watched them make I saw them casually take out my milk and add it to their brew. I was like ‘what the f$u&!!!’.

They got the message………..

Get a very small padlock, buy milk in a carton, and padlock it!

kobra said :

As its a secure area, instead of a camera use your mobile phone(tape it to some side of the wall or behind some appliance).

So the thief gets milk for the day AND a mobile phone?

kobra said :

As its a secure area, instead of a camera use your mobile phone(tape it to some side of the wall or behind some appliance), start recording,…get it back end of the day..grab the thief..

Yaeh, this worked a treat for a guy at ADFA 😛

Same problem last month seemingly from a new arrival. Friend tipped me off that water and non-toxic PVA glue looks identical to milk. Been the source of much pleasure to see the decoy carton has been used by someone… 😀

Label it ‘Dog hormones’.

As its a secure area, instead of a camera use your mobile phone(tape it to some side of the wall or behind some appliance), start recording,…get it back end of the day..grab the thief..

Label it “Fresh squeezed penis milk”.

One idea would be to lace the milk with laxatives and then the waiting game begins…

Genie said :

deejay said :

Genie said :

I’m confused – where in the public service does this person work?

Every Government department I’ve ever worked for provides milk for use of tea and coffee.

Let me guess, you’ve only worked for central agencies, right? Us plebs in portfolio and CAC agencies have to buy our own.

Even when I was at a tiny division within the ACT Public Service, we had milk supplied along with tea and coffee. I’ve never worked anywhere that DOESN’T supply these basics..

The signs at some workplaces stating that the milk is only to be used to tea and coffee and not people’s cereal or milo drinks cracks me right up but !

The OP’s mate works in an office with 200 people and is a shift worker. It dosn’t take a genius to work out that the milk does not last for 200 people and all night.

deejay said :

Genie said :

I’m confused – where in the public service does this person work?

Every Government department I’ve ever worked for provides milk for use of tea and coffee.

Let me guess, you’ve only worked for central agencies, right? Us plebs in portfolio and CAC agencies have to buy our own.

Even when I was at a tiny division within the ACT Public Service, we had milk supplied along with tea and coffee. I’ve never worked anywhere that DOESN’T supply these basics..

The signs at some workplaces stating that the milk is only to be used to tea and coffee and not people’s cereal or milo drinks cracks me right up but !

As the saying goes, “set a thief to catch a thief”. A quick skim through some old RiotACT posts should assist you in locating a suitably qualified individual who’s serving weekend detention, and thus free during the work week.

Nothing wrong with breast milk folks!

I’m confused – where in the public service does this person work?

Every Government department I’ve ever worked for provides milk for use of tea and coffee.

And people wonder why the APS gets a bad wrap…

I suggest a mousetrap, attached to the back of the 2 litre milk bottle. Ensure that your milk is at the back of the fridge, so it doesn’t inconvenience any of your honest colleagues. Only the person who grabs your bottle with stealing intent will feel the pain, drop the milk, and howl loudly enough to be heard across the floor 🙂

Sigh….I should use my powers for good….

Genie said :

I’m confused – where in the public service does this person work?

Every Government department I’ve ever worked for provides milk for use of tea and coffee.

Let me guess, you’ve only worked for central agencies, right? Us plebs in portfolio and CAC agencies have to buy our own.

I’m confused – where in the public service does this person work?

Every Government department I’ve ever worked for provides milk for use of tea and coffee.

Have your friend spit in their bottle of milk. Have them make sure there is always at least one person there to witness them do this. Word will eventually get around.

And/or write on the back of each milk bottle, something along the lines of “f*** off, i’ve spat in this, get your own damned milk.” Anyone who complains about the language will have only seen the message if they’ve taken the bottle out of the fridge.

I used to write something similar on the under side of my butter lid’s at work 🙂

carnardly said :

tell your friend to grow some b**** if he saw a milk thief in the action.

Loudly ask “what the fluff are you doing with my milk you cretin? Can’t you read???

Buy your own” and embarrass him into not doing it again.

He had 2 chances that he utterly blew.

No wonder they keep doing it.

Apparently that has something to do with rank. And I’m not talking about the smell of the milk.

As an update, my friend has started buying UHT milk and putting it in their desk drawer. But for the sake of amusement, they let their 5 year old slurp the milk from a 2 litre bottle. Their 5 year old has a bad cold and does not understand that it is bad form to let their snot drip into the bottle. For even more amusement, they added some baking powder to the milk which should give the thief an upset tummy.

wow 65 posts!!! I guess people of Canberra will cry over spilt milk

Solidarity said :

Label it as breast milk.

+1
… on second thought surely a pube would recognise the incongruence of setting, container size and breast milk… or maybe not.

This is what they do at the Public Service all day? No wonder it takes them so long to get things done.

Actually stealing milk increases productivity. So does protecting milk from being stolen. Both activities result in milk being readily available to reduce the time needed for to prepare (ruin) tea/coffee.

This sort of thing happens just as frequently in the private sector.

Not quite sure how to get it, but a little bit of silver nitrate on the lid will do the trick. It stains skin a nice black colour for a few days at least, giving you heaps of time to ID your thief.

Might not wanna drink from the same milk bottle though.

spit in it

You could try this gizmo – http://www.latestbuy.com.au/wine-bottle-lock.html

This is what they do at the Public Service all day? No wonder it takes them so long to get things done.

johnboy said :

Bazza62 said :

Label the milk as brest milk

True, milk from French harbour cities is universally known to be vile.

JB, we are not worthy. 🙂

Some of the responses in this thread range from amusing to downright scary. The lengths you sicko’s will go to for an office prank is NOT something to be proud of. I feel so at home here. *places hand on heart, wipes tear from cheek*

Mysteryman said :

Since one of the culprits is known, why not just start stealing items of importance from their desk….

…..and leave the items in the fridge next to the milk. They’ll the hint after a while. If not at first, certainly after you work up to their monitor or chair.

I am a pretty big fan on the booby trapped container approach. My plan:

Half fill one litre carton with vinegar and red food colouring. Put a couple of spoonfulls of bicarb onto some tissue paper and tie it into a nice bag. vary carefully attach it just inside the carton, close it and place in fridge.

Attempting to quietly pour a little milk in to a cup will result in a hugh ball of red foam. 🙂

I started using the long life home brand milk. Suddenly my milk was always safe!
For some reason people are put off by longlife milk and when you add the homebrand label in they really turn their noses up. Make it skim milk as well.
I wouldn’t drink it straight but is fine in coffee!

The other thing you can do is buy long life milk in little popper containers. Then your friend could just open one every shift and leave on his desk (or whatever) and it would probably stay fine for the shift.

What would Dwight Schrute do?

Moose said :

Purchase a little bottle for your milk?

Best suggestion is writing on the bottle (I have spat in this, use if needed).

If I saw that, I’d add ‘So have I’ to the label…

My favourite is putting it into a washed out container that had a used by date of about 2 weeks earlier… as per comment #3

Add bicarb soda to the milk. Sure you wont be able to drink it, but the milk theif will end up with a cup of froth

Your friend should have had the guts to confront the thief when they were seen stealing the milk the first time.

Since one of the culprits is known, why not just start stealing items of importance from their desk, leaving anonymous notes to the effect of “You will get your monitor cable back when you stop stealing from the fridge”. Each day, take something else and leave another note.

If there is more than one culprit, just add HUGE amounts of laxatives to the milk. I mean, a ridiculous amount. Enough that a half of cup of milk will make them sick. Clearly label the milk as private property (without putting a name on there) with a “do not use” type of request. If the thieves continue to use the milk they’ll pay for it dearly.

http://www.passiveaggressivenotes.com/2011/01/09/what-no-padlock/

I just did a search for “office fridge” on passiveaggressivenotes, one of my fave websites. Lovely stuff.

BimboGeek said :

Why not just start a milk pool? Set up an honesty jar and label the milk “Property of the honest.”

An honesty jar to discourage milk thieves… I detect a flaw in your plan!

Inappropriate said :

Send out a memo asking why people stole your horse semen… Who ever vomits is the thief.

+2!

Thoroughly Smashed said :

Drink black coffee

word. [but i note this was used as lubricant to weeties, or something, too, so a pox on the thief, may s/he have all the chooks turn into emus and kick down the dunny. twice.]

palndrumm said :

This worked for my wife:
(And yes, she had another lock to use if someone just opened it from the other side. Wasn’t necessary in the end.)

That would of course make more sense if the picture that was there when I previewed my comment came through. Try this: http://six.gwc134.net/1/04-08-09_0801s.jpg

This story reminds me of something I saw here a while ago – http://the-riotact.com/keeping-australias-milk-safe/1517

I’m a massive fan of ‘tasteless stimulant liquid laxitives’.

A word of caution here. You will need to add a lot to give them the squirts from their coffee. If they take a swig from the carton they will most likely end up in Calvary Emergency while they sh!t themselves to death 🙂

I heard a rumour once about the effects of adding a few drops of Murine Clear Eyes to peoples drinks. I’d like to konw if there is any truth to it. A research task for your friend maybe ???

This worked for my wife:

(And yes, she had another lock to use if someone just opened it from the other side. Wasn’t necessary in the end.)

Why not just start a milk pool? Set up an honesty jar and label the milk “Property of the honest.”

troll-sniffer said :

3. The out of date skim milk carton has a good success rate but if the tightarse who has been raiding your private property is observant he or she will quickly see through the ruse and continue to help themselves.

There’s also a high risk of the office fridge nazi seeing an out of date carton and tossing it.

I’d go with putting it in a small camping flask or something similar.

Switch to powdered milk. It can then be kept at your friends desk.

Aaah yes the old milk at work chestnut, to coin a mixed metaphor perhaps. The secret to retaining one’s milk at work is to make it as difficult as possible for the cheap turds and can’t be bothereds to actually get their grubby paws on your property, while making it as easy as possible for yourself to access the life-giving benefits of the calcium-rich essence d’udder.

First trick is to buy the 300ml or 600ml cartons, I usually buy at least 2, and while one is being consumed the other is in the freezer waiting its turn to be liberated. The small cartons are much easier to put in corners where identification and raiding is more difficult.

Depending on how packed your frig is you can employ one of several options:

1. If the frig is full, simply keep your milk in a back corner behind someone else’s lunch pack. This only works against casual milk thieves, dedicated lowlifes will treat finding your milk as a sport.

2. Get a brown paper bag and put your milk and and a decoy object therein, to disguise your valuable possession as just another lunch in the frig. This has a very high success rate, as all but the most scumbaggy toe-rag milk thief will baulk at trawling through other people’s lunch packs.

3. The out of date skim milk carton has a good success rate but if the tightarse who has been raiding your private property is observant he or she will quickly see through the ruse and continue to help themselves.

4. If you’re sure you can teach the petty criminal of low self-esteem a lesson, purchase a spare carton and fill with one of the concoctions mentioned above, leaving it in the door of the frig, while hiding yours in a hard to find corner. The more vicious the decoy, the more chance you will have of dissuading the errant psycopath while extracing a sweet and creamy revenge.

Moose said :

Purchase a little bottle for your milk?

Best suggestion is writing on the bottle (I have spat in this, use if needed)

I spat in it, too.

or buy one of those woolies esky type freezer bags and tell him to keep it under his desk.

Pretend to pick your nose while replacing your milk in the fridge. Make sure your very visible. Works all the time.

tell your friend to grow some b**** if he saw a milk thief in the action. Loudly ask “what the fluff are you doing with my milk you cretin? Can’t you read??? Buy your own” and embarrass him into not doing it again.

He had 2 chances that he utterly blew. No wonder they keep doing it.

It is sad that people are such asses in workplaces. I used green food colouring. Stopped it cold. Then the person I long suspected left and the problem hasn’t returned.

Mum works in one of the larger departments, and she has the same problem (her Nescafe/Milo at work is the only form of calcium she drinks on a work day).
She says that the milk thieves in her section are very brand-conscious, and they don’t steal from Coles/Woolworths/Aldi bottles. I doubt they would drink long-life milk either, or skim.

Best idea: Collect empty cartons of Home Brand long-life skim milk, make sure the packet is expired, fill it with your favourite milk, and everything should be awesome!

johnboy said :

Bazza62 said :

Label the milk as brest milk

True, milk from French harbour cities is universally known to be vile.

Smartypants!

krasny said :

1. Buy a carton of goat milk, it’s usually near the long life stuff.
2. Empty it (consumption optional).
3. Fill with regular milk and take to work.

People will, in a pinch, use skim milk and even soy, but goat milk seems to make people nervous.

I like this idea best. The food colouring s not a bad suggestion, either.

I also approve of the methods of keeping the look of regular milk, but changing the taste.

Bazza62 said :

Label the milk as brest milk

True, milk from French harbour cities is universally known to be vile.

If you don’t like coffee, switch to soy. If you like coffee, switch to black.

Label the milk as brest milk

One guy in my office simply left a note on the fridge made of newspaper clippings saying “I have ejaculated into a milk carton with my name on it. Steal if you dare. Signed: ‘wouldn’t you like to f***ing know’.” It was up for weeks and I know my milk wasn’t stolen in that time.

Go Tyler Durden on it.

“He farted on meringues, spat on braised onions and as for the cream of mushroom soup…”
“Go on, tell them.”
“…well you get the idea”

Fight Club

Solidarity said :

Label it as breast milk.

+1

+1 on the goats milk idea. Also consider buying those little packs of UHT milk and keep them in your drawer.

For the lulz, get a 2l milk bottle and mix 1:1 cornflour and white vinegar, it looks like milk (has a tendency to settle though), but when added to hot fluid will thicken and make it taste terrible.

I hear that putting it in a baby bottle is quite effective

Buy yourself a desktop fridge: http://www.amazon.com/TV-Products-Micro-Cool-Fridge/dp/B001ANXRK6

Of course, if the thief is an RA member, this is all in vain!

Just occasionally drink straight from the container in front of people.
Write on it “My herpes is in remission- Help yourself”

This happens so often that I think that there is a market for a metal container just big enough to hold a 2 liter container and a SCEC endorsed lock mechanism.

A standard sports drink bottle full of milk also helps to disguise things somewhat. My ex wife’s Milo on the coffee stand never got touched when it was stored in the Senacott container. She did get some odd looks though…

Laxatives?

…. too far?

toriness said :

time for a passive aggressive note/labelling on the bottle/whole organisation email stating said bottle is yours and taking it is theft. hell at the least you could confront the person who was actually witnessed to take a cup of milk and replace the volume with water – the fact that they replaced the volume with water demonstrates clearly they knew they were stealing!

We had a jar of jam in our work fridge for a while that had a note stuck to it that read: “F@ck off, get your own, you cheap mongrel” or something to that effect. I thought it was quite effective, but then I’m not a thief.

Drink black coffee

I love #1, 7 and – especially – 8!

For something more boring, pouring it into a different bottle would probably work. Something unappealing like butter milk or low-fat soy.

Or go to the funny shop and get one of those plastic severed fingers and drop it into the bottle?

1. Buy a carton of goat milk, it’s usually near the long life stuff.
2. Empty it (consumption optional).
3. Fill with regular milk and take to work.

People will, in a pinch, use skim milk and even soy, but goat milk seems to make people nervous.

Add a tiny amount of denatonium to the milk?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Denatonium

This is the additive in metho to stop people drinking it!

Hilarious suggestions aside, label it as soy or goats milk. Or put it in a coloured bottle rather than a clear one.

Pooks said :

Items needed:
Ding a ling, you thieving SOB.

This line alone had me giggling for a solid minute.

time for a passive aggressive note/labelling on the bottle/whole organisation email stating said bottle is yours and taking it is theft. hell at the least you could confront the person who was actually witnessed to take a cup of milk and replace the volume with water – the fact that they replaced the volume with water demonstrates clearly they knew they were stealing!

PBO said :

5 drops of red food colouring, it will not change the flavour and it will look very unappealing.

I have done this, but with yellow food dye.
Labelling the milk as goat, soy or breast milk (as suggested) also does the trick.

Lobby the HR department to supply milk weekly as there is obviously some staff members who are on hard times and have to resort to petty theft. If not, then go for #1.

Im sure there are some sickos out there that would be lured in by the tought of drinking breastmilk.

Dont bother putting a label on it stating that you have “spat in it so drink at your own peril” Some clown is likely to ammend it with “Thats OK, so did I” what do you do then???

Send out a memo asking why people stole your horse semen… Who ever vomits is the thief.

5 drops of red food colouring, it will not change the flavour and it will look very unappealing.

Items needed:

1. Clear fishing line

2.1 small bell

3. A set of baby monitors

Tie a piece of clear fishing line onto the handle of the milk and attach it to a bell in the kitchen. Place 1 baby monitor near the bell, and the other on your work station.

Ding a ling, you thieving SOB.

Solidarity said :

Label it as breast milk.

Now that is absolutely creative!!! +1 for this.

(Sadly, I know some people who wouldn’t be put off by this!!!).

My tip is – buy a bottle of milk and leave it in the sun for a day or so, then place it in the fridge for the thieves to make themselves very sick on!

The smell alone should be enough to put them off milk for the rest of the year.

Purchase a little bottle for your milk?

Best suggestion is writing on the bottle (I have spat in this, use if needed). Maybe poor the new milk into a washed out milk container with one that’s out of date?

Solidarity, that is an AWESOME idea! lol

Label it as breast milk.