Office Memorandum: On the Mindful Management of Milk

The BBQ Pit
1

From: me

To: you dumb bastards

Regarding: how fucking stupid are you, anyway?

Date: yesterday, today, and tomorrow, until you fucking figure it out

As you are all aware, the company makes available to all employees complimentary beverages in the breakroom. These beverages include soft drinks, canned juice, and small cartons of milk.

It has come to my attention that there are some among you who do not require an entire small carton of milk for your purposes. We are not concerned about what your purpose might be, whether you’re adding milk to your coffee or tea, or having a small bowl of Rice Chex or Cookie Crisp, or sucking it into your sinuses with a straw jammed up your nostril.

Rather, what concerns us is your habit of opening a small carton of milk, pouring out whatever partial amount you require, and then replacing the half-used carton in the cooler.

I should clarify that this practice, in and of itself, is not the source of the problem. Were you to mark your opened carton in some fashion, indicating your claimed possession of same, and then return to it on the day or days following to use the remaining portion, discarding the empty carton at the conclusion of your usage, then I would have no cause to issue this notice.

Unfortunately, you fuckskulled bovines are not doing this.

Perhaps a science lesson is in order. You see, milk, as a substance, can be described as “perishable.” This means it cannot be stored for an infinite duration. When allowed to stand indefinitely, it will, at some point, begin to “curdle.” You can recognize this transition point because the liquid will acquire a nauseatingly sour taste, which you will discover only if you somehow managed not to perceive the accompanying odor, which reminds the casual observer of a fermented blend of Mephistophelean urine and Cthonian jizz. It should further be of interest to you that said odor has a power to penetrate and linger second only to the stench of an incipient crackwhore drenched in a cheap mock-brand perfume, AKA Amber in Treasury.

The consequence of all of this, naturally, is as follows.

When you open a carton of milk, pour some out, and put the carton back in the cooler, and then abandon the carton to the ultimate will of the uncaring universe, the milk inside will, after several days, spoil, and thereby suffuse everything in the cooler, and indeed in the breakroom, with its powerful, stomach-turning scent. This renders the contents of the cooler unfit for handling or consumption, and it causes the breakroom to become uninhabitable by man or beast, not counting Amber in Treasury.

And if you persist in this behavior, I shall be forced to visit upon you certain disciplinary measures. I am presently awaiting approval from Human Resources to play tee-ball using your skull and my favorite aluminum bat, engraved “Li’l Sparky.”

Thank you for your attention to this matter. If you have questions or require clarification, please chew vigorously on a handful of push pins.

Addendum. We are aware there are some among you who, after using a partial serving of milk, do not replace the carton in the cooler, but simply leave the unused portion on the counter. As this practice demonstrates you to be so colossally stupid as to be no real use to the company, please report to the boiler room, where your body will be burned as fuel. Please take Amber in Treasury with you. Thanks.

2

Perhaps, instead of little cartons of milk, you should provide a cow. Consider the advantages:

  1. The variable quantity that can be dispensed, with no leftovers to curdle.
  2. Guaranteed freshness.
  3. Free fertilizer for the office plants.
3

If a cow is too big for your breakroom, perhaps you should consider a goat. Sure, they make a lot of noise, can be grumpy, and eat a lot. But so do many coworkers!

4

You really would have a cow-orker!

5

I want to hear more about Amber.

P.s. sorry about the milk.

6

They offer economical and environmentally-friendly corporate security as high-capacity shredders, too.

7

Just this morning I went to a morning tea for someone’s birthday in another department. A friend of mine went to their kitchen to make a coffee, and found in the fridge 5 containers of milk (2L plastic bottles). 2 were full, the remaining 3 were slightly less than half full. Only one of them had passed the expiry date.

My friend asked around to find out why the bottles weren’t being finished. The people in that department said that once the milk is about half used, it’s not really fresh anymore so they don’t want to touch it. Even though there’s still a week left until they expire. So bloody wasteful… we suggested they get a cow, so they’d have the very freshest of fresh milk available all the time.

Opposite problem from yours (too concerned about freshness), yet it gives the same result in the end. Honestly, people, the expiry date is useful information!

8

Why not replace the fresh milk with those little individual-portion UHT milk jiggers?

9

I’m not sure I follow. Are you saying that if a carton of milk is opened fresh, it should be discarded after it lightens just one coffee cup? How big are the cartons?

Amusing anecdote: Back in 1999 I was working for a company at which some construction work was going on. On one hot morning I arrived to the stench of what I thought was some really funky ass-flavored paint. Turns out that a construction worker had sledgehammered through a wall and hit a half gallon of milk that some joker had planted there. It had an expiration date of 1984.

10

It occurs to me that the OP would be more useful taped to the door of the fridge where the infractions occur rather than being posted to a message board that the offenders are not likely to read.

Should you chose to do that, and then inform us here of the reactions of your cow-workers, I’m sure we would all be greatly amused.

11

I’ll take ‘Things not to put into a time capsule for 400 Alex.’

12

Thought I made it clear here:

13

I guess, then, that I’m not sure how employees come to be in posession of said lactoid potables. You said the company “makes them available”, but what does that mean? Are we talking about half-pints from vending machines? Or do gallon jugs just magically appear in the fridge?

Every place I’ve worked, milk containers were community property, rather than individually owned. And someone was always in charge of disposing of all possible pugentries, which usually meant cleaning out the entire fridge on Fridays.

If everyone there has their own carton, perhaps it’s time for someone to step up to the plate and treat the entire office to a shared carton.

14

But according to the OP, they are cows there. To wit:

I must admit to being unfamiliar with the “fuckskulled” breed. Is that anything like a polled hereford?

15

Ah yes… hole milk.

16

Technically, if you replace the cow with a goat, won’t you have goatorkers?

17

Whether it is cows or goats in the breakroom, sure as shit it is going to give a whole new meaning to “fucking off” at work.

18

Half-pints, but free, in the same cooler with the free soft drinks and free cans of juice.

At the end of the average week, there’ll be half a dozen opened, half-empty little cartons of milk in there. The unpleasantness begins to seep out at some point thereafter.

19

What do these nincompoops do at home? They must have room in their refrigerators for nothing except opened but unfinished containers of milk.

20

It’s simple. The train of “thought” (if you can call it that) goes like this:

“Hmmm… I need some milk for my coffee. I’ll just open this half-pint container and pour some in.”

Pouring ensues.

"Well, now I’ve got this half-empty (or half-full, only you can tell which) container of milk. Seems wasteful to just throw it away. I’ll just pop this back in the fridge and use it later. "

Returns to desk, works a full shift, goes home, sleeps, comes back to work, goes into the breakroom to get a cup of coffee.

“Hmm… I need some milk for my coffee. I’ll just get the half-empty (or, still, half-full) container I had yesterday. But, what if it’s tainted? What if someone else, you know, TOUCHED it. That’d be, like, yucky. I should just open a new container, so I know the milk is pure and clean.”

Pouring ensues.

"Well, now I’ve got this half-empty (or half-full, only you can tell which) container of milk. Seems wasteful to just throw it away. I’ll just pop this back in the fridge and use it later. "

Repeat, ad nauseum