It is an unfortunate fact that some people feel quite comfortable taking things that do not belong to them. I don’t know that anyone’s lunch went missing but as one of the three people who regularly put milk into the refrigerator I can confirm that missing milk was fairly rampant.
I was curious if the other two colleagues experiences were similar to mine. It was then that Martin had a great idea. One day when I went into the refrigerator I saw a milk carton that had a picture on it. It might not have been Stalin, but that is who it reminded me of. Below the picture were words. I no longer have access to the original English and German text but the general meaning was this.
“This is community milk belonging to the community milk project. You are free to have some but if you do participate please support the project by providing milk too”
Funnily enough, a few days later there was another milk carton who also proclaimed that he was also part of the community milk project. Perhaps someone felt guilty about past behavior and was actually providing milk.
One day while heading to lunch, I was speaking with the two other guys who sometimes were missing milk. One of them started the community milk project and at that time we found out that the other person, Stephen, was had also joined the milk project. So it was the same guys providing milk but now without any of that nasty gilt for those who were taking it. Nobody else ever provided milk and the milk project was shelved some weeks later.