Dear Evil Skippy:
I just found out that one of my co-workers is storing her breast milk in our office refrigerator. This grosses me out. I think management should require her to bring in a small cooler or other contraption to store the stuff during the day, but my supervisor is a woman and is taking my co-worker’s side. I don’t want to escalate this by going to human resources, but I would also like to use the refrigerator again. What can I do?
— Queasy
Dear Queasy:
You can slap yourself for giving Lactose Intolerance a bad name.
— Evil Skippy
Grow up. Breast-feeding is a fact of life and nursing moms deserve a break from immature dolts who want to pretend breast-feeding does not exist. Whatever your hang up is about this – get over it. Either that or start bringing lunches to work that do not need to be kept cold.
Personally, I would rather have twenty co-workers store some breast milk in the office refrigerator than just one person store leftover Tuna Surprise. Readers – what do you think about what’s stored in the refrigerator at work?
Evil Skippy and/or Jim are available to speak at your conferences and seminars! For information or to send a question for Evil Skippy to answer, use the “Contact” link on the left sidebar.
Hi Jim.
Thank you for your enlightened answer about the breastmilk. Thank goodness working moms can pump & store their milk to give their babies the best!
Becky Ward
Lactstion Educator
I think if it isn’t molding or reeking to high heaven I don’t care what is in the fridge. I think Queasy should mind their own damn business and get over themselves.
Hi Jim.
Thanks for your response to Queasy–of course they should be allowed to store it! I recommend putting initials on the bottles, though; a couple of nitwits at my office like to sample EVERYTHING.
Melissa
The best way around any worker issues is to have a designated refrigerator near the room provided for nursing mothers. We took this approach, and have received no complaints over the past five years.
1. Why is the complainer ‘grossed out’ by breast milk in the office fridge as long as it is properly contained/sealed? It IS food, after all, and not the same as storing bodily waste in the fridge!
2. Why the inference that the supervisor’s support of the coworker is because she’s also a woman? It’s not a matter of taking a side, the supervisor is doing the right thing.
3. If breast milk in the fridge so offends the complainer, I hope he (and yes, I do believe it is a ‘he’) should take his own advice and put his lunch in a small cooler or put one of those frozen gelpaks in his lunch. That’s what my kids do.
4. For pity’s sake, grow up already!
Don’t care either way, but, let me ask this: do you want to feed your baby something that you have no control over while it is stored in a public place?
In my experience (as a nursing mom who pumps at work, twice over), people don’t bother your milk if it’s in a communal fridge. This time around, we have a separate fridge in our nursing mom rooms (more for convenience for the employees, then for the space in the other fridges), but I wouldn’t hesitate to put it in the other fridge if I didn’t have one.
I’d also bet if people know it’s breast milk, they aren’t going to touch it because it’s taboo.
Sounds like this person may be the one who was enjoying the “Coffee Creamer” LOL