The majority of people do their bit and clean up after them, but you get one or two who simply can’t be bothered or refuse to leave the place as they’d like to find it.

Yes, those emails are annoying, but if we want to keep the facilities, they are necessary. Health & Safety in the workplace is a massively important issue and grotty kitchens, dirty fridges etc., pose as much of a potential hazard to employees as electrical cables across the floor.

And I also bet that everyone else including your whinging GF sits on their backsides watching while she cleans up after them.

Personally as an employer who should be worried about the health and safety of my employees I’d be grateful the risk was being minimised rather than thinking that someone was wasting time. I’d be thanking this member of staff for taking the initiative.and pulling up the others for not cleaning up after themselves.

I might think it was a waste of time if she did it daily.

Our boss removed everything from our kitchen including mug, cutlery, kettle, toaster - everything. That way there wasn’t any washing up. People had to bring in their own stuff and take it home. If anything was left at the end of the day the cleaner was instructed to throw it away

In our last building, we had a kitchenette shared between several different teams in an open office & every smoker who passed through on their way back to their floor. I sympathise with the phantom emailer but it is essentially a time wasting exercise because no one ever believes it applies to them & they disregard it any way.

What really cured the slobs of their slovenly habits & milk thieving was when we moved buildings we had no kitchen facility, we have a bar slung up in a corner with a kettle so everyone can see you making a mess & stealing other people’s milk.

No, I don’t think that person should be reprimanded, it takes a couple of seconds to knock out an email, considerably less time then cleaning the kitchen. Management does need to take that person in hand but there may be something other then the state of the kitchen bothering this person which needs to be addressed. You also need to bear in mind your opinion of what happens in your girlfriend’s office is filtered by her and her experiences and the information she supplies you with, the phantom emailers experiences in the office may be completely different.