Naaman Zhou 

‘You stole my cheese!’: the seven best Post-it note wars

From workplace food fights to disputes with the neighbours, the humble yellow sticky note comes into its own
  
  

An angry Post-it note on a packet of cheese amid an intra-office communications breakdown.
An angry Post-it note on a packet of cheese amid an intra-office communications breakdown. Photograph: Charlotte Meredith/SBS

In Sydney and London, two communities are at war. Both alike in dignity – one, an office of journalists, the other a residential Brixton street – and bound together by the humble Post-it note.

In Sydney, the offices of SBS (Special Broadcasting Service) have been torn apart by one person’s quest to protect their cheese. In London, the issue of communal flowers has sparked a passive-aggressive neighbourhood row.

In honour of these two, Guardian Australia has compiled our list of the best Post-it note wars. And please, go ahead and tell us your best passive-aggressive note experience in the comments below.

The SBS cheese slice war

On Tuesday, SBS News social media editor Charlotte Meredith tweeted this note on the fridge of the broadcaster’s Sydney offices.

Like the Christopher Nolan film Memento, it begins in media res, and slowly unspools narratively backwards. And, like a classic film noir plot, it is the story of a person framed for a crime they didn’t commit.

“To whoever thinks I stole their Bega cheese,” our hero writes, “1. You are not the only person that eats that specific brand of cheese. 2. There was a fridge cleanout on Sunday. 3. Don’t go through people’s bags. 4. YOU STOLE MY CHEESE!”

Inside the fridge, the note that sparked it all.

And after much investigation – the result is a box of cheese delivered straight to the newsroom.

The Brixton flower fight

On Monday, culture reporter at Mashable Rachel Thompson revealed the “almighty row” being waged by Post-it notes on her south London street.

The multipage debate covered gentrification, conservation and the tragedy of the commons.

“Please don’t pick my flowers,” it began.

Then came the theorising.

“In an area massively affected by gentrification, it’s sad to see people claiming ownership of even the flowers,” said a note written in green.

Someone else backed them up: “Flowers on the public pavement are owned by all the community, not just the house they happen to fall in front of.”

But others pointed out that the flowers were in fact already a community project, maintained by local residents.

“Are you serious?” said one. “This is not about ownership or gentrification, this is about someone trying to make the street a nicer place for everyone by planting flowers, and people stealing them and stamping on them.”

“These flowers did not grow wild and were only here because they were planted, watered, maintained and replaced by local residents … most planters were originally built by a local social enterprise,” another added.

A message matching the handwriting of the first, gentrification-mentioning note, replied. “Helpful to know that the flowers were a part of a community project: However, if that is the case it was very misleading to refer to them as ‘my’ flowers.”

Eventually, the plants were completely removed, and distributed around the road to various neighbours – ending the great flower war of Dalyell Road. For now.

Cockroaches and spoons

The offices of the ABC (Australian Broadcasting Corporation) are a goldmine of Post-it note glory.

Over many years in its Sydney headquarters, they have been meticulously collated in various Facebook groups and email chains. Leaked by ABC insiders, Guardian Australia has obtained some of the best.

First, The Shrine. When a cockroach died on level five and nobody cleaned it up, the Post-its began.

It started with flowers. Then tributes. Then references to the 2000 nu metal song Last Resort by Papa Roach. Someone eventually built it a coffin.

Also at the ABC, this five-note argument about a missing spoon:

“Please return the spoon you took from here.”

“What did it look like?”

“A spoon.”

And so on.

Making a clean breast of it

Not so much a war as a single, devastating strike of overwhelming force.

This note from 2016 exacted revenge on a coworker who had been stealing milk, by claiming (truthfully or not) that they had been drinking breast milk.

First posted to image sharing site Imgur and Facebook in July 2016, its provenance is unclear, and there is no verification that it actually contained breast milk. But, clearly, it is a prank of great effect. Snopes has examples of similar jokes and urban legends from as early as 1996.

Dr Hedgehog

Again, another note that was unfortunately revealed to be fake.

But the tale of Dr Hedgeh, a professor who kept getting “og” stuck to his door, lives on. First posted in 2012, it recurs online to this day.

Undies and death threats

Two Guardian Australia staffers have Post-it note horror stories of their own.

First, columnist Brigid Delaney received this incredibly long note from a neighbour, slid under her door, about how she was hanging her “private undies” on a communal clothesline.

Full of underlining and capitalisation, it took issue with the visibility of Delaney’s drying.

“As I transit a lot from my kitchen to the corridor and garden to get fresh air, to tender my plants,” it began. “Unfortunately the clothes line is in front of my kitchen window, it is very unpleasant to have the private undies of other people’s where I can’t avoid it.

“I personally, in my 30+ years in this unit, never hung my private wears in the public line.

“So THIS IS MY REQUEST: do you mind placing your undies from this unavoidable location, to a more invisible location, and also spread less your washing as to give more traffic room for my transit, AND ACCESS TO MY WINDOW PLANTS”.

‘I know where you live’

And finally, it is hard to beat Paul Daley’s tale of a neighbourhood walk, and, like a kind of reverse Ozymandias, the Post-it note he found threatening death to all who stumbled upon a drying rack.

Written on “high quality blue parchment”, printed with a speciality font, and then stapled – not even stuck – to the unwanted appliance:

“If you don’t move your rubbish from here
I know where you live
and I will kill you,” it said.

“This bothered me,” Daley wrote.

 

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