When I was in the army we had a simple system to determine who fell asleep on guard duty during training exercises[0], who was in possession of the squad leader's watch when everyone woke up.
Nobody really took guard duty seriously when it was just the platoon spending the night in the woods and between the three squads plus 'radio watch' there was always bound to be someone awake the penalty for falling asleep was usually just being assigned to the next shit detail so this system worked quite well.
I suspect this system is quite similar, if you want milk and the sticky note is on someone's desk because they can't be bothered to walk it over to correct person's desk because they are 'too important' then maybe people will start to question that person's true importance to the organization.
[0] during our time in Saudi Arabia/Iraq everyone took guard duty seriously and the leaders would make sure people were doing their jobs up to and including punishing people for petty infractions.
That's not a relevant analogy. In your example, staying awake during guard duty is your job and it's a proper responsibility. You should be penalized if you fail at your job.
I'm saying that tracking milk shouldn't be part of your job, because it's not a good use of people's time. None of it has anything to do with "importance". It's about what is best for the business.
Are you really asking if an office would suffer if coffee was unavailable?
And you understand that a lot of people don't drink their coffee black?
It seems pretty obvious to me that yes -- having coffee with milk available is very much best for the business. Kind of like having restrooms, chairs, and air conditioning are also best for the business.
Nobody really took guard duty seriously when it was just the platoon spending the night in the woods and between the three squads plus 'radio watch' there was always bound to be someone awake the penalty for falling asleep was usually just being assigned to the next shit detail so this system worked quite well.
I suspect this system is quite similar, if you want milk and the sticky note is on someone's desk because they can't be bothered to walk it over to correct person's desk because they are 'too important' then maybe people will start to question that person's true importance to the organization.
[0] during our time in Saudi Arabia/Iraq everyone took guard duty seriously and the leaders would make sure people were doing their jobs up to and including punishing people for petty infractions.