Just took the self-paced training for the Bridgeport Mill and had an issue with this question on the quiz (I also flagged the question within the learning system).
Wouldn’t basic member excellence be to report breakage no matter how minor?
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Machine breakage, no matter how minor, should probably be reported. Not all cutting tool breakage needs to be reported. For instance, if you broke a 1/4" end mill - of which we have plenty - you really don’t need to report that. But if you broke our one and only 1/4" reamer then yes - someone would want to know that.
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The question would be the assumption that say you broke a 1/2” end mill. We don’t really care as long as it doesn’t keep another member from being without. IE the last 1/2” end mill broke. We do expect some broken consumable tooling. No let’s say the quill doesn’t move or the motor won’t turn on, definitely report that.
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I think I keyed into the “excellence” part of the question and was expecting that it would be helpful (excellent) to report any breakage – there’s a learning opportunity if I’m the only one breaking the 1/4" end mills 
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Unless the feedback is please don’t report breakage, unless it’s really obvious that the breakage will impede future users (remember not all of us appreciate how many 1/4" bits there are, or what is a show stopper for others).
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The motivation behind posting breakage is so we know what to replace.
We all benefit from learning each others’ mistakes, so posting a “hey I did this what went wrong?” post is useful; just not for the same reason.
The consumable tools are more-or-less sorted by type and size. When you get a consumable tool from the cabinet you should be able to tell if there are any others. When you get a chance to root around in the cabinet you will see what I mean. It’s fairly obvious what we have a lot of.
Other things, like the reamer box, have a sign warning that they’re expensive and easy to break so that should also be an indicator.
All precision measuring tools (i.e., not the measuring tapes) should be reported if damaged or broken.
I agree that’s a harder thing to know. I’m sensitive to drill bits, particularly the ones that are specific to tapping. It’s no use to have the 10-32 tap if we don’t have a #21 drill bit (IIRC there is a drill/tap chart either in or on the cabinet).
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Thank you @John_Marlow.
As a new user (to the machine shop) I think the feedback I wanted to share is that the training didn’t make that clear. Perhaps we can update the training to reflect more of what’s in your post? (I’d offer to change it, but I don’t know the process – yet) It seems to make perfect sense (I haven’t been in the machine shop enough to see said cabinet).
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