Have your cake and NOT eat it

I mentioned at my last weigh in that one of the temptations that will be a constant in my life is the dreaded cake Friday. He is a short rant about my work life/ cake balance – enjoy.

We regularly have cake at work to celebrate one thing or another, which is fine in itself, but the reasons to celebrate are becoming more frequent and more trivial. Birthday? CAKE! Leaving the company? CAKE! New baby? CAKE! Return from a cakeless holiday? CAKE! Just eaten a cake? CAKE!

And just in case there isn’t a reason to celebrate in a given week and to ensure we always get our weekly recommended amount of cake, a rota has be established. This all sounds fine and dandy until you realise the rota was set up by ‘Cake-Hitler’ (CH), a baking crazed despot who must be obeyed. There is no escaping the rota, if you work here your name is on the rota. If you think you can avoid the rota by using the excuse ‘but I don’t eat cake’, TOUGH LUCK BUDDY! Your name is down and you had best bring a homemade cake for fear of been ostracised. Last week one poor guy was working until past midnight to get an important project finished, well that was a poor excuse if CH had ever heard one, ‘well what were you doing between midnight and coming into work the next day at 08:30?’ – sleeping was not a good enough answer. He had a red ring circling his name on the rota and was told he had better bring one in on Monday, thankfully he did, or I fear he may have been taking a train journey and not coming back. As if that’s not bad enough there is a set of rules governing the how cake club is ran, which was sent out with the original rota, here they are (unedited):

1. The first rule of cake club is you do not talk about cake club (this is a blatant lie as it seems that’s all we talk about ‘CAKE’ ‘CAKE’ ‘CAKE’)
2. All cakes must be homemade
3. All cakes must contain at least three ingredients
4. All cakes must go in the oven
5. Parents, partners, family and friends are not allowed to help – you must make the cake yourself
6. Off the shelf box kits cannot be used, we will be able to tell and you will only be cheating yourself
7. Cake time is at 11:00 sharp every Friday, if you have a meeting or are otherwise disposed leave the cake in the canteen
8. Enjoy!

I wonder if the noticeable dip in productivity at work on a Friday afternoon is caused by the impending weekend or a cake induced sugar crash.

Food for thought? As long as its not bloody CAKE!

Ant