You guys are hilarious. I, too, would eat the cookies. I would eat one of each variety that she made.
But then again, that is part of why I am not signing up for this pledge. Sometimes, I just need some holiday goodies. My limited Halloween pledge of only eating candy on Halloween night led to a binge, so I'm loosening up a little and aiming for "eat it if I really really want it and it's worthwhile" and just make sure I account for it with a smaller meal elsewhere.
OTOH my office has been remarkably low on holiday treats so far this year. There were NO goodies on Thanksgiving -- amazing! (Especially considering the giant Halloween spread.) Then yesterday I packed too small of a lunch, and for once there were no leftovers anywhere in the building. I ended up getting PB crackers from the vending machine. So maybe I'll follow the pledge by default if nobody brings anything in.
Who also has 12 cats that use the litter box and then walk on top of her kitchen counters. And the cookie-baker shoos them away as she assembles her amazing boxes of cookies, but this year an automatic sprinkler started hemorrhaging water onto her front sidewalk and she ran out to fix it. The cats played on the cookies until they heard Diane come back into the house, whence they leapt off the counter and stared at her innocently as she boxed up her cookies to ship off.*
Candles, yes, I like that idea. :0)
*No actual Diane or cat or cookie was injured in the creation of this visualization.
ROFL Midwife - that's an interesting. I should just close my eyes and imagine the BEST episode of Hoarders every time a coworker presents a tin of home made fudge?
I love the sense of humor everyone is employing to avoid the treats!
Midwife-- I haven't visualized what you are describing (gross!) but I do often imagine people have sneezed or coughed or manhandled the goodies that are in my staff room. Today's haul includes cookies and a giant bowl of cereal with a scoop and cups??
Saef-- if the cookies are truly that special then I'm with Bill. I would carefully choose one and savor it. One a year won't kill you. However, if that one a year sends you into a sugar binge or cravings, then it probably isn't worth it!
Right after I posted about how there wasn't much junk in my office this year, I got an email about how they're having a holiday dessert buffet for employee appreciation on the 15th.
Now that I'm paying more attention to what is in the workplace rather than just ignoring it, it is truly mind boggling! I have to go through the staff room to get to the bathroom and I drink a lot of water and hot tea-- hence I go by there frequently! This morning there were cookies and cereal like I mentioned. A couple of hours later that was gone and now there are breads, cakes, cinnamon rolls, and an entire platter of tins of mixed nuts (one of our teachers always sells them and brings a ton as a thank you). The fact that everything disappears so quickly is astounding to me. I think I work with a bunch of vultures!
The behavioral stuff surrounding this food at the office interests me. There are people who will only eat one or none of the cookies during the formal social gathering, but who heed the siren call & keep going back & back to the Important Person's desk to get cookies as the day wears on.
One thing that I know is key to my handling this well: I need to conduct any eating that I do in public, not in private. When I want to get private with food, things turn ugly fast. I am a serious cookie molester.
I don't know what I am doing yet, even after reading everyone's advice. I keep saying that I want a more normal, moderate life. Which means maybe one or two. But I also know myself pretty well, and those one or two will turn into a half-dozen or more if my state of mind is anything other than blissful. (Which it usually isn't, at the office.)
Meanwhile I'm picturing BillBlueEyes dressed in black, with one of those serious black baseball caps on his head, rappelling into our office through a skylight, with the theme from "Mission Impossible" playing in the background. While my astonished coworkers look on, he makes off with the cookies under his arm, before anyone can even think to call security.
Meanwhile I'm picturing BillBlueEyes dressed in black, with one of those serious black baseball caps on his head, rappelling into our office through a skylight, with the theme from "Mission Impossible" playing in the background. While my astonished coworkers look on, he makes off with the cookies under his arm, before anyone can even think to call security.
And only I know his identity.
OK - we're in this together. Just a few more hints so I can find the place. We'll split the take 50-50. (You can have all with peanut butter.)
What is with the cereal and cups Michele? Who thinks that is a Christmas treat?
Sooo, Bill and Saef, how well do those cookies stand up in the mail? Told ya I was willing to beg for 'em.
But seriously, it's my clients who do me in. Every year someone gives me a box of Belgian chocs, another gives me peppermint chocolate bark (how do they know?), and yet another home-baked gingerbread. The gingerbread lady advised me to keep them to myself after I tried to beg off by saying DH was on a diet. So I did - ate 'em all in the car on the way home - urp!
Ah well, at least I've managed to stay away from the items I ordered from LLBean as gifts.
Speaking as a teacher, I love getting pictures of my students as gifts--it makes a nice keepsake. also, any kind of office supplies are appreciated. Many schools no longer provide office supplies for teachers...
Monday: Free LARGE ice cream bars (about twice the size of a dove bar) choice of vanilla, chocolate, raspberry or capuccino, hand dipped in the chocolate of your choice and rolled in the topping of your choice.
Tuesday: Executives serve free breakfast - mostly incredibly large and yummy pastries.
Wednesday: There are leftover pastries in the closest kitchen to me. Assuming they've been sitting out overnight, I take the whole box and dump it in the trash. Temptation gone!
Staff assistant sends out an email, a vendor has brought in chocolate for the whole company. The way it's worded it sounds like you come by her desk for a piece. Nope - you come by for a BAG.
Thursday: Box of Doughnut holes set out in community kitchen.
Friday: lunch brought in for an employee anniversary. Minimal protein, maximum empty carbs: cuban bread, yellow rice with some little pieces of chicken in it, (one cup of rice to less than one ounce of chicken), black beans, salad, cake.
Spelling it out, no wonder I have difficulties staying on plan!
While I was working from home on my laptop on Wednesday, the Cookies From Diane arrived at our office. They weren't served until Thursday, the day that I always go into the office for the weekly dept. staff meeting. No one told me they were out, though, which is interesting. ;-) I just saw coworkers with napkins next to their keyboards, heaped with cookies. My cube is right near a wide pathway to the kitchen, so I could hear scraps of conversation all day about them. The "undisclosed" location was another coworker's cubicle, down at the far end of the aisle, so I could not see them or smell them or see people going to get them.
But late in the afternoon, a group of three women stood right near by cube talking about them, going on & on, as people do (and as they should, because there is artistry involved here). Then they were making the usual feminine complaint about how "bad" they were being by eating so many. I don't know about you all, but I really hate hearing women talk like this now. I even hate the baby voices they sometimes drop into when saying how very bad they were. The sound of such talk irritated me, while also tempting me. (I heard words like meringue and Key Lime, and something about ginger cookies so large, they were the size of saucers for old-fashioned tea cups.) I actually put on headphones, plugged into iTunes on my laptop, and blasted the voices away.
So, nothing for me. And there were long hours during the day when I was completely involved in something I was doing and forgot this stuff even existed.
I keep trying to make an analogy with the philosophical riddle: If a tree falls in a forest, and no one is around to hear it, does it make a sound?
If cookies are in the office, and I don't see them, is there any difference between when they aren't in the office?
(Sometimes, I'm the Queen of Elaborate Rationalizations.)
I've easily resisted everything this week in my office, but yesterday one of the teachers brought in trays of homemade something. I tried not to get too close but I think it was baklava. I heard all sorts of delicious comments and was quite happy when it was all devoured so I wouldn't be tempted further.
And it begins - 2 huge H&D gift baskets were spread around yesterday. Baklava, cookies, moose much, truffles, you name it. I took two pears. I also got an invite from a vendor to a "dessert party" next Friday. I passed.
You guys are hilarious. I, too, would eat the cookies. I would eat one of each variety that she made.
So maybe I'll follow the pledge by default if nobody brings anything in.
