Holiday workplace snack pledge
 

So, the Halloween pledge worked out well for me. I am ready for my next pledge – no holiday goodies. I work for a big corporation and we receive SO MANY vendor gift baskets around the holidays. Good stuff, too. I did pretty good last year, but wavered a few times. My rule for this year – I can only eat pears (we get a lot of Harry & David gift baskets). If we get a basket with pears (or other H&D fruit, but really the pears are the best, not wild about the apples and regular baskets dont have the exotic fruits), I can eat one pear per day, and take pears home for later. NOTHING ELSE (the pledge extends to baked goods, treats brought in by coworkers). No moose munch, summer sausage, chocolates, cookies. ONLY PEARS.

I'm in. The hospital will be the worst.

I think my school is the worst! Well meaning parents gifting the teachers and staff! 100 staff members bringing all of their holiday leftovers and dropping them in the staff lounge. It is a minefield EVERYDAY! However, I know that is one of the main reasons I gained my weight so I have had a no staff room food pledge with myself since I lost my weight. I ONLY eat stuff out of the staff lounge if it is fruit or plain veggies. I may have wavered once or twice over the years but it is rare. I keep my blinders on. So, I'm in on the pledge too!

Michele, you are right. Schools are even worse than hospitals!! But when I think about what gifts I want to do for my kids' teachers, cookies, candies, etc., seem to always be at the top of the list. Do you have any suggestions for non-food teacher gifts that are ~$5?

A lot of parents give gift cards ($5) to Starbucks or other local places (yogurt, etc.). Those are always appreciated! If your kids are old enough, have them write a meaningful note or card to go with the gift. Another idea is a set of note cards/thank you cards as teachers are always writing notes and thank you's.

Today's minefield included donuts and bagels. Sigh....

I'm taking the pledge & steeling my will against next Thursday.

That's when the famous Package of Cookies From Diane arrives.

My department employs a very gifted & hard-working graphic artist named Diane who puts as much thought & effort into making her Christmas cookies as she does into her graphs, charts & illustrations. These are not your ordinary cookies. Oh, no. They are magazine perfect, and they have extraordinary flavors, and some are rather fragile & sculptural-looking, intriguing to the eye as well as to the taste.

She works remotely, so she takes the trouble to mail them to the head office, where I work. (I work there two days a week, anyway, when I'm not working from home on the laptop.)

For three years running, I have not gone anywhere near the table at the office where her cookies are laid out. Not in 2009 and not in 2008. Not in 2007, but that was easier, because I'd just started changing my eating habits & was so high on my success, that was enough of a treat.

I'm afraid. Very afraid.

There is, thankfully, a ritual to the serving of the cookies, which makes it possible to avoid them: They're revealed, on a series of plates, on a long table, just before an e-mail goes around telling selected people (only within our dept) that they're out, and then their location is disclosed. Once everyone in the dept. has socialized & eaten in an inpromptu standup party, the cookies are hidden near an Important Person's desk, so people from our dept can stroll by periodically & take them, while the Important Person looks on, to be sure no unauthorized coworkers get access. These rituals occur because these cookies are so coveted, and their fame is so far-reaching, that we don't want strangers from other depts. wandering in & taking any, as that is a very present danger.

Even if I don't get up & take a cookie, I'm surrounded by the sound of munching coworkers, and the smells (salted caramel! real raspberry filling made with fresh raspberries!), and people oohing and awwing over what Diane made this year.

This is incredibly difficult.

I recognize Diane's artistry & her talent. Her true gift.

But damn, I wish she sent us a CD of her photographs & drawings instead. I wish she quilted. Or painted. Or did ceramics. Or ... something else. Anything else.

I wish she just made your common cut-outs with sloppy green icing & those silvery beads pressed in them, or gingerbread that goes stale in about five minutes after the Saran wrap comes off, or those red-and-green M&M cookies, or those things that aren't even really cookies, where people just dump layers of coconut, condensed milk, chocolate chips & graham crackers in layers & cut them in messy squares.

Damn.

Now...I would probably plan to have one incredibly special cookie, once a year. It's not like a tin of caramel popcorn.

Misread by me as 'cookies, CANDLES, etc'. Are candles any good as a present?

I've bought dish towels before from a trip the family went on.

One teacher collected owls. Another was a Florida State University fan.

A wonderful parent has coordinated a gift before, collecting what people wanted to donate but suggesting $5, and used it to purchase a couple of restaurant gift cards.

I join the pledge to avoid the mundane, the store bought, and even the seasonally good.

Howsomever, should I be able to figure out how to get to the famous "Package of Cookies From Diane" I'm gonna have one - I'll examine the whole batch, make my first choice, factor it into a snack budget, and savor it like crazy.




[Focusing on the clues: Just outside of NYC, head office, has an employee named Diane, desk of very important person.]

I'm just going to comment on the "Diane" cookies as snacks in the workplace are not a problem for me (unless you like dog doo, frozen chunks of wood or sand :p).

I would factor one cookie per day into my food budget. Sometimes you get something extraordinary (obviously these cookies are that and more - they are creations of love and art) and life is too short to pass it up. And since you have a "cookie controller" that should enable you to stop at one, yes? I would feel no shame at begging for more but you maybe could quietly ask this person to give you the "stink eye" if they see you lurking anywhere near the cookie location.

During the holiday season I go to the Belgian chocolate shop every Saturday and get one chocolate. I go to a very quiet local coffee shop, order a tea, which I don't touch, and savour this chocolate for as long as I can.

This year I will be doing a two hour long dog walk after the chocolate so the caloric implication is negligible too!

TGIF!!! TGIF!!! It's been a looong week.

Dagmar :tired:

I'm definitely taking this pledge! My office is full of junk, yesterday someone brought in coconut pie and another person brought brownies. No, no, no!

The only off-plan item I'm having this month is some pie after Christmas dinner. Everything else I will avoid!

LOL Dagmar - love the stink eye idea! :) My husband (a fitness god - blech) has looked over my shoulder every meal since I started maintenance. I asked him how long he was planning on doing that and he looked very surprised that he'd been caught! ;) He's on his best behavior now.

Saef - only you know what you can handle from a temptation standpoint, but it seems to me that figuring in a moderate amount of something you really love is a good life strategy. Gee, what a bunch of fantastic weight-support people we are! We're standing by whispering "Eat the cookie! Eat the cookie!" ;)

I'd say based on the fact that there are literally THREE people in my office and we currently have no less than 8 POUNDS of candy in the break room, I'm in trouble...gonna try my best!!

:rofl: 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. :shrug: So maybe I'll follow the pledge by default if nobody brings anything in.

Ah yes, Diane,

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. :lol3:

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.

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.

Dagmar :cool:

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...

Last week at work

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.)

Good for you Saef! Out of sight, out of mind.

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.

Saef - that's me tapping on your window. A little late, but not a problem; I can see there's some left. I need you to unlock the skylight.

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.

And the week gets even more difficult....

This is the last week before the kids have their winter break. So far today I've had homemade cookies and homemade caramel popcorn "gifted" to me. I've written nice thank you's pretending to have enjoyed the treats. I will bring them home to my family and they will thoroughly enjoy them. I did feel somewhat like a fool when I opened the bag of cookies to see what kind they were (so I could write the thank you). I then stapled the bag back securely so I won't be tempted--- they look good!

It is wall-to-wall Harry & David gift baskets here today. I ate a pear :)

I also took a package of smoked salmon and a jar of charred pineapple relish.

All the chocolate covered cherries and baklava are KILLING ME.

I appreciate the humor of dealing with the food gifts, really I do. But I'm also really troubled by the fact that all of this corporate food gift-giving is taking place at a time when food banks all over the country are seeing 20, 30, 40% increases in potential clients, and when many formerly middle-class parents have burned through their savings and are having to choose between paying their mortgage, paying a hospital bill, or putting decent food on the table.

Giving a small gift of appreciation to a teacher or a coworker that you work with regularly is one thing, but a vendor sending *bags* of chocolate to distribute to everyone in the company? That's not meaningful gift-giving, that's purchasing favors. Maybe this year we should try to convince our vendors to make a donation to their local food bank instead of sending chocolates. Especially since half the food gifts either end up in the trash or around our waists.

FWIW, I'm taking the money I'd normally spend on (non-food!) gifts for the office staff and giving it to one admin assistant, a single mom whose hours have been cut way back and whose ex-husband can't pay child support because he was laid off. The rest of the staff will get nice, personalized thank you notes. And you know what? I think they'll appreciate it more, because they get to be part of making life a bit easier for a coworker who they know is struggling to keep her head above water and her kids in their home.

Rant mode off.

K

LOVE this. Thumbs up! Thanks for sharing! :cp:

Our department's Christmas lunch at a local restaurant was actually quite easy, since we went to Mitchell's (a seafood chain that tries not to look like a chain & reminded me a little of Legal Seafoods). I had part of a glass of some New Zealand wine, since the wine glasses were big bubble types (as I've asked plaintively before, why does everyone's wine comes from New Zealand these days?). I also had seafood stew, translated to three scallops, three mussels, three clams, piled atop some kind of tomato-y reduction sauce, and looking more like an appetizer, probably because I told them to hold off on that topping of fried calamari & that I did not want a wedge garlic bread to sop up the sauce with. Also a garden salad with oil & vinegar, uninspired except for a sprinkle of toasted pignoli nuts. All this did was take the edge off my appetite. When I got back to the office, I had an apple & a cup of tea, and later on, a handful of dry-roasted peanuts.

I'm working from home for the two days that I'm working next week, but I'm not making the mistake of thinking I'm free & clear. There's that week between Christmas & New Year's, when all kinds of leftovers find their way into the office, and the workplace can feel so quiet & lonely that people tend to eat weird things at weird hours.