Let them eat cake – even if CEOs don’t bake
By Penelope Whitson,
Is feeding your colleagues counterintuitive to climbing the corporate ladder?
When not peering through my blinds to spy on the neighbours as I swill sherry out of a tea cup like a good spinster, I like to indulge in a spot of baking. And because I know that I could eat it all but probably shouldn’t, I take some (less than half) into the office on Fridays.
I have ranted previously that my office no longer provides free Tim Tams. I suggested we cancel the people who service the pot plants and floral arrangements and channel that cash into delicious, waist-expanding biscuits but to no avail.
This removal of our drug of choice has resulted in people wandering into the kitchen in various stages of withdrawal and opening cupboards in the hope that the shelves are not bare. We haven’t quite gotten to the stage where we’re snorting sugar but it can’t be far off.
This has all resulted in my baking becoming exceedingly popular. The one Friday I was off sick and couldn’t bring it in, I got hate mail from Finance.
Sadly, a colleague then read an article suggesting that displaying such ‘womanly’ behaviour means I won’t be respected for my actual work and the likelihood of promotion is less than it is for other, more business-like employees. They have their eyes on the prize, which isn’t my cake, but a corner office and the company gold card. And I languish behind in my role as ‘Penelope the chocolate brownie maker’, not ‘Penelope the destroyer of poorly written documents’.
Basically, if you want to climb the corporate ladder, you shouldn’t feed your workmates. Because apparently CEOs don’t bake. They’re too busy doing other stuff. Suggestions as to what that is are welcome.
So I took a poll. Not a very scientific one. I asked my colleagues, cleverly on a day I’d made a cake, for their thoughts. General consensus – the theory was rubbish. However, we have less than 20 in our office, with a fairly even gender split. I’m not the only person who brings in food to share. Would things be different if I was in a really large office? No idea.
Workplace ‘tactics’ such as not feeding my workmates have never occurred to me. I actually have no workplace tactics aside from trying not to be the person who finishes the milk. And I think people are more productive in an office environment where the whole workplace tactics thing isn’t an issue.
Although I suppose you could argue that bringing baking in to a sugar-starved workplace is a carefully calculated manoeuvre guaranteed to ensure I can never be fired. I pimp my baked goods and the office can’t say no.
My conclusion: I don’t care what your gender – if you bring in baking, or in fact anything edible, I will still respect you in the morning.
This rule does not apply to the workmate I had whose marriage failed and she insisted we eat the top tier of her wedding cake, which she had lovingly frozen the previous year. It was as though we were eating her dreams. Sweet dreams are not made of almond icing.
Comments
Travis
How cliché in business to say, “This isn't a popularity contest!”, clearly true. NOW, I have an answer to that horrible cliché, ie. “If it were, you would do more baking!”
Baking should be touted as a valuable CEO skill, up there with acquisitions and crushing the small guy under a heavy boot.
Jody
Of course, not everyone WANTS to be a CEO. Who wants to work 50-60 hour weeks, doing boring crap like go to really long meetings, and be isolated from the social scene at work because nobody wants to party with the boss?
And making food for other people gives one a warm, buttery feeling inside that can't be substituted with money and power.
I say - Let them eat MY cake, for it is superior and made with love!
Vicki
Cake making and bringing it to work depends on the size of the office. I have worked in small, medium and very large offices and, truly, the smaller the office, the more likely there is to be cake and other homemade good things. Would you want to bring in cake for the whole office if you do not really know anyone beyond your immediate team? And how much cake would be needed if your office had around 100 people per floor like KPMG and other big places in Sydney do?
sharon
I bake and take it to work. I do not want to be the CEO of the company ……. but one day I will rule the world! ( one cake at a time)
Morgan
I have a confession. I have never baked for the office, though I once did bring a colleague a loaf of bread I had baked. You see I can only bake two things: bread, and vegan chocolate cupcakes. I did once make maple walnut cupcakes, but that was for a man (BAD FEMINIST!) and I was besotted. And he mowed my lawn… Literally.
I have, though, often found myself at the receiving end of the baking (the mouth-open-shoveling-in end). Dear friends (you know who you are) have delivered me scones at work, for which I shall be eternally grateful. And my old boss frequently brought me in almond croissants, because she is awesome and because she would bake if she had time, but she didn't, so she bought…
She was not the CEO, but the CEO (of sorts) was evil. I know who I'm still friends with…
Loz
I do not bake. But I do enjoy baked goods. When I had minions I brought in bought cream donuts. Worked just as well as home baked goods. But of course did not taste quite as delicious.
Lisa Simpson
Morgan, did this man in question mow your lawn before or after you made the maple walnut cupcakes?
Just trying to ascertain the cause and effect chain here, and possible links between baking and lawn mowage.
Morgan
Lisa - good question. The mowing came first! The cupcakes, shamefully, came some weeks after they were promised as a thank you for said mowing. Which is why I'll never be CEO of that (or any) affair.
Lisa Simpson
I see. I did wonder if he felt compelled to mow your lawn due to the extremely tasty nature of your cupcakes.
If you know what I mean.
Morgan
Perhaps the promise of a cupcake is enough to rouse one to mow? If you likewise know what I mean.
If only the promise of a cupcake was enough to inspire promotion. You never know though… stranger things have happened.
Vincent Heeringa
Your theory is 100% incorrect in my case, Whitson. I bake a mean banana cake and I'm doing my best to be a mean bastard boss.
Perhaps there's too much bicarbonate in my cake, but I see the cake and boss-ness as two sides of complex yet highly attractive coin.
Hazel Phillips
Oi, stop with the banana cakes, Heeringa. More chocolate!
Penelope
Heeringa, have you considered achieving your desire to be a bastard boss by adding laxatives to the banana cake?
Vincent Heeringa
Hmm that is a genuinely helpful recipe suggestion, thanks Penelope.
You know, not many people give a shit about management. But I do. And now my staff will too.
Hazel Phillips
We'll consider ourselves duly warned.
Anonymous comments on this post are disabled. Please sign up to post a new comment.