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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

To think this is a really fucking weird thing to do?

218 replies

SummersB · 15/02/2019 06:00

Brought a cake into work the other day - Banana & Blueberry, it was bloody lovely!
One of my colleagues asked me where I had the recipe from and I told her the author. I’ve previously made this before and have shared the recipe with a few of my colleagues, but in the interest of full disclosure I had no intention of sharing it with this particular one because to be honest I can’t stand her (she is a higher banding - band 6 nursing staff - and due to a massive chip in her shoulder she makes junior staff’s working life a misery by being patronising and belittling at every opportunity and is therefore really unpleasant to work with).
Another colleague just told me that a few days after I had brought my cake in she came into work with exactly the same cake, obviously having google searched the recipe and attempted to recreate it. We had a bit of a laugh about it because apparently it was shit as she’d burnt it and managed to make it really dry. But am I right in thinking that’s a really odd thing to do? Who tastes a cake their workmate baked, goes home, looks the recipe up online and comes in two days later saying “ta-da, look, you know the cake you made the other day - well I could have made any other cake in the world but I’ve decided to look it up and make exactly the same one and bring in to work too”? Or is it just me?

OP posts:
myidentitymycrisis · 15/02/2019 09:24

it sounds like you have an issue with her.
It would have been bigger to share the recipe with her, you still don't have to like her.

Namechangeforthiscancershit · 15/02/2019 09:25

I’m dubious about this woman being the bully. “Belittling and patronising” could just be her giving important feedback. We don’t know- we weren’t there.

Laughing with a colleague about a cake another colleague has baked can only be unpleasant though.

MinisterforCheekyFuckery · 15/02/2019 09:25

OP's colleague is clearly supercilious and almost bullying to junior colleagues

I don't think it's 'clear' at all. OP says this woman is a bully but OP also admits to bitching about her behind her back, refusing to give her a recipe (that isn't even her own recipe) that she would have happily given to anyone else and laughing at her because her cake was "shit". That's hardly pleasant or professional behaviour is it? I've worked on wards where a culture of bullying and nastiness is so ingrained that people are very quick to point it out in others but don't recognise it in themselves.
Since OP interprets something as unremarkable as bringing a cake into work as an act of aggression from this woman it makes me question her version of events.

BitOutOfPractice · 15/02/2019 09:26

I don't think it's weird at all. I mean, cake!

MarthasGinYard · 15/02/2019 09:26

I'd take it as a compliment

Sure it wasn't lemon drizzle

ravenmum · 15/02/2019 09:30

@PinkiOcelot Read the OP's story closely. The colleague asked OP for the recipe. Normally OP gives her friends recipes. In this case, OP openly refused to give the colleague the recipe - obviously the colleague can only interpret this as her being very unsubtly excluded from a group of friends. She must have felt hurt, hence her looking the recipe up herself and bringing it in as a sign that she didn't need to be in OP's group.

The colleague may be patronising, but whose behaviour there sounds like bullying?

villamariavintrapp · 15/02/2019 09:37

I bet she made the cake for a different group of people-friends/family/birthday etc but when it didn’t work out brought it into work instead. Not weird.

Doobydoobeedoo · 15/02/2019 09:37

It's weird to be so possessive over a recipe that isn't even yours.

It's downright unpleasant to be laughing and sneering about a cake that someone has brought in to share.

MarthasGinYard · 15/02/2019 09:39
Sad
Inaboatwithoutapaddle247 · 15/02/2019 09:43

I think you may have misjudged her on this one (I'm not saying it is right that she patronises/ intimidates staff).

This may have been her way of trying to "fit in" and finding some common ground?

I could be wrong as obviously I don't know the people involved.
This was just the first thought that popped into my head when first reading this.

Maybe it is her way of trying to be friendly, but it just came across wrong?
I don't think she is being childish and "copying" you.

ravenmum · 15/02/2019 09:44

I didn't really get that bit actually - why would someone with more authority have a chip on their shoulder?
(dictionary: An ingrained feeling of resentment deriving from a sense of inferiority)

glamorousgrandmother · 15/02/2019 09:44

I think she just liked the cake.

Inaboatwithoutapaddle247 · 15/02/2019 09:45

I also feel it is hurtful and childish of you and your colleagues to laugh about a cake someone has brought in.

lottielady · 15/02/2019 09:47

three trolls and a curse

Grin
Notthatsimple · 15/02/2019 09:48

I would do this Confused

If I try something unusual or particularly nice, I’d be keen to try recreating it.

headinhands · 15/02/2019 09:49

So you think what she did was 'really fucking weird'? What do you make of adults who like to dress up as babies or pineapple on pizza?

viques · 15/02/2019 09:50

OP! You are coming across as very petty. It's a cake recipe ffs, one that is freely available on the internet. If you and your colleagues haven't got enough work to do that you can spend time sniping about another colleagues cake making skills then all those stories about overworked health care professionals are clearly over egged.

You don't like the woman, OK. You don't have to eat her cake.

EatingElephantsIsCF · 15/02/2019 09:50

Maybe it is weird . Maybe there is no need for f.
You do not like her so I think that everything she does is weird for you.

gamerwidow · 15/02/2019 09:50

It sounds like you and your team need to remember that bullying can go up a structure as well as down. Getting together to bitch and laugh at a cake someone has bought in is nasty whatever her motivations.

Adultsahouldeatrusks · 15/02/2019 09:52

This reply has been deleted

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MorrisZapp · 15/02/2019 09:53

Some people are insane about workplace cake accolades. My sister was bullied to the point of her health suffering over a cake at work.

If I'd read it on here I'd have assumed it was a troll, but I lived through it with my sister.

GunpowderGelatine · 15/02/2019 09:53

I have to say i find it very weird when people get funny because others ask them for recipes/what shampoo they use/what perfume they have as if that publicly available product is actually theirs and must be guarded at all costs 🙄

MiGi777 · 15/02/2019 09:55

She liked your cake so much she also wanted to make one for everyone. I think it was a compliment to you and a really nice gesture from her. And she even brought it in to share knowing it was nowhere near as good as yours. When you don't really like someone it's easy to see the worst and skit of the time they deserve it. But you're burning energy over thinking this and it is JUST A CAKE!!

MiGi777 · 15/02/2019 09:56

*skit??????? Haha that was meant to be SOME!!! X

Crazypaintlady · 15/02/2019 09:56

It's not that weird. A bit misjudged perhaps.

The way I see it, she liked the cake and tried to recreate it.

It's only a cake.

My mil makes amazing trifles, so one day I decided to recreate one using her recipe. I make my own all the time now. I had no idea she might think I'm such a weirdo.