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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

to take the mick out of male colleagues who bring in shared food that their WIVES have made

719 replies

morningpaper · 14/12/2008 22:34

this makes me both scornful and slightly depressed and I resort to extreme sarcasm

Only last week I was nibbling lemon cake from a colleagues WIFE.

What IS that ABOUT?

AIBU?

OP posts:
Habbibu · 16/12/2008 16:18

Because IT'S SPARE CAKE. It's left over, it's nice. You're reading an awful lot into this, Swedes, and again, it's assuming a lot of things about the person baking the cake from the start. Which are most probably not true.

It's actually quite depressing that people see it this way - so far people would assume that I have food issues, am somehow jealous and staking my claim on DH (he wears a wedding ring. That'll show the bitches, surely?), and have a terrible need to nurture the World.

Whereas I have a very healthy relationship with food. i neither binge nor deny myself, and maintain a good healthy weight despite have Never Been On A Diet. I have an excellent relationship with DH, and am sufficiently Up My Own Arse for it not to occur to me that he'd so much as look at anyone else.

I'm anti-scoial and not very nurturing, tremendously happy, reasonably high-achieving and professional. Why can't you imagine that of the other hypothetical or real women under discussion. I have spare cake, or offer to make Dh's contribution as I like an excuse to bake. Why is this so freakish?

Anna8888 · 16/12/2008 16:23

I actually asked my DP last night what his reaction would be if I baked a cake and gave it to him to take to the office.

He didn't really believe his ears understand the question the first time round, so I asked again. He was still rather puzzled, but thought he might (a) call the police (b) call a psychiatrist (c) possibly have me sectioned.

Ie he thought the whole idea was very weird indeed. And certainly not in character either for me or him.

Swedes · 16/12/2008 16:24

Why don't you send your spare cake to the local old folks' home?

Habbibu · 16/12/2008 16:26

But that's fine for you, Anna, that's the thing. I wouldn't think any less of you, or worry about your issues with food or nurturing.

I wouldn't specifically bake a cake for DH - I'd make a contribution for him, if there was a bring-a-dish lunch type thing, or I'd give him what we had left over and didn't feel like eating ourselves. How is that odd?

Anna8888 · 16/12/2008 16:28

My DP did think that his colleagues would have the impression that I was exceedingly idle if I had the time to bake cakes for them...

Dropdeadfred · 16/12/2008 16:28

but Anna that's obviously a culture ting...perhaps in paris offices they don't munch homemade pince pies and swig cheap fizzy plonk from plastic cups (or paper thin glassware from ikea) like they do in a lot of offices in Blighty..?

Habbibu · 16/12/2008 16:29

Swedes: Because (a) they can't accept it for H&S reasons, (b) it's a few slices and would look like a faintly shabby gift (c) I like dh's colleagues, and don't feel daft sending half a cake to them and (d) am not that altruistic...

Anna8888 · 16/12/2008 16:29

My DP doesn't have a bring-a-dish lunch type of office... If it is that kind of office, why not, I suppose.

Habbibu · 16/12/2008 16:29

What do they think you do in your spare time, Anna? Aren't you supposed to have any? How long does it take you to bake a cake?

Anna8888 · 16/12/2008 16:31

I made cakes for my colleagues from time to time when I was young and single and had Sunday afternoon baking urges... people do eat homemade cake in the office in Paris . But I have never, ever seen a cake made by someone's partner in the office. Either you make it yourself or you buy it.

Anna8888 · 16/12/2008 16:34

Like I said earlier down the thread, 95% of the women in my DP's company are women and most of them are young and of child-bearing and rearing age and are very busy indeed. They would probably be grateful for the 5 minutes it takes to sit down and eat the cake in peace, let alone the hour it would take to bake it.

Habbibu · 16/12/2008 16:35

Lord. Not a lifestyle I'd aspire to, then. The odd hour here and there is a luxury I'd rather keep.

Swedes · 16/12/2008 16:37

Habbibu - Is this you?

Anna8888 · 16/12/2008 16:37

Habbibu - me too. But we can afford to have a few hours to ourselves in this household.

Not really very clever to rub that fact in the face of DP's colleagues and employees, though...

Habbibu · 16/12/2008 16:40

eeewwwww, no, Swedes. Vomity cake-porn. Judge away at that missy all you like.

ChippyMyrrhton · 16/12/2008 16:46

at the size of this thread!
This does happen in my office, and I suspect it's because she has a house full of boys, and thinks the 'boys' at work need feeding up too.
She does make exceedingly good cakes.

Swedes · 16/12/2008 16:46

I feel terribly sorry for that blog lady. She is saying 'Love me' with every cake she bakes. Her blog has 0 comments.

poinsettydog · 16/12/2008 18:35

lol @ professional persona.

What is he - a magician?

I think swedes touches on seomthing. I like to remain absent from dh's workplace (and he from mine) unless I am very much present.

Libraloveschristmas1975 · 16/12/2008 19:42

You see I find this more patronising
"They would probably be grateful for the 5 minutes it takes to sit down and eat the cake in peace, let alone the hour it would take to bake it. "

than the bosses wife making cake that you found patronising earlier.

Also I make my DH wear a locket with my photo and lock of hair in to mark my territory, using home-made cakes is amateurish.

Swedes · 16/12/2008 19:50

Libra - Amateurish? Not if you lace the cake with Polonium 210.

MrKipling · 16/12/2008 19:56

I am Anna's husband.

Now do you see why it's daft for her to send me in with cakes?

Honestly, you people.

MrKipling · 16/12/2008 19:57

And lol at libra nd swedes

gingerninja · 16/12/2008 20:24

What about when we get our kids to bake for us? How does that translate? I was going to get DD to make some chocolate cornflake cakes for me to take to work tomorrow (or I'd be eating 2000 myself at home) but decided against it after this thread, who knows what people would make of me enslaving my poor 2 year old DD to a life of domesticity. Both DH and myself work in very friendly, relaxed offices and this kind of thing just happens all the time.

Wilf, in answer to your question, I am absolutely not in any way suspicious of DH's colleague's intentions. She is always very humble about her gifts yet she has absolutely exceptional talent in all areas of creativity. I'm in complete awe of her skills and very flattered that she thinks of me.

MarieAntoinette · 16/12/2008 20:24

Let them eat cake.

onebatmotherofgoditschilly · 16/12/2008 20:37

Part of me thinks that there is something mildly discomfiting about any aspect of the domestic sphere bleeding into the work one - though this should not, of course, be true.

It may be because we understand, on some level, that corporatism works by encouraging any softening of the sharp and brutal truth that the office is a box, in which you work with others until you can no longer work because you are old or dead.

Dress-down Friday is a particularly infantilizing version of the same attempt to divert us from - or reconcile us to - the terrible truth that we are drones who will be working for The Man until all capacity for real joy is squeezed from us.

When I worked in an office, I loathed any form of work-based 'fun'. Actually, any form of organized fun. Can you tell?

Whether or not cake is a feminist issue is a different and very interesting matter.

Lol at me being up for a bit of low-brow analysis. It's soo true.