I have a colleague who has taken up baking fruit pies and bringing them in. Not a problem! However it’s not as simple as ‘there’s pie in the kitchen, help yourself’, it’s become a twice-weekly ceremony where we are all brought in to sit at the table to partake and admire whether we want to or not.
For background- this person is loud to the point of unbearable, nosy, with near constant attention-seeking behaviours and drama and has absolutely zero boundaries. She is the kind who uses work as the entirety of her social interaction.
I (privately!) have real doubts about the hygiene of these pies given the pictures I’ve seen of cats on the counters etc, and also the general state of her fingernails. I’m also (again privately) very slowly (but successfully!) losing my pandemic stone by making a few changes with food. Happy to be polite and admire, but I just don’t want to eat the pie.
In this case, over the last few weeks that this has been going on, a cheerful ‘that looks great, but not for me today, thank you’ which would work anywhere else hasn’t cut it. It’s resulted in intrusive questions, pointed hurt looks and going on about it in a mean way afterwards. I have to sit beside her. Dreading pie day next week already. How do I handle this?