The Politics of the Office Morning Tea 1

I imagine several major academic studies have been done of the office morning tea, concentrating on the sociological impacts, the sociopathical tendencies brought on, and the economic drivers of the soggy sausage roll industry, but I couldn't find them when I searched on the interwebs. So, I thought, this is clearly a job for the cosmodemonic lackey to do instead of his real one.

There are a number of issues that arise again and again in discussions about the office morning tea. I shall cover them one at a time. Some readers will be well familiar with most of the points I'll make. I hope you stick with me, though, you might just pick up a little something new, or a different angle. Others may see the office morning tea in a whole new light, especially middle aged, cake loving women. It is to these readers, in particular, that this message is addressed. Please read carefully, and change your ways.

I think I'll make this a new episodic feature, because I might have to go to the pub shortly, and there's just so much to say. So any suggestions for future topics are welcome in comments.

The issues I aim to discuss so far include:

1. Three cake syndrome
2. Ways to make mediocre food edible - esp. supply tomato sauce
3. Great food - esp. Cheese, Crackers
4. Ways to ruin perfectly good food - esp. over-microwaving

Let's start today, for a radical change, with number one, and let's just say it straight out: There is nothing - nothing - so infuriating in this whole wide and wicked world of ours as being invited to an office morning tea, and arriving to see a bunch of chairs surrounding three tables, each table with only a crappy pre-made supermarket cake on it. Oh, it aches. It tears the heart right out of your body, drops it disdainfully on the floor and smears fake whipped cream all over it's still beating ventricles.

In my experience there is only one particular type of person who can willingly, even eagerly, eat any cake - let alone three cake syndrome office morning tea cake - at ten in the morning. This is the middle aged woman who has given up all hope of ever working or living outside the office she currently inhabits. She is at work when you arrive, there when you leave, rarely working, but usually fussing.

Now don't get me wrong, she might be very nice, often the office mother hen, delivering dollops of good homespun advice and never giving up on you no matter how many times you go tot he pub at lunchtime and forget to come back. Then again she might be the office dragon. Either way, she has no hope left in her. It's not her fault. The corporate will has seconded her soul to turn the corporate grindstone, much like Arnie at the start of Conan the Barbarian, but without the smarts. And without hope, due to some interference in the space-time fabric that I can only assume is caused by aliens from the planet Dessertius Prime, she is left only with cake. And she loves cake with all her heart and all her soul-hole.

The only thing stronger than her love for cake is her hate for disorder, and for crime. Everything must be in its place, everything must have order hence, one cake per table.

So: we must band together, fellow normal person, you and I must band together to reject this behaviour. Our only chance is to broadcast this message and broadcast it loud to all office dragons and all office mothers:

Cake is a Crime Before Lunch Time

I came up with the catchy slogan myself. Like it?

More to follow, but I need a beer after that.