Break Room Cake Panic

"There's cake in the break room!"

The guy talking to me probably thinks I know his name, but I don't. Sorry, guy!

I only recently started working as the receptionist in this office building, and I'm still trying to remember where all the conference rooms are. So many people have been introduced to me, I had to make up an elaborate set of private notes with symbols (one is a stick figure standing on a mountain with outspread arms; this is the CIO) that tell me the bare basics of each power player and how they relate to each other.

This job is simultaneously one of the easiest jobs I've ever had, and one of the most politically nuanced. I've taken to wearing dresses to work - honest to God, dresses - and heels. I've read articles on how to be a good receptionist. I understand that my job is not so much to "help" everyone as it is to make sure that the right people have access to the right other people and places, and to keep everyone else away in as pleasant a manner as possible. Also, I have to keep the candy dish full; if I run out of an appropriate variety of red flavors, there might be an uprising.

Though I'm one of nature's high-strung people, these are all things I can deal with. I just have to mentally pigeonhole each thing and then the mountain of little things becomes easily manageable. As far as I can tell, I've been swanning along fairly well.

But then this cake thing happens and it is too much.

If you know me or have read my blog at all, you've probably picked up that I'm a mostly functional crazy person. I'm basically a rubber-band ball of anxieties and neuroses that can be triggered by the tiniest of things, and most of those triggers come from times when I have to interact socially with other humans that I don't know that well.

So. Cake. Here's how the simple, friendly offer of break room cake sent me into a total tail-spin:

I view anything that involves food as a social interaction. This is problematic because I hate eating in front of people. Eating, on a primal level, makes me feel vulnerable, like a grazing antelope. I feel like everyone is watching and judging not only how I eat but what I eat and how much. This is probably 50% because I have issues about my weight, and 50% pure weirdness on my part. I know logically that no one cares, or if they do, they're probably a jerk.

The second part of the problem was that this building is a total warren of cubicles, conference rooms, and break rooms and I'm not yet familiar with all of it. The break room that houses said cake is on the second floor, where I only know how to find a few key places. I know that if I go upstairs, I might not be able to find the break room and I'll end up wandering around like a fool while (in my mind) people secretly watch and laugh.

I decide that I'm not going to go in search of this cake. The cost/benefit analysis I just ran in my head says it's not worth the possible psychological trauma. But I can't just refuse the cake outright because then I would seem rude. What I do instead is say that I will get some cake as soon as I can get away from my desk. This seems to appease Cake Guy and he goes away. Problem solved!

Except that about 45 minutes later, Cake Guy comes back to ask if I have gotten any cake yet. This is infuriating. Why are you so intent on my eating this cake? My first instinct is to lie and say that I got cake, but there are too many variables that could expose the lie, and then he would realize I'm a crazy person who lies about insignificant things like cake. So I pretend I forgot, and renew my promise to obtain cake as soon as humanly possible.

This time, though, I don't get off so easily. The security guard who sits with me is excited about the cake, and starts talking to Cake Guy about it. Then Security Guard asks me if I want to go get cake first or if they should go first. I tell Security Guard to go ahead, thinking I can get out of this cake adventure yet. But Cake Guy just keeps standing by my desk chatting about cake! I feel like if this was a cartoon, there would be little cakes just flying around everywhere because everyone in this building is absolutely fixated on whether I will or will not have cake today.

So while Cake Guy's cake chatter breaks over me like surf on a rock, Security Guard comes back with a piece of the much-vaunted cake and - horrifyingly - an extra plate for me so that when I go upstairs I won't have to struggle to find plates.

With my heart sinking in defeat and under what seems like heavy scrutiny from Cake Guy and Security Guard, I smile and take my little plate upstairs to get some stupid cake.

My fears were immediately realized, by the way, when I could not find the break room with its dragon's horde of cake. So now I'm just wandering around an office building carrying an empty plate that surely telegraphs to everyone who can see me that I am lost and hungry, which must be a pathetic sight.

In my internal view, the plate becomes a flag that proclaims, "THIS PERSON DOESN'T BELONG HERE! SHE'S LOST IN THE BUILDING, EVERYONE!" My heart starts pounding and I almost begin hyperventilating, but I talk myself down. There is no way I will let myself have a panic attack over break room cake.

I steel my nerves for the inevitable "where's your cake?" questions and head toward the stairs when the worst thing happens: Cake Guy comes upstairs and sees me wandering with my sad little empty plate. He looks bemused. I paste on a smile and say, "Which break room is this cake in?" So he walks me over to it and then just wanders off, like he didn't force me into this cake apocalypse with his weird insistence that I have cake.

So as quickly as I can, I scoop up a tiny piece of cake and scuttle downstairs to the safety of my desk. As I joylessly pick apart and consume my chaos cake, Security Guard is all, "Good cake, right?"

"Yes," I answer cheerily, "Quite good! So nice of him to share!"