Office “cake culture” in which staff bring in treats for birthdays and celebrations is becoming a daily health hazard and should be stopped, experts have advised.
Horrors, eh? Someone might enjoy themselves with a sweetie and a bit of human contact through gift giving. Haven’t they ever read Polanyi?
Can’t have that, ban it!
There’s a certain hankering for the old days really. Even for the times that some chinless wonder on a horse rode up to take all the young men away to kill the Frenchies. Even that was better than this, wasn’t it?
Why are dentists complaining about poor oral health anyway?
If we all ate carrots, they’d have to get jobs down t’pit instead, wouldn’t they?
“Tam Fry, from the National Obesity Forum, said: “Such food is neither a treat nor a reward.
“You may not know who in the office is secretly dieting in which case they won’t appreciate your gesture: if you do know, you’re plainly malicious.
“If you want to give them anything, give them a smile, a hug or both!”“
I know what I’d like to give Tam Fry….
“Haven’t they ever read Polanyi?”
I haven’t. I once glanced at one of his works 30+ years ago, when he was quite popular with non-marxist leftists and utopian socialists. It seemed to be anti-market rhetoric based on the highly questionable assumption that pre-modern humans exchanged gifts rather than trading. I think that there are probably more plausible interpretations of the office cake ritual than as a gift economy. Or am I missing something?
By the way, there is little or no evidence linking anal stage conflicts with “anal” personality types. It’s unempirical pop psychology, derived from Sigmund Fraud (sic).
I am speechless. I can only suggest we turn over this problem to the only person suited to finding a solution.
Paging Mr Ecks!
People who lie awake at night, unable to sleep for fear someone, somewhere, is being nice.
A Purge of cake-bashers eh!
Why not?
Apart from it being too small a sideshow. ALL of the pseudo-puritan middle class left must be broken not just the marzipan-fighting fringe.
Tam Fry is a complete and utter, weapons grade, oxygen thieving tosspot.
With luck this will be a bridge too far for the health fascists. Previously they’ve been able to tap into fashionable anti-capitalism by bleating about how the corporations have made us all fat.
But a lot of people like to bake – if the little creeps start attacking them as well then perhaps it will dawn on more people what authoritarians they actually are.
Alternatively we’ll just go on pretending that turds like Tam Fry have some sort of right to tell us all how to live our lives.
Succint, my dear DocBud, succint and so accurate.
missing a ‘c’ before all you pendants leap on me. Saw as I hit the button.
I’m a man, I can’t multi-task. 🙂
[email protected]
I have my own way of dealing with this problem:
“Its my birthday, would you like a piece of cake?”
“No thank you, I’m trying to lose a bit of weight.”
Having said that I’d ban the practice in my business if I had one because from my experience its and excuse for the lazy to stand around doing fuck all while they stuff their faces.
I’ve never been a fan of sweet stuff. A colleague would always bring me a Cornish pasty on her birthday while everyone else got cake. That was a nice touch.
It’s really not hard to tell someone you don’t like/want cake.
In recent years, it has become popular for workers to offer birthday cake to colleagues or bring back sugary gifts from their holidays.
Recent years? It’s been going on at least the 20 years I’ve been working.
If there’s to be an embargo on pastry, what’s to happen to all that carbon-capturing baking soda?
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“In recent years, it has become popular for workers to offer birthday cake to colleagues or bring back sugary gifts from their holidays.”
Not…sugary gifts!!! Noooo…
It appears that what passes for an establishment these days is in the grip of a severe mental illness.
Anyway, do you think Tam Fry is tormented by having such an unhealthy surname? It would explain a great deal.
This has been recycled: The Guardian published much the same article last July – they’ve even used the same picture, FFS!!
David Thompson picked up on it at the time, that’s why I remembered it.
Isn’t there some way we can direct these cunts at the real source of the obesity epidemic? A source that would benefit us all by its complete and utter destruction:
The BBC.
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Has anyone checked with Murphy what the tax implications are? I mean, I assume these cakes are taxable benefits in kind or something?
> “You may not know who in the office is secretly dieting…”
The presence of tits is a sure-fire indicator. A woman of working age is, on any given day, more likely to be on a diet than not.
“If you want to give them anything, give them a smile, a hug or both!”“
INAPPROPRIATE TOUCHING!!!! ARRGH!!!
The case for the airlifting of people like ‘Tam Fry’ to Eastern Syria grows daily stronger. My guess is she would be quite at home in the ‘Hisbah’ operating in areas controlled by IS. At the very least if there is any government funding being given to the media arm of this organisation it needs to be stopped – now.
Down to the pub at lunchtime for pie and chips: that used to be the way to do it!
“Its my birthday, would you like a piece of cake?”
“No thank you, I have diabetes and it will kill me.”
Unnamed ‘experts’ are the K-Y Jelly of modern journalism.
The best solution is something along these lines: video Tan Fry being beaten to death, post it on YouTube and add the message: “next health fascist that pipes up gets the same.” It’s a bit more extreme than yer average Ecksian remedy, but desperate times call for desperate measures. It’s the only language these people understand.
That’s a cracking idea and wouldn’t it be good to see a tobacco control freak in a snuff movie?
dearieme
Down to the pub for a liquid lunch plus a few more pints. Aah those were the days.
Gamecock,
‘“Its my birthday, would you like a piece of cake?”
“No thank you, I have diabetes and it will kill me.”’
“I know that but it’s my birthday and I’ve saved you this big corner piece with all the marzipan and icing on it”
Never underestimate the motives of your co-workers.
Yeah, what is with this “in recent years” bollocks? My mother told me that I would have to take cakes into the office on my birthday “as it’s what happens in banks” when I started work, and she hadn’t worked in a bank for at least 10 years by then.
Theophrastus – you might be reading about Karl Polanyi instead of his smarter brother Michael.