The Cake Incident

This morning is an exemplary illustration of the kind of unnecessary office drama that goes on at the university. The only way to keep your sanity in this job is to avoid office politics as much as possible. Since we are cooped up here all day, unable to leave, with nothing to do now that the students are gone, it's gotten much worse.

All morning I've been hearing whispered arguments out in the hallway, which are not out of the ordinary and which I have decided to ignore due to the fact that I don't give a crap anymore.

After being at work for about two hours, my co-teacher, Carol, came over to me with a soft "can I talk to you about something?" This is the kind of thing she said when one of our student was reporting us to the higher-ups, which is a serious, job-ending thing, and I suspect the same voice she'd use in case of alien invasion or global apocalypse, so I was immediately on my guard. What could have possibly gone wrong now that we don't even have class anymore? Was this the end times?

Turns out the whispered arguments that have been escalating in the hallway all morning were all about – wait for it – me.

Specifically the fact that I didn't get any cake on Saturday.

Seriously.

On Saturday, the first day of the week, we had a party for our coordinator, complete with cake and a gift. I, like everyone else, contributed monetarily to the celebration before hand, but was sick the day of.

Now, two days later, someone has taken it upon themselves to be outraged on my behalf that no one saved me a piece of cake.

I am not making this up.

This argument has been brewing ALL MORNING.  Someone was almost in tears.

Because I didn't get a piece of cake.

I didn't even remember there was supposed to be cake at the party, and no part of me ever had the expectation that someone would save a piece for me. I had no idea where this came from, but it certainly hadn't been from me.

People are so bored they are starting shit just for the hell of it.

Someone please give us something to do.