The donut that broke the camels back

I want to present a scenario to you today. Afterwards I would like to ask you, my minions, if I am completely out of line in being in a state fit to be tied.


Picture this:

It is a Friday morning in an office. The office is small, only about 50 people in it total. The building itself is one large room with a few small manager offices lining the walls. Really it is your typical cube farm setting.

The office population is broken into five or six small groups within the overall team. Most groups fave 6 to 10 people in them, but a few only have three or four. There is one large group of about 12 people who are only temporarily in the office while their building is being remodeled.

This group has not been the best guests thus far. They are loud, they use our resources, and get in our way. They are completely unapologetic about their behavior, though not entirely oblivious. They have noted multiple times about how loud they are in comparison to the rather quiet environment they have been placed in. They also follow these statements with loud laughter at our misfortune.

Back to Friday morning. Friday morning, which is the start of the end of a long week. Friday morning which is by far the best  morning of the work week because it is the last. Friday  morning which should be low key and relaxing.

Imagine sitting quietly in your cube, trying to start your day, and all you can hear is the loudest member of this group chattering on to her coworkers. It doesn't matter where you are in the building, you can hear her clear as day. It is like she is standing right next to you even though she is two aisles away from you.

You sit there listening as she loudly repeats the same story to each member of her group as they straggle in over a nearly two hour period. Sometimes she repeats the story two and three times to the same person in a ten minute span as though they didn't hear her the first time.

"It's Craig's birthday today so I brought donuts. The thing is she didn't know I was going to bring donuts, because I only decided this morning to bring donuts. She had the same idea though so we both brought donuts!" Loud laughter ensues. "Yes we both brought donuts!"

At this point it is like being in the middle of the engagement party in Auntie Mame and she is Gloria Upson grinning through gritted teeth saying "And she stepped on the ball!"

"So now we have two big boxes of donuts. That is a lot of donuts. I hope you want donuts. It is alright to be bad, I mean its just one donut. We have so many donuts because we both bought a box of donuts. She didn't know I had already bought a box so she brought some too. There are so many donuts."

This goes on and on. Endless prattle about the donut surplus. For nearly two hours.

One would expect at this point that when going in the breakroom that there would be two large boxes of donuts sitting out. Or at least one box with the dounts that the group had failed to consume. Only there are no donuts in the breakroom. Not a single donut.

One of two things have happened. Either they tapped into their inner Homer Simpson and managed to deal with the donut surplus themselves, or they are hoarding them at their desks. They have now loudly and repeatedly made it clear to everyone in the office that there are unwanted donuts but failed to produce the goods.


So that is the scenario that played out in my office this morning. I have no problem with buying donuts for only the people in your group and not sharing with everyone. Donuts are expensive, and you may not want to shell out the money to feed 50 people donuts. We do that all the time for our group.

When we do buy donuts for just the four people in our group we quietly inform everyone that there are donuts in one of our cubes. We don't announce it to everyone that there are donuts but they are not available for public consumption. We have our donuts without fuss.

If there are leftover donuts we place them in the breakroom which is office code for 'Please eat these things I bought too many'. It is an unspoken rule that we are all very comfortable with. By doing this we haven't insulted anyone by not inviting them to our personal donut party.

Announcing that you have donuts but then not sharing is just rude. Why would you do that to people? Why on earth would you shout to the heavens about your sweet donuty goodness and then not share. Are you just rubbing it in our faces now?

I don't even want a donut. I mean I like donuts and all, but I didn't want one this morning. I ate pizza last night and was planning on having a smoothie with lunch. I didn't need the extra calories and sugar. I was alright with not getting a donut.

The thing is though they put the donut vibe out there, and should I have wanted a donut I would have been so sadly disappointed. I mean that will ruin a persons Friday. Get a person all worked up over a donut and then not provide. That is just wrong.

I have a lot of tension built up when it comes to my office right now. I find the environment very stressful. I am starting to think I should have taken my doctors offer for a bottle of Xanax. This mornings slight has just added to all the other small annoyances that have been grating at me. I admit it caused a lot of rage in me.

That is right, I had donut rage. A lot of it. You know what else? I don't feel bad about it in the least. They failed all of their office etiquette rolls. This was just the last straw.

So tell me minions, am I wrong to be upset about this? Should I have just ignored it? Or am I justified in my anger?