Stress-Baking- It's Not What You Think

[diaphenia]

The best way to make friends with someone is to get them to do you a favor.

Not a big favor. But not too small, either. Just enough to get them to question why they’re doing this thing for you when not doing that thing would be easier.

I must like this person, they’ll rationalize. Otherwise I wouldn’t be doing this. I’m doing this, therefore I must like this person.

It works. I do it all the time.

Not on other people, but on myself. Which is why I brought homemade cinnamon rolls to my most unpleasant coworkers today.

Sarah came back from vacation. She’s the most depressing person I know. I’m occasionally given to hyperbole, but this isn’t one of those times; she literally is the most depressing person I know. I remember running into her completely by accident one week when she was on vacation; I asked her how it was going, expecting a casual great, how are things? And getting instead a laundry list of reasons why her week off was terrible, starting with car troubles and ending with siding falling off her house.

Another time, she told me about a trip to Hawaii. On the return flight, she got rerouted through Seattle, and they had to disembark from the plane on the runway at midnight in the rain. I thought that sounded glorious; certainly stressful at the time, but thirty years later? I could picture it easily; were it my past, how I would draw that story out, keep people on the edge of their seats, get them giggling. She, however, views it as the reason not to travel.

I view it as the reason to always enjoy the rain.

But she’s not the only one. One of my coworkers believes she isn’t going to get into the medical training program she wants to do. Because of this, she talks almost exclusively lately about all the things going wrong with her life. One day, she was somewhere between car payments and my mother when I snapped at her.

“Not everything is terrible! Something is good, and you are going to tell me what that is!”

She looked at me, startled. “I’m just really frustrated with [work]—“

“Who isn’t? Just tell me one good thing going on, because I can’t take this.”

She thought about it for a moment. “Today is the anniversary of the Backstreet Boys forming.”

“Good enough!” And we barely spoke the rest of the day. It was probably the nastiest thing I’ve ever said to her.

Here’s the thing: I like being happy. I work hard to make sure I stay happy. I put genuine effort into it. And I can’t let my coworkers ruin it for me. Usually, they can gripe and I can let it roll off my back like a duck, but every so often, it builds until I start feeling sad.

And I can’t let that happen.

So when the stress starts to get to me, I surprise them with from-scratch baked goods.

After all, it’s not a huge thing. But it’s not small either.

And I must like them. Why else would I have spent last night wrist-deep in dough?

Comments

[stillscape.livejournal.com]

You must like them a lot, because those cinnamon rolls take for-fucking-ever, and also they are the number-one baked good I know for making people freak out.

[saucydiva.livejournal.com]

To be fair, it was so humid in my kitchen when I made them that they rose at four times the speed they were supposed to.

[stillscape.livejournal.com]

I'm in the wrong climate for that to happen, sadly.

[lizinstereo.livejournal.com]

My department never does anything together. We went out to lunch for my boss's birthday and it was the most awkward thing ever.

Maybe it was pity!baking? Your coworker seems kind of miserable.

[saucydiva.livejournal.com]

Oh, we don't, like, hang out, just work together. Though actually, I am sort of friends with the BSB fan, as in we hang out occasionally but she's really bad at following through on plans so mostly we just make plans and then I made alternative plans for when she bails on me. I went to her birthday party and wore a Madonna costume, so there's that.

[rikyl.livejournal.com]

I'm taking your offer to make me cinnamon rolls someday completely differently now.

[saucydiva.livejournal.com]

I also bake for people I actually enjoy. That's how they found out about the cinnamon rolls; I made them in... November, I think, and brought them in because D requested them.

[whimsical-irony.livejournal.com]

I think all this proves is that you are a nice person.

Also, are you me? I'm not sure how I come off to people, but I seriously put so much effort into staying happy.

[saucydiva.livejournal.com]

We might be the same person. I tend to view happiness as within our control (up to a certain point, at which I think depression is a chemical state, mostly) and that by focusing on happy things, happy songs, happy thoughts, happy clothes, and by smiling as much as I can, I can change any natural disposition I have, which I think is less happy than I am at any given moment. Does that make sense? Today I had to buy a swimsuit and I'm less happy than usual, so it might not make sense. But I like the idea we control our own happiness, and I try to live that as much as possible.

[craponaspatula.livejournal.com]

Can you please write a whole book of "Life Lessons from Jen"? Or even "Life Lessons Involving Baked Goods".

I've been baking all week for my classes during finals week. It makes them pleasant and smiley and I hope they are remembering those instead of the horrific final project that I inflicted on them when they do their course evaluations.

[saucydiva.livejournal.com]

Most of the life lessons are "be nice" and "smile," honestly. But I bet I could get on Oprah with at that as my hook