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Have Your Cake and Eat it Too â?? Making the Most of Office Morning Teas

We gathered around the table, wondering who would be the first to reach for the triple chocolate torte with maraschino cherries.  No, it wasn’t a wedding or a birthday party, with bridesmaids to hit on or presents to unwrap, but an office morning tea.
Eventually the guy who swears at the photocopier broke the ice with a grab of gateaux and soon we were all nibbling on Ritz crackers while looking at our watches thinking of our filling inboxes— oh when would the torture end?
To be fair, most people actually like morning teas—you get to slack off on work time, eat some yummy things and grease some wheels with colleagues in a non-threatening environment.  But for some, the office morning tea lacks the fresh air of outdoor tradies smokos, and reeks of stuffiness for more than that reason. Morning teas are management’s idea of bonding over artery clogging foodstuffs so they can tick off on their appraisal sheets ‘facilitate work-life balance’.
Oh yes, there’s plenty of warning to book your root canal for the morning slated for office bonding. So, if you can’t escape, how do your sanity and cholesterol levels survive an office morning tea?
If men are involved in providing the fare, it’ll be super sweet Krispy Kreme all the way. Women tend to bring fruit that looks lovely all cut up on a white plate, but not quite as lovely as the plate of dry Twinkies from the supermarket.
If you’re lucky, the office will have a ‘Mrs Brady’ lady whose moment to shine comes with The Secret Recipe.  Make sure you’re nice to her next time her folder binding isn’t quite right or else, in future, she’ll put chilli powder in the icing. Save your health and go for the fruit, otherwise pick something with the least amount of sugar and fat content that could supply the required calorific intake of Ethiopia.  But then, stuffing your face means you don’t have to talk.
The conversations during morning teas are what I imagine crumpets with the Queen would be like if she had a hat pin sticking into her ribcage. Trying to strike up conversation with the guy from Personnel is tricky— will he play the game?  Or will you end up feeling awkward when he points out that your upper lip has a dab of cream from the Twinkie you ate 20 minutes ago.

After the boss retreats to answer an ‘urgent phone call’, people disperse with an exhaled breath and tightened belt buckles.  Anything left over is either a teeming mess of salmonella or desiccated crumbs that stick to your shoes when you walk by.
But if you take a positive attitude to the office morning tea, you might just score the Secret Recipe from the Mrs Brady lady, and meet some new people over cream-dabbled lips.

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