I'm a scary person.

Do you have a reputation at work?? For what?

I've been at my job for a little over a year now. During that time I've been working hard to carefully craft my reputation both as a professional and a person. I feel like I've been pretty successful-- I am definitely the go-to girl for grammar quandaries, proofreading, and copy-editing. You cannot possibly understand how happy this makes me. I have secondary reputations for being efficient and getting things done quickly. And some other stuff that's really work-specific and not very interesting to anyone who doesn't work here. 

It seems, however, that I've developed an (or possibly more, but this one got pointed out yesterday) unintentional reputation. And this one...well, I'm probably not going to be putting it on my resume. Please observe... 

You should probably know that Ike & Jane is a local bakery that has amaaaazing cupcakes and doughnuts. So the presence of two boxes of their goodies in the breakroom is no small thing. Diana is, however, conscious of my rekindled desire to stay away from the ever-present breakroom temptations...hence her observation that she wasn't sure if sharing this information with me was actually a good thing.

Definitely foe. Is she trying to sabotage me or something??!

 Ohhhhhh. The crux of the issue. 

You see, my office is downstairs-- a staircase and a hike away from everyone else's offices (and the breakroom). Now, I find plenty of reasons to go upstairs and socialize and scavenge for breakroom goodies during the day...but I'm not right there in the thick of the action like everyone else is. On many occasions I will go upstairs to discover that I've all but missed out on an impromptu coffee break, an office-wide discussion on important pop culture happenings, or a particularly decadent treat that got dropped off. Since I'm downstairs, I'm out of the loop unless I either a) happen to wander up and notice, or b) someone remembers to call/email and tell me.

Apparently I've pitched a few fits over missing out on things before...so now, I tend to get multiple notifications anytime there's anything fun and/or tasty upstairs. Moral of this story? Being the squeaky wheel works.

But in the meantime, you have a reputation of being a pouty baby who pitches a fit if she doesn't get invited to the cool party (or food) upstairs. So that's not that cool, I guess.

 I mean...I certainly like to think that I'm scary. I will wield your fear of me as a powerful weapon!! Mwah ha ha!!

Oh.

Or not.

So in conclusion, my coworkers fear my sadness that ensues from missing out on food and fellowship in the breakroom. It's not as good as fearing my volatile and explosive anger (hahahahaahahahaha) but I guess it's a start.

And for the record, I did not go upstairs to be tempted by the cupcakes. This definitely isn't the norm for me (my hips can affirm that truth), but I'll take a self-control win whenever I can get one-- and yesterday, I got one! Yay for me.