We have a staff of nine and on occasion I will bring in homemade cookies because they’re a good team and we work well together. My boss recently had a gastric sleeve procedure and has already lost twenty pounds.
Would it still be appropriate to bring in homemade baked goodies, knowing my boss cannot partake? I don’t want to make her feel uncomfortable but she is a lady who know her own mind and I know not to directly offer them to her. I know she won’t be tempted and learning how to manage social situations with food is something she will have to handle. I don’t want to deprive the rest of the team of, what I must admit, is a tasty treat (the cookies are usually gone by the end of the day.)
Should I ask my boss if she’s okay with it? Or just bring the cookies in for the rest of the team to enjoy?
My office observes customs which require people to buy donuts when they’re promoted, have a baby, etc. I’ve always substituted fruit (apples, bananas, oranges) and never had complaints. I’ve actually received private thanks for people who are trying to avoid sweets. These include military people who are required to meet fitness standards.
Where I work, people have different dietary preferences and needs. People who bring treats don’t bother catering to these preferences and needs because doing so would be expensive, if not impossible.
Think of it this way: if you found out one of your coworkers was on a keto diet, would that stop you from bringing cookies? Because it wouldn’t make me stop.
Unless you are planning to put a gun to your boss’s head and forcing her to eat the cookies, bringing them in should be fine. I don’t object to people bringing meat and/or sugar soda into the break room, even though I’m a vegetarian who only drinks sugar-free stuff.
As someone who is trying to stick to a strict eating regime, it’s very helpful if there aren’t any temptations in view. I would never tell anyone to stop bringing goodies and if one of my underlings asked, I would never never say anything to discourage them from doing what they like doing. And I wouldn’t want any of them to think they are giving up something for my sake. At the same time it would sure help if they didn’t do it.
I normally send out an email the cookies are at my desk (if I put them in a more common area the vultures descend from other departments and my staff can be left out.) I’m just trying to be sensitive. Perhaps I’ll just leave her off the notifying email.
Don’t leave her off; she can make her own decisions, which includes deciding if she wants to avoid going by your desk all day, go there as needed but not partake, or go there and have one cookie.
I know someone who recently had a gastric sleeve. She just this week went from the special diet to regular diet.
When she was on the soft diet (the last stage of the special diet before going back on regular foods), one of her kids had a birthday. She ate a tiny sliver of cake. It was a sheet cake, and she took like, a 1/4" slice. It was the first indulgent thing she’d had in months. She said she really enjoyed it, but because of the nature of the gastric sleeve, it satisfied her, and didn’t leave her wanting more.
If these are normal-sized cookies, like, 2" in diameter, it might be that your boss can eat one, enjoy it, feel satisfied, and not have it disrupt her weight loss. It really depends on how often you bring in cookies. But at any rate, she is a grown-up who can make her own choices. Maybe she will choose to take a cookie every other time they come in. Or the first time each month. But it is a fact that she does need to learn to deal with the real world.
Bring the cookies. And include your boss in the email.
I understand why you’re doing this, but I personally wouldn’t. For one thing, you’re doing a kindness for the office and your boss should know about it. Secondly, if I were your boss and I found out about the cookies second-hand (which is bound to happen, especially if they are all the rave), I’d be wondering why you left me out of the loop. I wouldn’t like knowing that people are tiptoeing around me because they think I lack willpower, and that’s where my mind would instantly go. I’d want to be treated like everyone else, which means not only being invited to cookies but also lunch and happy hours and anything else involving the consumption of calories.
Sometimes people bring treats in the office that I don’t eat because I’ve already had my sugar allotment for the day. But I will take one and give it to a friend in another department. It’s my way of paying for past and future favors.
I agree with this, and I really don’t think there’s anything wrong with bringing in baked goods. As noted above, if them being on another type of diet wouldn’t stop you, why should gastric bypass? But if your conscience really won’t leave you alone, you could do something like bring in a “hybrid” treat that’s half healthy, half unhealthy, like chocolate-dipped fruit. Or bring in a veggie tray with a really delicious dip.
Just bring some alternatives - a box of strawberries or a bag of apples - if anyone is feeling virtuous, or otherwise unable to eat the cookies, they have another option (if neither option fits, well, you tried)
If you had an office of hundreds or even dozens, I’d still bring them.
But with only 8 other people - if you have a good relationship with your boss, I might ask her (privately). I wouldn’t want to make things harder for her - not just in terms of not eating the cookies, but also in terms of being left out of a treat that everyone else gets.
I definitely would advise against leaving her out of the cookie announcement.
It’s my (extremely vague and probably incorrect) understanding that gastric sleeves/bypasses aren’t like regular diets; they’re not about cookies or calories being bad and fruit being good. It’s all about amount. There’s physically less space in there, which means they fill up faster (perhaps much faster), which means they eat less, which means they lose weight. It’s not what they eat, it’s how much - and because they stop being hungry faster, it’s not crazy tempting once they’ve eaten their (small) fill.
So my uneducated advice would be to still make cookies, but make a few of them small cookies. That way they can enjoy a small treat without ruining their lunch or whatever.
