The Dilemma of Including & Wooing (a story about baked goodies)

I enjoy baking from scratch. I like the challenge (the oh-so-hard challenge of reading and following a recipe. Doesn’t sound hard, but following directions are a challenge for me in and of itself). I love the rewards of time and heart-felt goodness that comes out of the oven when the timer rings. The thing is, when I bake, I can never eat it all in its entirety by myself, so when I do bake, its almost always to share. I think my WOO (Winning Others Over)& Includer strengths have a huge part to play in this. I love building relationships with people over food, and I like for everyone to share the wealth. But those two dang strengths have gotten me in trouble when it comes to bringing fresh-baked goods to work.

Here is a little story:
Late last summer (August 15th to be exact) I was asked to bring a dessert to dinner with some friends (fellow Protégés), and I decided I wanted to make a cake from scratch. Not just any cake, but I felt a carrot cake would suffice the challenge I felt myself ready to take on. I went to the neighborhood Safeway bought the ingredients that were called for by the recipe and went home. I began the peeling process, and I hand-grated each carrot, because being a poor single gal in the city, who has the money to buy a food processor? Not me.

After laborious moments (what felt like hours) of shredding and grating the carrots, I found my hands to be bright orange. I continued on and set the cake in the oven. All that was left was to wait and tweet.

The tweet read like this: “Making Carrot Cake from scratch & I think I may have
stained my hands orange... #thethingsIdoforfellowProteges :-)”

Well, I got a text immediately following that twitter update from one protégé director Heather Zempel mentioning that she loves Carrot Cake, and how I best show honor to my one protégé director by sharing with her. Being the loyal and gracious person that I am, I decided to stop by to the Zempel household right when the cake came out of the oven, while it was still warm and give them the first three pieces of the cake, BEFORE I even went to the dinner.

The cake was a hit both at the Zempel household, and at the Protégé dinner, which was encouraging and exciting for little miss Betty Crocker-in-the-making, also known as me. :-) There was enough for four small slices of cake left after the party, and I didn’t need to bring it home, because like I mentioned, I like to share!

The next 24-hours created a debacle that has TOO many miscommunications and assumptions to put into one blog, but what happened is this: I woke up late for my shift at Ebenezers Coffeehouse, and I arrived a half-hour late. I brought the remainder of the cake to share with my fellow baristas as a peace offering for me being late. Chris Howell saw the carrot cake on the “day-old” bin at Ebenezers while I was working. Key word: ON the day-old bin. Being the little tattle-tale that he is, he ran to Heather’s office and told her that Jenilee was just throwing away the cake. He returned to Ebenezers to take the remainder of the cake to Heather’s office where they feasted in her office. I checked my phone an hour or so later, to see this twitter from one Heather Zempel.


“is grateful for loyal proteges, like @chrishowell85. Other proteges, like @jenileejoy,
are still casting their pearls to swine. :)”

To say that there was some dissension between Chris, Heather and I would be an understatement. Chris was all of a sudden glorified to all, and I was thrown to the pigs. All Chris did was carry a tray, I labored for hours on this cake, and the thanks I get was this tweet?

I have baked several things since then, being cognizant of all players in the previously mentioned story and making sure they all are included in getting a share, but it hasn’t worked. I just want them all to like me, and the whole baking goodies to bribe their friendship isn’t working out so well… Since they turn their backs on me in a quick second. (hahaha!)

Dang Includer strength.
Dang WOO.

*Side Note: In all honesty - I love Heather Zempel & Chris Howell. We all tease because we love, and I just felt I need to tease them a little, because that is what friends do. :-)