Looking forward to a treat is something we can all relate to. If give a treat at work, that gesture can come in handy.

See why this boss found that out the hard way…

If he clued in, that is.

Check it out.

Muffins Saturday

Several years ago, the bank I worked for decided to try out “extended hours.”

Previously we had been drive up and lobby Monday to Friday 9-5.

The new hours were the Monday to Friday 9-5 in the lobby with the drive up opening at 8 and Saturday 9-noon.

It was not a hit…

Since we had to be there a half hour ahead and a half hour after that meant Saturday was a half day and full timers had an hour added to each of their other days to make up for the “half day off.”

We had a complete jerk for a manager let’s call him Rick.

Absolutely no one was going to volunteer for Saturdays, because everyone knew Rick would be be a Rick and split your days off.

Being the most recently promoted to supervisor meant I got assigned Saturdays, and no surprise Wednesdays off.

I love to bake.

It’s calming, and since we had a full kitchen in that branch I decided I’d come in a bit earlier and throw a few tins of muffins in so they were ready when the tellers showed up.

So everyone shows up, we have muffins, it’s completely dead because no one thinks the bank is open on Saturday, we close and go home.

It went over so well that the next Saturday I did the same thing.

They were dual purpose muffins.

In a few weeks I’ve got some of the senior tellers volunteering to work Saturday if there are going to be muffins.

Several weeks into this routine I have to take my mandated vacation week.

All the other supervisors found reasons they weren’t able to cover the Saturday shift, so Rick ended up there.

Things would probably have been fine for Rick if he was in touch enough with his staff enough to know that the tellers expected fresh muffins on Saturday.

Alas, he was Rick so he didn’t know.

If you’ve ever known anyone who is used to having a fresh muffin with their coffee on a Saturday morning, you can probably guess how they felt about there not being muffins.

Since that particular Saturday the entire teller staff was made up of senior tellers, you can guess how willingly they expressed their displeasure to Rick.

All. Day. Long.

Let’s see what folks are saying.

People are serious about muffins.

It probably ticked him off, though.

But what about his ego?!

I never got what the big deal is about muffins.

But apparently I’m in the minority.

If you liked that story, check out this post about an oblivious CEO who tells a web developer to “act his wage”… and it results in 30% of the workforce being laid off.