Our national sales manager (we'll call him Tom) was here yesterday and today. I have a number of work-friends on our sales force, and yesterday morning, a couple of them tipped me off that it was Tom's 50th birthday.
I told my boss and said we should do something. (I like Tom, he's a good guy.) Boss agreed. I went out and bought a grocery store cake, 5 and 0 candles, and those candy letters in the baking aisle that spell out Happy Birthday with some extra letters to spell out a name. Brought it back, decorated it, stashed it in the fridge.
Then we found out that boss's boss, who is hardly ever here and never talks to anyone, was here and had already bought Tom a cake. I mentioned it to Boss, thinking it would be extra-awesome to have TWO cakes. Boss said we couldn't give Tom the cake I bought (and decorated) because he didn't want to upstage Boss's Boss's cake. I thought he was joking. He was not.
He then asked ME what "we" should do with my cake. One of our customer service reps was also having a birthday yesterday, and Boss actually suggested peeling the candy letters off of the cake and giving it to CSR. I told him I had a conference call (I didn't, but I wasn't about to sit there and brainstorm stupid cake ideas) and that I was sure whatever he decided would be fine.
Boss's Boss (who is also Tom's boss) gave Tom her cake during a lunch meeting attended by 6 people. She didn't offer anyone else any. There was no mention of her cake at all. This morning, the cake I bought was still sitting in the fridge, untouched, with the leftovers from B's B's cake on the shelf below.
B's B's cake was an 8" round, so nowhere near enough to share with the rest of the office. Which I think is stupid. Tom has now left to fly back home, and the cake I bought is still sitting in the fridge. I really want to go in there and hack off a chunk. Marble cake with white frosting and candy letters...mmmmmmm.
I'm not exactly butt hurt over it, but I think this whole thing is stupid.
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