Sarah the Muffin Thief

Are those MUFFINS in your swag bag, Sarah Muffin Thief?!?!



I'm still collating your ideas for my upcoming post and am thinking about road trips to the Coromandel as a point of departure, but until such time that I have a concise entry I bring you

THE ONGOING SAGA OF THE MUFFIN
In Which Sarah Rants Pointlessly and At Length About the Injustices Done Unto Her At Her Place of Employment

[NOTE: When this saga began I had decided not to blog about it as it appeared especially especially Self Obsessed, but as it has taken up so much of my emotional energy during the last week I feel I ought to share. Enjoy!]

Not the Tuesday just past but the Tuesday before that, I took a muffin home from work (imagine organ chords of doom if you will). I was finishing my shift at the cafe, the girl who was coming to cover the evening shift arrived and she was Hungry. There were two savoury muffins sitting around in the cabinet from earlier that day. Gina had one for her afternoon tea and I could smell the feta in it when she heated it up. It reminded me of how good savoury muffins taste, and I commented upon this.

Me: “Mmm, savoury muffins are good.”

Gina: "You should take the last one home!"

Me: "Yeah, I might. It'd be ok, eh?"

[Please imagine the high rising terminals at the end of each sentence]

I really, genuinely and honestly thought that it would be fine for me to take the muffin home. At all the cafes that I've ever worked at it has been perfectly correct to take baked goods such as muffins and biscuits home when you finish your shift. I've worked at places where people were encouraged to take a beer or cold drink home for the day. Gina and I are working off of the basis that a muffin costs something like 30 cents to make.

And who buys a muffin after three o'clock anyway?

After placing the muffin into a paper bag, I walked home up the hill. On the way up the hill I saw my Boss, who was going back to the cafe and must have parked on my street.

Boss (in a jovial, friendly tone): "Hey Sarah! Did you pay for that muffin?"

Me: "Ohehhaaha" [nodding, smiling, agreeing vaguely to nothing]

Soon after this encounter I Ate the Muffin. I thought no further about the muffin until five o'clock that same evening, when I received a phone call from Gina.

Gina: "Oh my God, I'm so sorry, [Boss] came into the cafe just after you left and she asked me if you had paid for the muffin and she was all "I'll check the till! I'll go through and count it up and see if you paid!" So I told her that you hadn't paid for the muffin but that we thought it would be ok, I'm sorry, I thought that you ought to know that she knows that you didn’t pay for the muffin..."

I thank her for calling me, but hear nothing further about the muffin until THREE DAYS LATER, when my Boss calls me on a Friday evening, while I'm working at the store (other job). On the phone she tells me that she is calling about the Incident on Tuesday, that she was really hurt that I would take the muffin without asking, that she hated the idea that we were ever hungry, that I should call her in future if I wanted to take something home and had no money on me &c &c. I apologise with an attempt at a sincerity that belies the fact I think this is a FUCKING RIDICULOUS CONVERSATION, and offer to drop some money in the next day. On Saturday I paid my $NZ1.50 (US .75c, UK .50p) for the muffin. I figure that this saga has gone on long enough, that all will be forgotten, that I will no longer be considered The Muffin Thief (oh foolish, foolish girl).

Monday, Tuesday my Boss was still in a very strange mood. Ostensibly this has to do with the fact that so many of her staff members are leaving, and because she has to do a lot of work at the moment and suchlike (things that tend to come with the territory of owning your own business – this fact mitigates my sympathy for her situation). On Tuesday there was a till discrepancy when I cashed up - but I thought that someone or somebill had been paid from the take but not recorded. "Not my problem" I think and leave work (sans muffin, it must be noted).

On Wednesday this week, my Graduation day, I get a phone call from my Boss. Apparently there was till discrepancy on Monday as well as Tuesday, the total of which came to a couple of hundred dollars. What is the implied justification for telephonic harassment? Sarah the Muffin Thief has diversified and is now pilfering money from the till.

Yesterday evening I discovered that she had also been muscling two of my other workmates. Both of these girls work full time and key members of staff. Apparently this has happened before (wild ungrounded accusations of staff), the consequence of which there was an exodus and the cafe was well fucked, staff wise. My Boss is now on a ten day mental health break.

And I say to myself SIXTEEN MORE DAYS TO GO.