The world according to cake

My wife and I got a new scale for Christmas. A joint present from my mom. Mostly because we don’t really know what to wish for anymore and felt pressured into creating a wish list. Something needs to be on there that we haven’t bought already. So a scale it was. A Garmin one. One of those clever devices that can tell you all about you by feeling only the bottom of your feet. How much your bones weigh, your water levels, muscle mass and the Big Man Indicator (BMI). The latter one reminded me how much I like cake, and how little time I have spent being in nature lately getting some exercise and time to reflect in the stillness of the great outdoors.

For whatever reason the scale also tells me the weather forecast. Strange item to show when there are so many other choices. Why not news headlines while we are at it? Or sports results? Even better.

Weight and weather. That’s it. I am guessing it is to push me into the outside world that I have missed for more than a month due to illnesses in the family. All kinds of viruses that emerge from being totally secluded and then sending the 6-year-old to school and the 2-year-old to kindergarten. Seems the little one trades boogers with the same ferocity as the older collects foreign fingerprints on Pokémon cards. All the goodies end up in our faces when my wife and I get the loving hugs and kisses upon return. I wouldn’t miss those for the world. This is the reason I shaved my beard off, though. I see no reason to leave the collectors’ items caking up in my face. Side matter.

What does matter, though, is that as of late, I am forcing myself to look at the positive in any situation. It is too easy to focus on the negative parts and get stuck there. So, for me, shaving gives more hugs and eating cake now means more time outside – more exercise and more time to ponder life in mother nature. Garmin effectively pushed me to enjoy the beautiful winter landscape around our house and while I walked in the silence, I started wondering what other good things cake has done for me.

I used cake in a presentation once. In 2016, I think. I had to explain the need to have empty containers in the right place, at the right time, at the right cost. We had built a new IT system to help us. It was quite a complex setup to be fair.

Even though the crowd had operational background most of them did not have experience with the art of getting the balance right between the commercial need for boxes and the operational ability to get them there cost efficiently – so how would I explain that in 6 short minutes?

I needed a common denominator for this crowd. Turned out it was cake. In the company, cake was served as part of the canteen meal on Wednesdays. Mostly to make up for the fact that Wednesdays were also fish day and realising that industrially produced flounder tends to be a bit bland. So does cod. Cake was some subtle excuse for the mess they knew they had made. Weekly.

Seen from the canteen point of view, the need to produce cake in the exact right amount is very much equal to having containers ready in the right locations. Too much cake would be an expensive waste. Too little would mean unhappy canteen visitors or expensive solutions to mend the broken commitments.

From here the canteen needs to consider two variables – what kind of cake do I want to make this week, and what time of year is it?

The amount of cake consumed on any Wednesday is first and foremost directly proportional to the kind of cake you make. Chocolate cake beats carrot cake, even with that creamy crunchy frosting, any day. Seasonality plays a large part in cake making, too. Holidays make less visitors and less cake need. Company events and conferences increase consumption. That is a relatively straight forward estimation but there are other factors impacting the production. Like people taking an extra piece when they think no one is looking - or New Year’s resolutions.

All of a sudden you need to consider how many people think they are better human beings than they really are this year. If you base your production in January on the December numbers, you are in for a scare. People, if they are like me, celebrate the festive season in style and overindulge in cake and other available sweets. We then get a new scale for Xmas and decide that enough is enough. A gym membership is bought, and dietary habits are reviewed. Cake goes out the window, and that leaves the canteen with an overabundance that is pure waste. The COO is not happy. This is expensive. Inventories are up and shelf life is not in our favour.

“Let us please the cost-conscious man”, the canteen thinks, and sets the February production to the January levels – just to realise that the cake you threw in the bin a month ago could have come to good use now. The canteen visitors have changed their habits again. Resolutions are broken and the real personalities re-emerge. Cake is eaten at the usual levels – and now you have way too little to hand out. Somehow fishcake doesn’t sell this week either. Now the CCO is not happy. Primarily because customers are unhappy. “Fix it now”, he yells, “at any cost!” And it will be costly. You probably need to run to the bakery next door, while pretending you don’t see the gaze the COO sends you on the way out.

That was it – moving containers cost efficiently is just like estimating how much cake you can eat. A 6-minute-cakewalk into container supply, demand, customer behaviour and functional misalignment.

The moral of the story: cake helps you both in your personal and professional life. Have some. Eat it. It is good for you. People generally speak the language of cake. And if you need to explain something to a crowd try to figure out what everyone understands and can relate to. It worked for me that day.

(Many people have asked me what the difference is between a cake and a cookie – and it is pretty simple. A cake goes hard when it expires, a cookie goes soft. Fact.)