No, No, No! THIS is How You Resign with a Cake.
March 16, 2009 As usual when a nugget of cake news hits the blogosphere, I've been inundated with e-mails about this photo. In it, nattily-dressed Neil presents his resignation on a large sheet cake.
Neil is obviously a great guy, and not just because he can rock a fuchsia dress shirt. No, he also sweetened his two-weeks notice with words like "joy and whim" in addition to all that yummy frosting. I bet every boss wishes their employees would be as thoughtful.
However, I submit that this cake is far too well-intentioned to qualify as a Cake Wreck. So for the rest of us - the ones who have daydreamed (or continue to) about telling the ol' boss-person where they can take our respective employment position and place it - I present Patrick's cake:
Obviously, Patrick was not as well-disposed towards his job at a "prestigious interactive agency"*. In fact, he was so fed-up with his boss's brow-beatings that on the day in question he picked up his paycheck, placed this cake on his desk, and simply walked out the door.
Here's what happened next:
And the boss? Apparently he didn't realize this was an insult. HR had to tell him it was a few weeks later. (Not sure what he thought it was before that - a joke, perhaps?)
Patrick tells me that folks in his industry still ask, "Are YOU the one who left the cake?". So maybe you should put this on your resume, eh, Patrick? And then put that on a cake. And then send it to me. And then I will eat it. (Mmm, cakey resumes...)
*I have no idea what that means, so I assume it's high-paying.
Reader Comments (96)
Wow---that was quick. You have us trained well---soon as we see a cake on a blog or a story about a cake, we think about CAKEWRECKS !!! Yippeee!
So, when someone resigns via cake, how do you reflect the resignation in their personnel file? I guess with this photo!
Or an icing-smudged napkin.
wv: shamen -- this guy is shamen all the other employees with his creativity.
I guess it's better than a "you're fired" cake...
Maybe it's just the angle of the photo, but the flowers on the second cake look rather like eyes. I can sort of imagine the whole thing as a face with "I" as the nose and "quit" as the mouth.
i'm thinking this may need to be how i make my exit.
oh and congrats on the bloggies win!!!
Love them both. :D
The I quit cake is really quite pretty. I like the lilac and the soft butter yellow. They really make the black icing have a very bold effect.
@ Jill: I have one of those, too! Stay tuned.
@xallanthia: I see the same thing. Kind of owlish, isn't it?
I can't read the writing on the cake.
Maybe I'm a little slow, but I don't see the insult. Can someone explain?
but what does the resignation letter cake SAY?? now i'm dying to know!
Congrats on the win!!!
Congrats on the Bloggies! :D
why is this an insult? I would want all my (non-existent) underlings to give me cake when they quit.
It's precisely the anti-Donald-Trump cake. I belive the resignation cake must have taken some thought, and that maybe the "I Quit" cake was an afterthought while he was getting donuts at his local bakery.
Still, both are quite entertaining and I belive both qualify as cake wrecks.
Boy, I'd hate to file that resignation in my file drawer. Either of them. Sweet revenge with that last one :)
I wonder if that "prestigious agency" was gOOgle or something like that. I bet those two roses have some sort of significance.
Why is the cake an insult? (feeling a little slow)
That first picture of "Neil" has to be Photoshopped. Either that or his knuckles drag on the ground. Is it me or are his arms not proportional to the rest of his body? Maybe angle but it looks pretty straight-on to me.
Never mind, I should have looked at the original first. Neil has some crazy-long legs.
Can someone explain though how the 2nd cake should be considered an 'insult'? Other than not giving a notice.
This is funny, but it cant be true. Look in the first picture. His arms are clearly too long to be real, the cake was edited to be longer than it is.
Congratulations on your award!
Congratulations! Just heard on another blog you won the best new blog category at the bloggie awards. Now can you please tell us what the first resignation letter cake says We can't see it close enough but want to so bad!!
Neil is awesome and hot.
Most likely "prestigious interactive agency" = "cut-rate web design mill", complete with 60 hour weeks and the constant pressure of having your job outsourced to an "emerging economy". The pay is usually cut-rate too.
But I can't read what the cake says.
*whiney voice*
Where can I find out what it says?
Everyone else seems to know what it says?
Is something wrong with me?
*feeling SO left out on the joke*
:-(
At my last job, I wasn't so creative. In fact, I hadn't intended on notifying the boss just yet, but when they tried to contact me from the office phone, I had just walked through the door at that moment with my "work" ringtone - Johnny Paycheck's "Take This Job And Shove It." For the next week (had a new job lined up and couldn't give a whole 2 week notice), they walked on eggshells around me.
In hindsight, had I thought to go the cake route, I probably would have been more aggressive than passive and shoved it in said boss' face.
If I ever leave my job, I am so considering doing that, at least for my last day.
BTW Jen, you won 3 bloggies :-D
http://2009.bloggies.com/
I don't understand how this blog won a bloggie for best writing?!
Congrats on your Bloggie!!!!!
Oh wait I didn't finish looking at all of them. Congrats on your THREE BLOGGIES!!!!!
The "i quit" cake totally looks like a face!!
Wow, quitting by cake! What a great idea! That's much better than the time our secretary quit via post-it.
I think all those other agencies are trying to scam some free cake. They're going to hire him and then treat him poorly.
Is it just me, or do his arms look freakishly gorilla-like long?
I wish I could read what's on the first cake, but it's too early in the morning here... *blink blink*
Yep, the 2nd one looks decidely "owl-ish" to me too.
what's the resignation cake say?
I didn't know that Hunters Point was still open...I l;ived ont eh base in the mid 60 's as a navy dependent...LOL...wow
Long Time Reader De-Lurking
The cake is definitely scowling at someone!
I know a lot of people who would think what he did was passive-aggressive. However, I can't help calling it anything but genius.
I hope he has a better job now, one where he is happy and has better occasions to bring in cake.
A resume cake - now I know how to make myself stand out in the job market!
Too awesome!!!
I just saw the results of the 2009 Bloggies. Congrats on your THREE Bloggies!!! Way to go!
It would've been a nice touch if the cake had been signed by the ex-employee, don't you think? I mean, what's to stop all kinds (!) of questions as to who really meant to quit: Was it the one who set it down in front of the boss, or was that person just delivering it for someone else? What if someone ate the "QUIT" part (quickly to make the whole thing a mystery), and the boss hadn't seen it yet, and was left with just an "I" cake. THAT would be really weird. Especially with the two bug-eyed-looking roses staring out at whoever.
So it's probably not even official.
Ah, well; at least he's outta that rotten place. I don't know how he lasted as long as he did.
Congratulations on winning all those Bloggies honors today!
I'm feeling the "I Quit" one. I want to give this person a "You're Awesome" Cake.
OH dear... I wish I would have thought of giving my ex-boss an "I QUIT" cake.. and I have to agree with Xallanthia at first glance I thought it was a face-like...
#1: GREAT WALL OF TEXT!
#2: Not too bad, aside from the inky-black, badly placed writing.
WVOTD: frelail -- to flail freely, which is what the worse wrecks make me do.
For those who can't read "resignation cake"- click on where it says "photo" in the text above. That will take you to the Flickr page, and Neil has written out the letter below in the description.
Congratulations on your wins at the Bloggies!!!! They are finding out what we already knew!
If I ever leave here, I'm so quitting with a cake.
I wish to the very depths of my soul that I'd taken my cake decorating classes before I left my previous job. My boss SO would have gotten an "I Quit" cake.
On second thought, I might have replicated the "One of the bon bons is poison" cake...it would have summed up my animosity so much more succinctly.