26 Feb 2004 | Garrett Dimon said...

Since it seems like the reigning attitude among individuals these days is everyone for themselves, something like the "One Left" behavior is actually quite refreshing.

However, it does beg the question, is the motivation for the behavior based on guilt (i.e. I don't want to be the one that takes the last donut) or self-lessness (i.e. Somebody else probably hasn't had one yet. I'll leave it for them.)?

I will say that this could have made for a great episode of Friends though.

26 Feb 2004 | Chris O'Donnell said...

We have the opposite isue on our office. You do not want to be standing in front of the kitchen door 30 seconds after somebody sends an officewide : I left food in the kitchen" email. You are liable to get hurt in the stampede :)

26 Feb 2004 | James said...

When such a situation arises, I gleefully declare "THE DONUT OF SHAME IS MINE!!!" before taking a huge bite and exiting back to my cubicle to finish it off.

26 Feb 2004 | dalager said...

How is it science has never really covered the half-life of Donuts?

It doesn't emit alpha, beta or gamma radiation, but very strong EatMe's ;-)

26 Feb 2004 | Brad Hurley said...

It's been a long time since I worked in an office, but every place I worked that had a kitchen suffered from the "tragedy of the commons" -- nobody cleaned up after themselves, and the refrigerator was always full of moldy old forgotten stuff. In one organization I worked for we set up a rotating kitchen duty assignment, so one person would be in charge of cleaning up all the dirty dishes durng a week and emptying the fridge on Friday. That worked pretty well as long as the person remembered they were on kitchen duty. In another place we put up big signs all over the kitchen saying that everyone was responsible for washing their own dishes, but the signs were ignored and the dishes piled up. Finally the president of the company gave up in exasperation and took away all the dishes, leaving only paper plates. The only place I worked where everyone did a good job of cleaning up after themselves was a small 8-person office where it was impossible to leave an unwashed dish anonymously.

26 Feb 2004 | Don Schenck said...

I do the dishes and clean the kitchen at work.

I like cleaning. If I wasn't in IT, I'd probably own a janitorial service.

I like it because of the instant gratification.

I don't do donuts. But venison jerky ... mmmmmmmm.

26 Feb 2004 | Matthew Oliphant said...

But venison jerky ... mmmmmmmm.

Clean up on aisle 6.

We place bets on how long it will take for the last piece to go. It gets whittled down (often by the low carb freaks) over the day, but no one ever wins the bet.

There seems to be a point at which no one will take the last piece. Some of it stems from no on knows how the doughnut was divided. "Did anyone actually touch it?"

26 Feb 2004 | Benjy said...

I will say that this could have made for a great episode of Friends though.

No, this really would be a Curb Your Enthusiasm episode! I could just imagine Larry David taking the whole donut and then others getting mad at him, and him going on about how he doesn't want others touching his food and he isn't going to touch others' food, how he didn't know that ___ didn't get one, etc.

26 Feb 2004 | Kristen said...

When I saw the title of this entry I thought "true!" Then I read further about the division of the last serving and I thought "oh, not so true."

In all my office experience there would always be one intact serving left and it would never be eaten. 5:00 would come, and the hardened donut/slice of cake/cookie would invariably be thrown in the trash.

Taking from a plenteous amount was acceptable, but even the division of the sole remaining serving was too shameful to consider.

26 Feb 2004 | One of several Steves said...

At our office, the bigger unanswered question of doughnut day is if the rainbow sprinkle one will get eaten. The guy who brings in the doughnuts always gets one, but it maybe gets eaten one week out of four.

All the talk of doughnut eating habits reminds me of one of the greater pranks I can recall hearing about. Back when Bert Blyleven was still playing, he ended up being the first in the clubhouse the morning of a Sunday afternoon game. There was a table laid out with pastries, etc. for the players to eat as they were getting ready for the game. He took exactly one bite out of every single item and set it back on the table.

26 Feb 2004 | Brad Hurley said...

Ewww, rainbow sprinkles, yuk!

I used to love the donuts that were filled with that off-white creamy custard until a friend of mine told me what they call those in Australia: "puss-pastries." I've never eaten one since.

26 Feb 2004 | goldtoof said...

We leave that last donut out in memory of all of our fallen homies.

@}---- rest in peace my niggaz...

26 Feb 2004 | pek said...

Damn, you are an idiot...

27 Feb 2004 | Don Schenck said...

Bert Blyleven ... what a curveball.

27 Feb 2004 | jazer said...

I always take the last one. Someone has to!

27 Feb 2004 | One of several Steves said...

Bert Blyleven ... what a curveball.

No kidding. I once saw him throw one where the right-handed batter bailed out because the ball was coming straight for his head. Then the ball broke right across the middle of the plate for a called strike. Most amazing single pitch I've ever seen.

01 Mar 2004 | but that's just me said...

Sounds more like the epitome of Seinfeld to me.

Personally, I never take the last of any community delicacy. My first thought as I look at the sole morsel, that appears to have been pushed around and beat up by its already devoured predecessors, is "What's wrong with this piece that no one else has taken it yet?" And my second thought is, "I'm not willing to take a chance."

01 Mar 2004 | Don Schenck said...

I *always* take the last morsel ... but ... we always go in reverse order, so ...