Cake Mania and my Job

I got this fabulous, wonderful yet completely evil Christmas gift from my sister this year. It is a computer game titled "Cake Mania". She called it a "time management" game, oh doesn't that sound fun? That is something I endure daily trying to manage all of the various crap I have to juggle at work. Why on earth would I want to try to do that in my down time? Seriously? Well, since it was a gift and she raved about how "fun" it was I figured I'd load it onto my computer and give it a go.

Good Lord, I have discovered a new way to spell addiction...C-A-K-E-M-A-N-I-A. Turns out I was quite wrong in my initial assumption of these games. So wrong in fact that I beat both versions of Cake Mania on the CD she gave me and wanted more. So I found Cake Mania 2 online and downloaded it for the reasonable price of $6.99. The way the game works is, you are a lady who owns a bakery and all these really random customers come in (think old ladies, annoying kids, Dracula, Santa Claus, Cupid, and old guys with stubble dressed as the Easter Bunny) and order cakes in various combinations of shapes, frosting and decorations. You make money by filling their orders before their patience runs out and they bail (no pressure). Then, with the money you make, you can pimp out your bakery with better faster ovens, additional decorations, faster shoes, etc. It can get quite fast paced and mad and you have to seriously keep track of so many different things going on at the same time, it is nuts. And it is completely addicting.

This game completely sucks you in too, you can't look at anything else, you can't talk to anyone, you don't hear anything (really selling you on it, aren't I, HA!). Let me tell you a sad story to illustrate what I mean. One evening Jack and I were sitting in our office, he was doing some work or something on his comptuer and I was playing Cake Mania at mine. We were also making dinner and it was time to put the veggies in. He said, "I'll go do it", and I said OK. Then, a second later I heard a beep in the kitchen and I looked over at him and asked, are you going to go put the veggies in? He looked at me, dumbfounded, and said, I got up and did that like 8 minutes ago, that was them beeping that they are done. To fully appreciate how completely ridiculous it is that I did not even notice him get up, leave the room, come back and the passing of 8 minutes, you should know that we have a desk that has a chair on each side, facing each other and it is only about 2.5 feet across. So he is literally in my face when he is in here working and I didn't notice him get up and leave. Pitiful isn't it?

So, if you have read the title of this entry you are probably wondering what the heck this has to do with my job. Here is where it gets really funny. At first, when I was working I was wishing I was playing this stupid game (seriously I was starting to get worried that I was going to turn into one of those people who disappeared into a virtual world and completely lost touch with reality and the outside world). But, then, it evolved and I started to see my work tasks in more of a "cake mania" perspective (so maybe that is actually happening, huh?). All of the millions of things I had to get done and emails I had to respond to and items I owed my clients became thought bubbles over random characters demanding to be served their "cake" and I just started jamming through things to "fill the orders". So, in a very sick and twisted way, Cake Mania has made me better at my job. OK, send the people in the white truck to lock me up now, I surrender.