My family is likely very tired of me complaining about work, after my three years post-grad. And that’s after the four years of college, where they were tired of my complaining about school. My last job in LA was truly awful and consumed so much of my psyche for years, and I made sure everybody around me knew!! So if you’re tired of hearing my rants, you can skip ahead to the recipe or just look at the pictures. But this rant begins with me coming to terms with the fact that I may have overcorrected.
My old job was a “dream job” at a “dream company” in a “dream industry,” and it caused more stress and disillusionment than satisfaction. So I figured… get a job that is not a dream job at a company I couldn’t care less about. However, especially after writing that out, I see some flaws in this logic. It’s an overcorrection, where I just… truly could not care less about my job, and they could not care less about me.
This scene from Office Space is truly no exaggeration of how my role operates. Me not showing up has no impact on my company or anyone in it. I’ve spent more days doing no work at all than I have spent contributing anything to the company.
Going into the office feels like a parody of Office Space as well. A clinical, corporate floor in an office park, where nobody has anything on their desks, the lights are fluorescent, and people hardly speak to each other. Nobody asks any personal questions, if they chose to speak to you at all. It truly feels like some sort of corporate simulation, and I can’t help but project on my coworkers and imagine them as people also trapped in this simulation. Do they also feel it?? Or are they numb to it after 20+ years?? Maybe I’m judging them too harshly, but I feel more alienated from the people around me than I have since middle school.
Recently, there was a day where the only thing I did for work was be involved in an email chain that reached 20 emails long and looped in 14 people. The need for this email thread? Updating an address in a glorified address book. But apparently nobody knew who could do that. The WSJ tried to write an article about Taylor Swift that was also about Corporate America that I really did not like. They tried to say that her song “I Can Do it With a Broken Heart” was a corporate anthem for people doing their jobs. I do not want to compare people trudging through meaningless meetings or sending insane email chains day after day to Taylor Swift!! Those things are not the same!! My anthem would be more like “I Can Do It Without My Brain.” Instead, a more appropriate song of Taylor’s would be I Hate It Here, a song that I recently enjoyed at my desk looking like this. Pretending that I’m breaking free of the simulation!
The most exciting thing that happens day-to-day is that someone often brings in donuts or baked goods on Wednesdays, and sets them on a counter in the middle of the floor by the printer. This is a nice gesture of course, and the coworkers who do walk past my desk to speak with me for 60 seconds often use “there’s donuts!” as their talking point. But the donuts are often from Cub (no judgment, but it does add to that Simulation Feeling).
All this to say!! I wanted to spice things up here by bringing in some home baking, but I was worried about what these people could handle. Some things I bake might just be too… exciting. Too much of a change to the status quo in a place that literally defines status quo. But I didn’t want to just churn out some chocolate chip cookies or brownies. So I figured these would be a safe start, as they have some solid elements mixed in with new variables Everyone loves pumpkin spice. Cookies are familiar. Caramelized white chocolate may throw people for a loop, but it’s a small element and it’s pretty delicious.
Now let me tell you… these cookies are delicious. It took me a while to learn that pumpkin spice things don’t actually have to be pumpkin flavored. Like… there’s no pumpkin in a pumpkin spice latte? That was a shock to find out, and feels like very false advertising. Pumpkin Spice tastes more like it’s approaching gingerbread to me than anything else. Which makes it even more mind-boggling as to why people start drinking pumpkin spice lattes in AUGUST. But I digress. I really enjoyed the pumpkin spice in these cookies, and it goes verrry well with caramelized white chocolate, which I’ve previously discussed I love.
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Ingredients
- 2 bars high quality white chocolate
- 2 cups minus 2 tablespoons cake flour (or, 1 3/4 cup all-purpose flour + 2 tbsp cornstarch)
- 1 2/3 cups bread flour (you can also substitute all-purpose flour – the results won’t be too different!)
- 1 1/4 teaspoons baking soda
- 1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
- 1 1/2 teaspoons coarse salt
- 1 tsp cinnamon
- 1 tbsp pumpkin pie spice (Or, cinnamon, nutmeg, allspice, ginger, and cloves)
- 2 1/2 sticks unsalted butter
- 1 1/4 cups light brown sugar
- 1 cup plus 2 tablespoons granulated sugar
- 2 large eggs
- 2 teaspoons pure vanilla extract
Instructions
- Caramelize your white chocolate (I recommend this guide for how to do that) and allow to cool. Break up into smaller chunks, and then set aside until ready to use.
- Sift flours, baking soda, baking powder, salt, cinnamon, and pumpkin pie spice into a bowl. Set aside.
- Using a mixer fitted with paddle attachment, cream butter and sugars together until very light, about 5 minutes. Add eggs, one at a time, mixing well after each addition. Stir in the vanilla. Reduce speed to low, add dry ingredients and mix until just combined, 5 to 10 seconds. Drop caramelized white chocolate pieces in and incorporate them without breaking them. Press plastic wrap against dough and refrigerate for 24 to 36 hours. Dough may be used in batches, and can be refrigerated for up to 72 hours.
- When ready to bake, preheat oven to 350 degrees. Line a baking sheet with parchment paper or a nonstick baking mat. Set aside.
- Scoop 6 3 1/2-ounce mounds of dough (the size of generous golf balls) onto baking sheet, making sure to turn horizontally any chocolate pieces that are poking up; it will make for a more attractive cookie. Sprinkle lightly with sea salt and bake until golden brown but still soft, 18 to 20 minutes. Transfer sheet to a wire rack for 10 minutes, then slip cookies onto another rack to cool a bit more. Repeat with remaining dough, or reserve dough, refrigerated, for baking remaining batches the next day.