Woman Considers Quitting Cookies After Her Workplace Treats Her Like A Snack Machine

Some traditions start out sweet and innocent… until everyone begins treating them like an obligation. That’s exactly what happened to one part-time quilt-shop employee who simply enjoyed baking chocolate chip cookies for monthly retreats.

Her treats were so good they became a selling point, but somewhere along the way, appreciation turned into expectation and her identity got reduced to “the cookie lady.” Now she’s wondering if she’d be wrong to stop baking them altogether. Let’s look at her situation.

A woman considers quitting baking her famous cookies for quilt retreats after people start valuing her treats more than her

OP later posted an update:

There is a quiet kind of hurt that forms when people stop seeing you and start seeing only what you provide. Many readers will recognize that sting, the moment when generosity turns into expectation, and appreciation fades into entitlement.

In this story, the employee who once baked cookies out of joy now finds herself reduced to “the cookie lady,” her identity overshadowed by something she never meant to become. What began as a gesture of warmth has turned into emotional depletion.

At the heart of this situation is a conflict between personal boundaries and external pressure. She isn’t just tired of baking; she’s tired of feeling invisible. The retreats have grown used to the comfort of her cookies, yet they haven’t extended that same warmth back to her.

Each “Where are the cookies?” chips away at her sense of value, turning her from a person into a commodity. When affection becomes transactional, resentment naturally follows. Her internal struggle isn’t about sweets, it’s about feeling dismissed, taken for granted, and unappreciated.

A fresh way to view her experience is to consider how different emotional expectations shape social labor. Many women, especially in service-oriented environments, are subtly trained to equate kindness with obligation. What others frame as “tradition,” she experiences as emotional conscription.

The retreaters aren’t malicious; they simply respond to what they enjoy. But the psychological impact hits differently when someone’s creativity becomes a performance instead of a choice.

For her, the cookies represented care. For them, the cookies became a product. That disconnect is where the hurt lives.

The concept of Emotional labor offers insight into what’s happening. Emotional labor refers to the effort and control it takes to manage one’s feelings (or outward expression) to meet expectations from a job or role.

Studies show that when emotional labor becomes invisible and unpaid, yet expected nonetheless, people often experience burnout, emotional exhaustion, and reduced sense of personal worth.

Seen through this lens, her reaction isn’t overblown; it’s predictable. She invested emotion, creativity, and personal resources into something meant to be joyful.

When people treated the cookies as an entitlement rather than a gift, they disrupted that emotional equation. The continual demand for a service she didn’t sign up for inevitably erodes motivation, joy, and self-respect.

Stepping back from baking, whether temporarily or permanently, would let her reclaim boundaries. A realistic solution might be to reserve her baking energy for people who value her, not just her recipe.

Sometimes the healthiest decision is remembering that kindness is a gift, not a job description. It’s entirely reasonable to stop giving when the act no longer feels kind to oneself.

Here’s the comments of Reddit users:

This group expressed concern that people were taking advantage of OP’s generosity and treating the cookies as an entitlement

These commenters encouraged OP to stop baking for a while to see who truly valued them

This group recommended that OP either turn the cookies into a paid offering or address the issue of unpaid labor with the shop owners

These commenters highlighted how disrespectful it was for others to reduce OP to “the cookie lady”

But what do you think? Should she put her foot down and reclaim her baking joy, or would withdrawing the cookies spark more drama than it’s worth? Share your thoughts below!