I set my bag on my desk and walked straight over.
"Are you done?"
The break room fell quiet. Mercedes didn't look the least bit guilty. If anything, she let out a deliberate sigh.
"Matilda, don't get the wrong idea. I'm not singling you out. I just think we're all in the same department, seeing each other every day. There's really no need to take things this far."
I looked at her, and the words came out dry as bone.
"Far? Spending my money to buy yourself goodwill. Now that's taking things far."
Mercedes's expression flickered.
"Matilda, that's a pretty ugly thing to say. I was trying to do something nice for the team. Everyone's been working hard, and I thought it'd lift the mood. But you? You made a scene in front of the delivery guy and embarrassed the entire department."
A few of the colleagues who'd been tearing into those bags yesterday jumped right in.
"Seriously, it was such a small thing. Why blow it up like that?"
"I ended up spending an extra hundred bucks, and my husband chewed me out for wasting money when I got home!"
I almost laughed from the sheer absurdity.
Nobody forced them to drink a thing. They didn't get their freebie, and suddenly they were the victims.