The Jelly Doughnut

Changing lives, one doughnut at a time.

Fred McMurtrie had actually quit his job over this. He stood and stared at the jelly doughnut, now in a terrible moment of indecision. He felt that he'd arrived at a major crossroads in his life. He had fought with every ounce of will he'd been able to muster, and it seemed to him that everything now hung on the single sugar-coated object before him.

He began to walk away. The last man in the third floor accounting office on a Friday afternoon, he was carrying a cardboard box with the last of his personal belongings in it, never to return.

But it was just too much for him. He caved, and did a quick one-eighty without even slowing down, scooped up the white pastry box, and dropped it into the brown cardboard box he was carrying. Then he took a last look around, and he hurried out.

Fred had a very serious weight problem. It really wasn't his fault. Some of us don't have anything much to look forward to, and he just happened to be one of those people. He'd tried keeping pets, but they had proven to be too much work and too great an expense. He had attempted to establish relationships, but they had never seemed to work out. After a couple of years of music lessons, it became apparent that he had no real musical talent, and he'd lost interest. He even tried reading novels, but he quickly found he was able to see right through the plots, so that the endings were never a surprise. Movies had proven to be disappointments for the same reason. And there was no point in even trying to play golf. Fred knew he'd never had the coordination to participate in any sport.

So Fred stuck with his occupation, which was accounting, and his only other pastime, eating. One thing he had always appreciated was food. To diet would have been to deny himself his one and only personal pleasure. As long as it was edible, Fred found something likable about any food at all. Everyone needs something to be his heart's delight, and for the time at least, Fred had found his.

So he maintained an average weight of about three hundred and seventy pounds, while his ideal weight would have been closer to two hundred. Everywhere he went, pretty women gave him that disgusted look that is reserved for overweight, ugly or old men. So, he learned not to look any women in the eye, so that he wouldn't feel rejected. Fred didn't want anything from them anyway, so there was no reason to torture himself. And you definitely couldn't say that he did. As a single man with a good salary, Fred ate out quite a lot, and he ate very well. Steaks. Sweets. All the really good, fattening things. When he did shop for groceries to have food on hand, he always avoided that tasteless low-fat stuff. Why even bother?

Then, Fred turned thirty-five. On the morning of his birthday, he took a long-overdue look in the mirror, and he didn't like what he saw at all. For the first time, he felt foolish. What had he been thinking? His life could be more than half-gone, and look at this. A fat man in the mirror. It was, quite actually, his very first realization of what he'd become.

And so, that day, at the portal to his thirty-sixth year of life, Fred decided things were going to change. He went to work, got a cup of coffee, and then proudly announced to his co-workers that he was going on a diet.

That turned out to be a serious mistake.

It wasn't that Fred didn't know any people, he just didn't socialize much. He had always considered most of his co-workers to be his friends. But, not being part of the social picture even at work had isolated him in ways that he'd never really recognized. Of course, it had an awful lot to do with his weight.

There's something insidious about human nature that isn't generally discussed; well, actually there are a lot of insidious things about human nature. The enjoyment and satisfaction that people get from seeing other people fail was the one that was about to start affecting Fred. That tendency is what makes television sitcoms popular. An exaggerated view of some flawed or troubled individual allows us to watch someone who is worse, or worse-off than we are, and we enjoy that. Or, somebody gets pregnant out of wedlock, and people are all-abuzz. And if nobody is screwing up, we poke around to see if we can screw them up, so we can laugh at them.

Fred's co-workers started to bring him things to eat. It was so obvious they were trying to destroy his diet that it quickly angered him. Slabs of chocolate layer cake. A large hot fudge sundae with extra nuts. An entire large supreme pizza, with every available topping.

Of course it was completely out of character for Fred to pass the stuff up, because he had always been on a diet – the classic “see-food” diet. Fred sees food, Fred eats it. So of course it was hard. Fred began to look for another job. Obviously, he had no friends in this place. And no, he didn't eat a single bite of the things they brought him.

Well, Fred was an educated and talented high-end accountant for a large company, and times were good in his company's market. It didn't take long for Fred to find a better position, in another city.

Months had passed, and Fred had actually begun to lose weight, nearly twenty pounds, in fact. He had begun walking instead of eating. Whenever Fred wanted to eat something, he took a walk instead. That turned out to be one of his better decisions. He was wearing out a pair of tennis shoes a week, and they were shot when he replaced them. He used the stairs to get to his fifth-floor apartment. Then he used them again to get back out for a walk, because he was hungry. After a while, he started to get used to the feeling. “You have to break some eggs to make an omelet,” he thought. Of course, then he wanted an omelet, and his imagination plugged in bacon strips, cheese, sauteed onions and peppers, coffee with sugar, cream and a topping, and a rich dessert. So it was a really tough fight, but for the time at least, he'd proven to be equal to the challenge.

Then one day he took a walk to the boss's office, and turned in his notice.

Going-away parties were the norm when anyone left, but Fred made it clear to his boss that he didn't want a party, and that he preferred that no one be told he was leaving. His boss understood and assented. But that didn't keep one mousy-looking redhead named Freida, from finding out. Human Resources needed a detailed job description prepared to assist them in finding a replacement. Freida saw the HR representative talking to Fred, and she started asking questions.

When Fred's co-worker Barry learned of it, his eyes narrowed. So fat Freddy thought he was gonna get off that easy, did he? As it is in most other places and situations, Barry was the instigator within the accounting department. In a group of people of any size, there's an excellent chance the group includes at least one of these people. Usually they can't take what they dish out, and often they're damaged themselves.

In a way, it may also have upset Fred's co-workers that he wasn't interested in a send-off, but they knew why he was leaving. Fred was busy turning his health and appearance around. He no longer spoke to anyone beyond what he had to, to do his job. They had all been cruel to him, and he knew in his heart there had been no excuse for it.

So two weeks later on a Friday, Fred stayed behind as people left, to clean out his desk without an audience. All of his things had already been moved to a new apartment, and Fred had taken a hotel room to permit him to finish up. Tomorrow would be the beginning of a new life for him. Fred had been whittling down his things at the office so that today, he could walk out carrying just one box. He arranged things into it, took a last look around his office, and stepped out into the main office area.

And this is where we came in. There, just ten feet away and beside the coffee maker, in a white cardboard pastry box with a clear cellophane top, was one last jelly doughnut. There was absolutely no one around. At first, Fred felt a bit of anger welling up, because of all the nasty tricks these people had played on him, trying to get him to break his diet. Then he realized, this doughnut had not been shoved at him like all the other food. Occasionally a doughnut might actually be left over. And it had been so long, ohh, so long!

Mustering the resolve that was nearly as big as his gut, Fred turned and began to walk out of the office suite. Then, without even slowing down, he did a full one-eighty and scooped up the pastry box, setting it down into his cardboard box of personal desk items. There was no one around to have seen him do it. They would think the janitor had thrown it away.

Fred drove a full-sized Buick, because anything smaller would have been too small to allow him to sit comfortably behind the wheel. He never even noticed as he went to his car, this time, that he was hurrying. He had decided to eat that jelly doughnut as soon as he got into his car, so that he wouldn't change his mind.

And so he did. It was his favorite kind, a red-raspberry-filled jelly doughnut, covered with luscious powdered sugar, fresh from the bakery just down the street. What a treat. Fred didn't even feel remorse. It seemed to him he had truly earned that jelly doughnut. No one had ever enjoyed a jelly doughnut more than Fred enjoyed that one.

Finished, Fred licked his fingers and then carried the empty box over to the dumpster. He got back into his big Buick and headed for his hotel to get his things, and to drive on to his new home. But, unbeknownst to Fred, he wouldn't be leaving town that evening, as he'd planned.

Traffic was moving easily, but before he had covered a single city block, Fred realized that something was very wrong. He had a terrible, biting pain deep in his gut, and it was steadily worsening. He thought he was going to throw up, then he thought he was going to die. It occurred to him he surely must have been poisoned, but if so, why wasn't he already dead?

The why, how and who didn't matter to him at that point, he was so sick. Finally reaching his hotel three blocks distant, Fred pulled up along the curb and got out, stumbling toward the entrance. He wasn't even in a parking space, but he didn't want to throw up in the street. The evening desk attendant stared blankly as Fred moved painfully through the lobby, looking for the restroom. He found it, and went inside.

Four times over the next three hours, the attendant came into the restroom to ask Fred if he could call an ambulance for him. Fred just kept telling him no, he just needed some time. The first two times he was asked, Fred nearly agreed, but he didn't - only because he was really afraid to leave the rest room. His stomach burned, he had diarrhea, and he retched over and over. It made his throat ache.

Eventually, though, he began to improve. He got some water at the sink, drinking it out of his hand. Finally he went outside, as darkness had begun to fall, and took the ticket from his windshield. Then he moved the Buick to the parking garage, and went back to re-register at the hotel for the night. There would be no driving on the freeway for him, just yet.

Of course, Fred didn't eat even his usual meager meal that evening. He didn't watch television, he didn't start his laptop. He just laid on the bed and stared at the ceiling, and he thought about all of the things that had brought him to this.

There could be no question that his co-workers had booby-trapped the jelly doughnut. He'd been feeling fine before he ate it. His passion for that particular flavor was well-known. The question was, what could they have put into it that made him so sick? An even greater question, why did they do it? What if he hadn't made it back to the hotel restroom before his bowels had cut loose? This was cruelty beyond anything of which Fred had believed they were capable. His car might have been towed. If he'd had a bad heart, an experience like that one might have actually killed him. The realizations stacked up. Fred considered that there may have been more to this than simple malice, or jealousy. However many of them might have been involved, Fred knew that Barry had been the instigator. He always was.

By the time Saturday morning arrived, Fred had developed some ideas of his own. The greatest of these was to succeed in everything he ever did from now on, without exception. He would be strengthened by this incident, not made ashamed.

This moment, not the one when he'd taken the doughnut, was the turning point in Fred's life. Left to only his will power, there would have been better than a fifty-percent chance that he would have given up the diet, and given in. But now there was more. Fred was angry, hurt, and disbelieving. He was pissed. No more of this crap. He was tired of the belittlement, tired of being fat, tired of fat jokes, and damned sick and tired of being treated like the village idiot.

However, the first thing to do was to destroy any evidence of his co-workers' plot having done its intended damage. They must never know that he got that doughnut.

So Fred checked out of the hotel, walked to the parking garage, and headed for his favorite bakery. Tony the baker might know something, and either way, he needed a replacement doughnut.

Fred arrived at the little bakery. Old Tony, who had known Fred as “Freddy”, considered him to be one of his best customers, and they had known each other for years. When Fred told him what had happened, Tony's big smile turned into a look of genuine remorse.

“Freddy, Freddy,” he said. “I'm so sorry. I had no idea it was gonna be you. I sold them one perfectly good jelly doughnut, just one. Five of them came in here, talking and laughing. It was everybody in your office, Freddy, they were talking about it. They insisted on a box big enough for a dozen doughnuts, they even asked me to sprinkle some extra powdered sugar in the box, so it would look like there had been more doughnuts in there. By the time they had the doughnut in the box, they were paying for it and I heard one of them mention 'the habanero powder' and 'the laxative'. I knew right then what they were gonna do, but if I had known it was you...”

“Forget it, Tony, forget it. I know you wouldn't want that to happen to your worst enemy. Hey, I'll bet you don't even have any enemies.”

Tony smiled. It was true, he didn't.

“Just one thing I'd like to ask you for, Tony.”

“Anything, my friend. Anything. Name it.”

Fred explained what had happened. His diet, all of the food they had carried in to tempt him, the new job. But now, after all this, the thing he wanted most was to take their victory from them.

“I understand, Freddy,” replied Tony. “I really hate to see you go, and I hate what happened. But even for you, I won't put trash into my doughnuts to make people sick. I'm not moving away like you are. I run a fine bakery, and I have a reputation...”

“No need at all,” Fred asserted. “All I want is one perfectly good jelly doughnut in a box with extra sugar, just like the other one, so I can put it back right where I found it.”

Tony grinned and did as he was asked.

“On the house, my friend,” he added, as he handed Fred the box.

“One more thing,” Fred said. “Do you have a plain brown cardboard box? I don't want anyone to see me carrying this back in.”

Fred walked back to the building and luckily, got the attention of a janitor who was working in the lobby. Nothing was going on, as the building was closed for the weekend.

“I just want to get something I forgot, in my office,” he explained.

The janitor recognized Fred, and agreed to let him in. It would be fine.

“By the way, did you guys clean up there yet?”

They had. Fred went to the third floor and planted the doughnut, exactly as he had found it.

Then, relieved, he drove himself to his new life.

On Monday morning, a disappointed office staff assembled in a circle around the apparently untouched doughnut.

“I really thought he would bite,” said Freida.

Barry opened the box and picked up the jelly doughnut, turning it over.

“Ah, but he did bite,” replied Barry. “There's no hole from the syringe in this doughnut. That was a big syringe! Think about it, this doughnut was put back here after the janitors cleaned. He just stopped off at Tony's and bought another one. Otherwise, one of the janitors would have eaten it. But I knew Fred would be the one. He just didn't want us to know he got it, which is proof that it did its work!”

Barry took a bite of the jelly doughnut, and added, “Freddy's not stupid, he's just fat and insecure, and we like to pick on him.” He walked away, eating the doughnut, while the others laughed and slapped each other on the back.

Fred really was in for a new life, and then some. Insecurity was not a problem he'd had, at all. However he had been deeply impressed by his failure to judge the people he thought were his friends, and by the lengths they would go to assert their will over him while disregarding his own humanity. Never before had anything as simple as a jelly doughnut made such a difference to his frame of mind.

Fred continued to lose weight. He purchased a gym membership, and began working out. His new attitude enabled him to make new friends with ease. Everybody liked Fred. He was an easy-going guy. Somewhat stocky, he became muscular and turned out to be quite well-built, without an ounce of extra fat. He was now a trim two hundred and ten pounds at six feet, two inches. His hair had appeared to be somewhat greasy before, and had looked a bit like chocolate frosting on an ice-cream sundae. Now it was a mane of curly black hair that accentuated a rather handsome face. He began to play racquetball at the facility next to the gym, and poker with the guys from his new office. Soon he got involved in watching and following professional football, always with friends.

One of the guys at the gym asked him to sit in on his martial arts class. Fred got involved in that too, developing his coordination and earning a lower belt. Soon it became a serious interest, and he found it had allowed him to develop new self-confidence. He pressed on toward earning a black belt.

To say the least, Fred would have been unrecognizable to anyone who had known him before.

And it was only the beginning. In his former workplace, Fred had been the top accountant in his department. He had earned a degree in business administration and was a Certified Public Accountant. Now, at his new job, he was the assistant to the corporate controller, who retired when Fred had been just two years with the company.

Fred was a shoo-in for the position. He was a natural for the job, with all of his talents, his improved attitude, prospects and friends. He now made even more friends among the executives, and his new hobby became management of his own finances. He began to invest in company stocks.

Can't you just see it coming? Five years had passed since Fred had left his last job, and he was now a friend of every member of the corporate Board of Directors. He took classes in psychology to better predict market trends, and for himself, to be able to better judge people. And, he became a rich man, diversifying his stock portfolio and seeking additional investment opportunities.

There was no doubt about it, life was now far better for Fred. He traded the big Buick for a new Jaguar. He moved from the city to a nice development, and bought a modest home. He finally began to date again, and started to sort through the prospects for a mate. He hired a housekeeper, and he went to the shelter and picked out a nice dog. Because unlike his attackers from his past, Fred also had a big heart.

Fred had come to one very central realization about himself, and about everyone else as well. Everything people choose to do is a result of a mindset. Overeating had been a mindset. Being physically inactive was also a mindset. Bullying, like his former co-worker Barry typically carried out, was a mindset. Living a disorganized, struggling financial existence was a mindset, and the opposite, achieving and maintaining financial success, was also a mindset. Any kind of non-physical addiction, a negative or positive outlook on life, a willingness to work within the system or even an active effort to make changes to it, all are personal mindsets. And although changing one's mindset could be a daunting challenge, it could be done.

Fred was keenly aware that he had control of only one life, and he intended to make whatever adjustments he needed to make, to put it all together. That had become his mindset.

Then one day, after seven years with his new company, Fred's greatest opportunity to that point arrived. He had been summoned to the CEO's office, and he walked in and sat down.

“Fred,” the CEO began, “this company is about to acquire another firm, a firm similar to our own. We would like to install you as the new CEO there. I want you to know the Board's vote was unanimous. Although you will surely be missed around here, we need someone we can trust, someone who knows everyone here, and someone we know will follow the guidelines the Board provides.”

“I am flattered, sir. What company is this?”

“Why, it's the company you came from, Fred. We figured that was an additional advantage. You must surely already know everyone there as well.”

With some considerable effort, Fred kept a straight face. It had actually been years since he'd thought about that place, and about the jelly doughnut. A thousand thoughts of the things that had been changed in his life because of that wake-up, flashed through his mind. Fifteen seconds later, he had still not responded to the revelation the CEO had just made.

“Whadda you think, Fred? Will you accept it? I mean, if you don't want it, you still have a good position here. I just don't want you taking my job!”

Fred quickly looked up, and studied the man's face. He meant it. The CEO was actually worried about his own job.

“Oh, sir, yes, you bet I'll accept.” Fred gave the CEO his best smile and stood up to shake his hand. “I'm serious sir, I'll try to do as well as you've done here. That will take some doing, but I will surely try.”

Fred the diplomat. Fred the administrator. Fred, the Chief Executive Officer.

And Fred really was serious. The company he had come to was much better than the one he had come from. He would treat this like the opportunity it was.

But there was still the matter of that spiked jelly doughnut.

Fred made arrangements to place his house on the market, he proposed to his girlfriend (who quickly accepted), hired a moving and storage company, and began looking for a new home. He moved his life, and he didn't forget a thing. New gym membership, new martial arts class, new kennel for his best friend.

The first day of his new job arrived, and Fred got into his Jag to drive to work. On the way in, he stopped at Tony's bakery, and ordered two dozen jelly doughnuts and one glazed doughnut, to be delivered to the third floor accounting office at exactly 8:30 a.m. Tony laughed, remembering Fred.

“Can't do it, Freddy,” he said. “I still won't doctor my product for anyone. Man, you look great! A three-piece suit, Freddy!”

“Oh no,” Fred replied. “A trick like that is beneath me. It always has been. I want these doughnuts to be perfectly fine. Your usual.”

Although he'd made no effort to conceal his identity from anyone, the people he knew there had not made any connection. The only thing they knew was that a Mr. McMurtrie was the new CEO, and they were all worried about cuts to the workforce, as their company had been acquired by a larger one.

So Fred pulled into the parking lot, got out of his Jaguar and walked inside. People were waiting at the door to conduct him to his new office. Fred waved them off.

“Won't be necessary, fellows, I can find it,” Fred said. “I need to stop off at the accounting office. Is it still on third floor?”

“The fellows” just stared as Fred entered the elevator, alone.

Arriving on the third floor, Fred stepped off of the elevator, and walked through the door of the accounting department's suite of offices.

“Good morning all, may I have your attention?”

Everyone turned and looked. There stood a handsome, muscular, self-assured man in a three-piece suit. This was the new CEO they had all been worried about. Were they about to be fired?

Fred now had their attention. People came out of offices and into the main room. Many of them were thinking that this could be their last day. Fred placed the fingertips of one hand on a desktop, his other hand behind his back, and stood straight and tall. He looked every bit the leader he had become.

“Folks,” he began, “I'd like to make sure you know who I am. Thanks to all of you, and I do mean you, I am where I am today. Remember me? Seven years ago? Fred McMurtrie!”

Jaws dropped. Freida fainted dead away, and no one caught her. Several of the men who had fetched his jelly doughnut seven years earlier, moved behind desks as if in self-defense. Several others eyed the door, and considered making a run for it.

“Relax, relax,” Fred assured them. “I'd like to know how many of the people here have been working for this company less than eight years?”

One man stepped forward. This man was blameless. He had been hired as Fred's replacement.

The door from the hallway opened, and in stepped Tony the baker's delivery boy.

“Well, perfect timing,” said Fred.

The entire accounting crew watched aghast as two dozen jelly donuts and a small bag were placed next to the coffeemaker. Fred tipped the delivery boy.

“This, my good man, is yours.” Fred handed the bag containing the single glazed doughnut to the gentleman who had replaced him.

“All the rest of you, enjoy! Oh, and by the way? Human Resources will be conducting personnel performance reviews over the next two months, and all of you are first in line.”

Nobody moved, except for Freida, who was picking herself up off of the floor.

Fred continued, “I want you all to know that I actually did get the doughnut you put out for me. After I puked my guts out, and sat on the crapper for three hours, and spent an extra night at my hotel, I wanted to take your victory from you. So I put another doughnut right back here where you had planted the other one!” Fred smiled, a huge, happy smile.

“And you really did, you did me a hell of a favor. I was so naive! There was so much I had to learn! But the very first thing I learned, was resolve. I resolved never to let anything like that ever happen to me again. And you know what? It never will. You may be glad to know, I am actually better than you! I was before, of course, but you didn't know that, and I didn't know that.”

“What I am really trying to say, here, is that you have just as much opportunity to keep your jobs as anyone in any other part of this company. Because I don't hold grudges. And just so you know, if there are any deliberate cuts to the workforce here, they haven't been planned as yet. We have a lot to discover before we make any decisions. Of course,” he added, “if I should ever hear of anything else like that contaminated pastry trick, anything even resembling it, occurring in this department ever again, I will not hesitate to clear the accounting department completely, and start over!"

Fred paused. "Do you understand, Barry?”

Barry nodded, nervously. “Yes, sir.”

Fred smiled again, nodded to the group, and said, “Enjoy the doughnuts.”

For the entire rest of the morning, not one person in the accounting department spoke to another. And not one doughnut disappeared from the boxes at all. When people went home at the end of the day, there were still twenty-four of Tony's delicious jelly doughnuts remaining.

CEO Fred McMurtrie stopped by the accounting offices after everyone had left, and noted that the doughnuts were all still there. He laughed out loud, and left a note for the janitors to enjoy the doughnuts.

Over the next ten years, Fred would prove his business and leadership abilities, and the firm would flourish under his direction. Eventually he would indeed advance to become the Chief Executive Officer of the parent corporation, as well as its primary stockholder.

But the evening that Fred returned to his former place of employment as its CEO, the janitors ate more jelly doughnuts for free than they had ever imagined they would.

And not a one of them got sick.

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