Apparently under new guidelines here and in Europe I’m ethically obligated that I’ve been known to make cookies from time to time.  Oh, excuse me, something is coming in to my earpiece now.  Oh, never mind, I’ve been informed those laws apply to a different type of cookie.

In any event, I first got into the habit of baking cookies on a somewhat regular basis while in college. It became a stress release for me, and also apparently made me quite popular among the sorority sisters and outing club members I lived with.  I would, probably at least once a month my sophomore year make a double-batch of Tollhouse Chocolate Chip cookies. They rarely lasted more than a day or two.

Since then, I’ve expanded my repertoire, including once trying “bacon cookies” for my very first SQL Saturday. Those weren’t a huge hit, but haven’t stopped me from baking.

That said, I’ve learned a few things over the years about baking cookies. For example, my daughter would bring cookies to school for an event and would often be asked, “oh did your mom make them?”  She’d patiently explain that no, her dad did. Even today, the assumption is that when it comes to school events, the mom does the baking. I’m glad that my kids both realize that it’s unfair to expect that mothers have to do all the baking and other domestic duties.

But, I also learned something else that sort of threw me for a loop. People don’t like homemade cookies from a zip-lock bag.  Sometimes I’d bring cookies to events and people wouldn’t eat many of them. Now, being practical and in a hurry, I’d almost always just toss the cookies into a zip-lock bag.  It was my daughter who suggested I start putting them into a plastic container with a lid instead. Suddenly I found the same cookies were much more popular. My daughter explained her theory, which I tend to believe. For whatever reason, perhaps hygiene, people don’t want to reach into plastic bags for food. It may be touching the same sides that everyone else did or something else. But regardless, putting them into plastic tub with a container works.

Call it a UI problem, but, it seems to work.

Today’s take-away, just because you’re comfortable with a solution and think it works, don’t be adverse to making changes, even if they seem silly or trivial, if that’s what your users desire.

P.S.: Check out my latest writing for Red-Gate: PowerShell and Secure Strings.