There's something rather nice about arriving at work to discover someone's brought in cakes. No special occasion, no birthday to celebrate, just a box on the kitchen table and an invitation to help yourself.
It's a small thing, but it can brighten an otherwise ordinary working day.
World Kindness Day falls on 13 November, and while kindness might not be the first thing you'd expect to find in a food calendar, there's a surprisingly natural connection between the two.
After all, sharing food has always been one of the simplest ways of showing someone you're thinking of them.
It might be making an extra cup of tea for a colleague, saving someone the last biscuit or inviting a new starter to join you for lunch. None of these gestures takes much planning, but they're the sort of things people tend to remember.
And in a busy workplace, they can make a real difference to how the day feels.
Most offices have their quieter moments, but they also have days when everyone seems to be rushing between meetings, answering emails and trying to get through an ever-growing list of jobs. It's easy for lunch to become something eaten hurriedly at a desk, with barely a pause between one task and the next.
Sometimes, simply asking someone to join you for lunch is enough to change that.
Food gives people a reason to stop for a while. Conversations happen that might not have happened over email, colleagues get to know each other a little better and the working day feels less like a series of tasks to get through.
We like that side of what we do at Masons Kitchen.
Of course, we're here to prepare and deliver food, but the occasions it becomes part of are often about much more than lunch itself. A breakfast to welcome someone new, cakes to thank a team for their hard work or a shared lunch after a particularly busy week can all be ways of showing appreciation.
And it doesn't have to be a big event. In fact, some of the nicest gestures are the ones nobody was expecting.
There's also plenty of kindness that has nothing to do with food. Offering to help a colleague who's under pressure, taking the time to listen or simply acknowledging someone's efforts can be just as welcome as a treat left in the office kitchen.
World Kindness Day began in 1998 as an initiative of the World Kindness Movement, encouraging people around the world to recognise the value of kindness in everyday life.
It's a simple idea, and perhaps that's why it works.
Nobody needs a particular date in the diary to do something thoughtful for someone else. But if 13 November gives us an extra reason to notice the people around us, that's no bad thing.
And if that happens to involve putting the kettle on and sharing a few cakes, we're certainly not going to argue.