No one rejected them! Although I can’t confirm whether everyone ate them lol. None of my neighbors reciprocate with baked goods, so can’t comment on that, but I am satisfied with the trade even just for good will for me and my barky dog.
But I can confirm that I have baked for years, and have passed out enough goods around the building that no one has cause to mistrust me. I definitely wouldn’t have gone this route if I wasn’t a competent baker.
Personally I love to bake, so when I first moved into my current apartment I made a bunch of small coffee cakes and just cold knocked on the doors of all my neighbors one evening. Some folks weren’t home, but for the people I did meet it broke the ice and set us up to chat more when we ran into each other in the hall. And I was lucky enough to even make 3 good friends who I trade pet/plant care and favors with!
This exercise also quickly identified some people that I would not be friends with and that was valuable too.
Per Careless People, the recent memoir that this article pulls from & facebook has been trying to kill, this was one of the many unethical advertising schemes that ultimately traces back to Sheryl Sandberg. A woman who didn’t allow her own children to use fb because she knew she was making it a toxic capitalist hellscape.