6 Likes
I worked for a small business that had a tradition that on your birthday, YOU brought a cake to share and set up a little party in the lunchroom for everyone. Sounds weird, and it kind of was, but it meant that if you didn’t want a party for yourself, you just didn’t tell anyone when your birthday was. Or if you were too busy to bother, or couldn’t really afford it, you just didn’t bring a cake. (You had to attend the parties for everyone else, though.)
Then the business was sold to a new owner/boss, who instituted a policy that each person would bring the cake for whoever’s birthday came next after theirs on the calendar. For the next twelve years, until the business was sold yet again, the new owner/boss’s birthday was the next one after mine, so I always had to bring the cake for the boss’s birthday.
3 Likes
I worked for a company like this, too, and it was pretty cool. They went out of their way to celebrate their people universally, and didn’t lean on popularity type events. I had so much swag from there, and still have good feelings about those years.
6 Likes
Honest is doing a lot of work, plus there was no reason to challenge that in the lawsuit.
(I thought it was T.H. White, meh.)
Whatever system they had for tracking birthdays, there was apparently no way to opt-out of it. No checkbox to uncheck, no record to remove. It depended on someone remembering to skip it when his birthday came up.
4 Likes
Every time you look back at it, it gets worse.
14 Likes
3 Likes
Yup. I briefly worked for a company that held an annual mandatory company picnic in a nearby park. No, we couldn’t stay and get work done, and going home would have been an unexcused absence. So any introverts in the company (I think I was the only one) had a fun afternoon killing time, staring at their watches, waiting for the shift to end. Sure I could have sat at one of the crowded tables, but the whole situation pissed me off and it became a matter of principle.
I left the company after only a few months onboard; not for that reason, although it is on my list of grievances.
2 Likes
Bonus points for “worm food”.
1 Like
Who actually likes this kind of shit? Probably the same kind of people who get restaurant staff to sing happy birthday to embarrass the person having a birthday meal.
7 Likes
Just having an anxiety disorder can do it. Being the centre of attention can be a massive trigger, no story other than a screwy brain.
10 Likes
You know, I was feeling like the whole thing had just snowballed out of control, until I got to the part where the guy apologized for having a panic attack. He felt like he had to apologize FOR SOMETHING THEY DID TO HIM. APOLOGIZE! What kind of company did this guy work for, anyway? Apparently they still think it’s the 1950’s when anxious women got put into sanitariums and over active children got a lobotomy. Panic attacks are real, they’re debilitating, and they’re terrifying - there’s a reason they’re called panic attacks, and it’s not because they’re fun to have. Personally, I think it all could have been handled differently - “don’t be a dick” as another commenter said - but the company chose to escalate things and in that case, $450,000 isn’t enough.
9 Likes
Oh god this. I worked at a tech company where the entire culture is created by and for extroverts. Every mandatory-attendance company event involves public speaking, costume contests, improv comedy, community theater and other introvert-worst-nightmares. I explained this problem to them over and over but nobody ever got the message.
14 Likes
Have a Happy Birthday!
That was not a request.
3 Likes
The Computer Management wants you to have a happy birthday. Happiness is mandatory. Failure to be happy is insubordination. Insubordination will be punished with termination.
Is your birthday happy, citizen?
7 Likes
My birthday is not happy, so can you please terminate it?
Seriously though, my real birthday is a PTSD trigger, so when I say I do not want to celebrate it I really do mean it. It is not an invitation for a surprise party, thankfully I pick my friends carefully enough that they understand.
13 Likes
Bringing in the cake for your own birthday in the norm in the UK and Holland (and probably other places this side of the pond).
4 Likes
If you do anything, this is the norm in the UK in my experience. I worked at one place where people did this. Much more places do nothing unless the Birthday Person instigates it.
2 Likes
Interesting! Thanks for sharing that bit of info. Over here, it seemed odd. Or, at least, I hadn’t encountered it before or since.
2 Likes
My work automatically books people’s birthdays off for them if they haven’t already done it themselves. It’s lovely.
9 Likes
One of the advantages of working from home for the last two years is that I no longer have to tolerate forced social interactions in the workplace.
I still take mine off, every year; no matter what, I don’t work on my b-day.
12 Likes
