It’s a greeting card. I find it hard to believe that anyone could call a few glurgy words printed on a folded piece of card stock with a picture of a flower on the front and some forced signatures on the inside to be “a demonstration of humanity, empathy, you know, the good things that humans could be.”
It sounds like some bad cartoon from the eighties. Alien invaders are convinced to spare the planet because some little blond orphan gives them a greeting card containing the best that humanity can be. It reads “Thinking of you on your special day.”
I am firmly in the group of cube dwellers that goes along and signs the card and put a few dollars in for whatever but would greatly prefer if the damn office mothers would stop the practice altogether. Recently this has cut back, thankfully.
I am being intellectual dishonest in most cases by going along with this office silliness. So, I salute you brave souls that are willing to say no to the oppression of the do-gooders and spreaders of glurge.
I really don’t care is Joe Smoe the night operator, who I have never actually met or talked to, mother just passed away. Why on earth would he care if someone he doesn’t know signed his card?
These things should always be voluntary and I am thankful that recently the envelop in the folder with the checklist has mostly stopped going around and now we generally get an Email that if you want to sign the card it is up front with the receptionist. I think this is the best method. If it is someone I care about in some way, I go sign. I probably do this about half the time.
I was once asked to BE the “office mother” (excellent term, btw!) by one of the admins that was leaving. She gave me a list of cards and everything that I was supposed to fetch. Instead of buying a passel of cards, I bought 2 or 3 dozen donuts, printed this out, hung it above the donuts, and she retired shortly thereafter. It’s been sane and card-less ever since. But I’m a bitch that way. I do suppose it’s worth mentioning that the majority of the people I work with have the same sense of humor (or lack thereof) that I do so it’s kind of a win-win…
We actually lost our office mother in April due to downsizing.
Now instead of a b-day card going around for everyone to sign and a large cake for everyone to share there are now cliquey little parties that are only for the guest and the select few to attend and eat cake.
I hear at least once a month the “Happy Birthday to you” song being played out in someones private office. :rolleyes:
Wait, now it sounds like you want it both ways. You want to opt out of cards and not be pressured, but you don’t like friends getting together to do a small Birthday thing? I see a disconnect here.
No, I could give a shit which is also the purpose of my original OP.
My statement was about office mothers, love that term by the way. In some cases they are are a bad thing and in others at least they made the whole office party/card giving crap seemless and voluntary
I’m with the OP on this one–on both the “why should you sign a card for someone you don’t like” and the “quit cornering me about my lack of signing” issues.
If I don’t know you, I’m not signing your card, cuz I don’t know you. If I don’t like you, I’m not signing your card, eating your cake on your birthday, or otherwise participating in anything social involving you. If these are the things that finally make it clear to you that I don’t like you, then you probably haven’t been paying attention anyway.
I am not social at work. I have a few co-workers that I enjoy talking to, and there are people that I know well enough to put their birthdays on my calendar and wish a personal Happy Birthday to. I don’t participate in the potlucks, going away cakes, etc. for people I barely know or like, and I don’t expect or want them to be doing crap for me either.
At my office, we pretty much put the cards at reception, one email letting everyone know, and that’s the end of that. We used to do the envelope with a routing slip, so you could mark off your name after you got the card and make it really obvious who saw but didn’t sign. I still didn’t sign cards of unliked co-workers…I don’t let peer pressure or social shaming inform my actions.
I would think there are just as many people that don’t want to be cornered into stuff in cubes as in offices. In fact I am sure some of the bigger office dwelling people do not even get bothered with volunteer card signing and party donation bullshit.
At least here at my company that has been the case.
Ok, now I understand. I would think the small parties were an improvement though. I would rather spend my lunches playing spades with my friends that at an office function. I enjoy this 45-60 minute diversion every day and I can live without the too sweet cake or overcooked hamburgers or crappy subs from office functions. I don’t miss the silly mass monthly birthday parties we use to have. They still have the type of small Birthday things and I have only been involved in one.
The “Office Mother” thing works great with inflection; it can either be a nice nickname for those that really go the extra mile to care for the office or of course could be sad in a way to be very derogatory with the implied “fuckers”. I generally use it somewhere in between the two extremes.
If I felt strongly enough about someone that wishing them well would be a dishonest act, then I guess I’d take a stand and refuse to sign their card. But for all people I either (a) feel a spark of warmth for, no matter how small or even (b) honest to God don’t give the single smallest shit about, I sign the freaking card. Why? Because it greases the wheels of human interaction and costs me a grand total of five seconds out of my life. I don’t care if not only do I not wish them a speedy recovery from their hemorroidectomy but actually in my tiny black heart I hope it was exceedingly uncomfortable and they have to sit on an inflabable donut for the next six weeks, I still sign the card because that’s the expected thing to do. If I do it, I am only one of many chimining in with rote, possibly insincere but nevertheless nice wishes, while if I don’t, I’m the one who is being petty and small. I prefer to save the bitchy side of my personality for for taking stands over things that actually matter.
The only time I don’t sign cards is if they are riders to gifts that I have not contributed to, since signing makes it seem like I kicked in when I didn’t. And I frequently don’t sign those cards, since I too dislike being strong-armed for the 14th baby shower of any given month. But then I try to drop by and wish the celebrant well in person, so they know I’m not boycotting them or something. And for a card, that someone else purchased and is squiring around? Hell, yes, I sign it. I sign it and then I promptly forget it. No skin off my nose. I’m pretty amazed at the people who would Take A Stand for Anti-Socialism over such a bullshit issue.
I agree with the OP, although I wouldn’t necessarily express myself in the same way. I used to live in Office World and I too became very disenchanted with the whole ‘sign the card / donate to the gift’ phenomenon. I started refusing to have anything to do with these things.
I didn’t believe that I needed to provide any explanation or justification, but if one were asked for, I simply offered the principle of equal reciprocation: there are no circumstnaces under which I would want anyone to sign a card or get a gift for me, not even if I were leaving the job or recovering in hospital or about to undergo open heart surgery. And since I wouldn’t want anyone to do it for me, there’s no reason why I should do it for anyone else.
I was aware then, as I am aware now, that there will always be some voices choosing to characterise this attitude as cold and uncaring. It’s really not the case at all. People who know me wouldn’t describe me as either. I actually saw it the other way around. I’m all for genuine acts of caring and concern. I have less time for easy / instant / trivial imitations of same. I never felt that a scribbled signature indicated a ‘caring’ attitide or anything else. On many occasions I detected more than a whiff of hypocrisy, seeing people sign the ‘Sorry you’re leaving’ card when I knew for a fact the signer and recipient had no time for each other or barely knew each other from the office phone list. I guess after a while I just didn’t want any part of this kind of sham, fake sentiment. If you’re keen to brighten up someone’s time in hospital, fine, go visit and take flowers. Don’t tell me scribbling ‘all the best’ on a mass-produced card indicates ‘caring’ or anything else.
If you don’t want to sign the card for the wretched co-worker then at least sign it for the person who presents it to her.
The person collecting the signatures will feel like a heel if they only get a few people to sign it. It will look like they didn’t put any effort into the gathering of sympathy.
It could actually make the ‘office mother’ feel bad as she presents the card and now you’ve put her in an awkward position.
Just sign the stupid thing.
I like your opinion, an empty gesture is in the end, just an empty gesture.
BTW: Jodi, at its worse we would have 3-5 cards circulating around every week. Signing the card and then finding someone on the list to leave the card with would take longer than 5 seconds. Often it would take 5 to 10 minutes. The damn card was a little like a hot potato, no one really wanted it. Then we would have the every other weekly occurrence of the office mother trying to discover where the card was and asking around and bugging everyone again.
Something finally happened and this was largely stopped in our office. I think the remaining office mothers finally got the hint, that their effort really wasn’t universally well received and liked. I prefer the method used today. One or two Emails that so and so loss their Mom and the card is up front. I participate rarely and never for uncles, cousins, pets, etc. I believe everyone is happy with the new rational system except maybe the office mothers. The last get well I bothered with was actually for one of the Office Mothers that was getting knee surgery; I sincerely hoped she would feel better soon and get through her painful recovery. I went ahead, signed, and contributed. Someone else in the plant I did not know got similar surgery in nearly the same week and I just passed on it, as I really did not know the person at all.
I think most offices would work better without these cards flying about.
Oh noes! 5 to 10 minutes? How do you cope? Besides, I honestly don’t see how it could possibly take that long. IMO, being asked to sign the card doesn’t make you responsible for it to the extent of “finding someone on the list to leave the card with.” You go to the office of the next person and you drop the card on his/her chair or in his/her in-box. IMO, the responsibility for making sure the card actually circulates promptly falls to whomever decided to start it aroudn. IOW, not you.
“Have you seen Joe’s birthday card?”
“I left it on Bob’s chair.” Or, possibly: “No.”
It’s obvious that different people are bugged to different degrees by the issue. Which, y’know, fine. But to me, it is the smallest of small potatoes and frankly a great example of the axiom that everybody has to be pissed off about something.
I know it is hard to believe, but it really would take 5-10 minutes to find someone in that had not already signed the card. IT & Finance were at the end of the line. Sometimes, I did just give up a return it to the office mother, but we were expected to try and find someone else not yet signed off. It sound like your office either worked better than mine did or you put up with less BS. As far as pissed off, I was annoy by it and I like the fact the tradition has ended, but I personally, never cared enough to be pissed off.
I could care less about you fucking Office Moms. Did you get me a card when I was out for 6 months because I hurt my back at work? No. I only had to have 5 1/2 months of physical therapy, so I can see how my absence may have slipped your mind.
Did you remember to get me a card when my Grandmother died? No. I guess you overlooked the memo that I sent informing you that I’d had a death in my family. After all, she was only in a coma for a month before we followed her last wish, and shut off her life support.
Did you scurry around the office, like the mumbling, stuttering idiot that you are, taking up a collection for the east coast Sales Rep, who’s dog died? Yes, you sure did! And how did you defend this bold move? “Well, he had the dog for a long time”.
Just fucking beautiful.
On a side note, those of you expressing outrage because a stupid fucking card wasn’t signed might want to consider the ratio of pretentious assholes here to those folks who’ve noticed that this board seems to be going downhill lately.
It was employee A that bought the card, it was her idea to give sympathy, not mine.
The fact the she opened up the floor to allow others to sign I have no problem with, the fact that she got a lack of signatures says something either about the person who bought the card and suggested others sign it or against the person receiving the card or perhaps both. If the lack of signatures embarrassed her then just buy another card and send it as a sole sympathy.
This person is not an office mother no does she play one on TV. She was just one person that had the idea to send her employee a get well card. Fine, do so but don’t drag the rest of us in on it. Sure I think it is nice she offered but she should not flag people down.
The plain fact is I did not like being cornered to sign it. I was offered and quietly declined by not going in her office to sign it. I did not forget. If she thought people forgot then a second email as a reminder would have been sufficient.
The person I am talking about in the OP also had a going away party of sorts. I did not sign that card, I did not contribute to her gift and I did not eat her cake, and you know what, no one cornered me about any of the three.
