Try as I may, I can’t parse this in a way that yields any meaning.
You don’t see any irony in this given the obvious bitterness in your post leading up to this?
You know I could care less if I get anything from my co-workers and in fact in the fifteen years I have worked here I have never gotten a card or a cake. Years ago my boss uesd to get me a card and take me out to lunch but that stopped once I was no longer her sole employee. I guess she could not afford to buy cards and lunch for everyone. I can understand that and didn’t rage against it.
I don’t want the fluff anyway and I don’t think any of them even know when my birthday is as I don’t know when theirs are.
I just want to do my job. I am not here to make friends. I have seen way to many people come and go and I have never spoke to any of them outside the office except perhaps one or two times as special circumstances.
I am not sure what this means.
Are you saying that non-card signing assholes are bringing down the board? That card signing people are raging which is causing the bringing down of the board? Or threads like this are bringing down the board?
Just making an observation that a recent thread bemoaning the board’s downhill trend could ostensibly be attributed to an increase of pretentious assholes.
Point obviously poorly made by myself; I apologize.
(runs off to Hallmark store for an I’m Sorry card, with cute kittens on it)
Assuming the existence of some “downhill trend” – which is BS, IMO – it could just as easily be attributed to an increase in the number of small-minded angry people who keep score as to the type and quality of sympathy received and who call others “pretentious assholes” for disagreeing with their bitter little POV. Right?
SomeUserName, I am totally with you on this one, except for the fact that you gave in and signed.
I believe the proper response would be to hand the card back (unsigned) and say, “No, I didn’t forget”.
Or, to be a little creative, why not buy a signature stamp to keep on hand for the next similar situation? Nothing says “I care” like a signature stamp!!
Your right I should not have but I guess I am just to much of a whimp.
I am ordering that signature stamp!
I used to work with a guy that would always put “BITE ME!” and his name on any card presented to him for signing. The occasion wouldn’t matter – birth, death, accidental dismemberment – he just wished for people to bite him.
And then go away.
I’m with **Jodi ** on this one, your post just made you sound bitter and then to top it off, because some people disagree with you, you lashed out at the board.
I don’t care if I get a card or not, I just found the whole process vaguely annoying and dishonest. I also think in the ops case, the spreader of the card just wanted to feel good about herself, the card failed to get signatures and so she used office etiquette to intimidate poor innocent cube dwellers into making her look good.
We had a lady pass away here last year, that many of actively disliked. However she was beloved of the HR directer and the two resident “Office Mothers”. When the card did not gather sufficient signatures to meet their expectations, they actually went around to get more. Like the Op, I fell to the hammer of office etiquette and signed the card for a person I did not like. While I was not glad she died, I was glad she was gone from the office. I would have preferred a retirement card and I would have preferred not to sign that either.
Jim
Do they have a license for public performance of “Happy Birthday”? You should report them to ASCAP! Dirty criminal copyright infringers!
I don’t.
If the office throws a small party for all employees in honor of so-and-so… come if you want, don’t if you don’t. That’s fine.
If a clique of employees is having a private party at work, they should be working just like everyone else- not having a party.
Party pooper! Reporting them to ASCAP indeed.
I see your point about the private party, but I did not think that was what SomeUserName was complaining about there. I honestly still would not care if they wasted a whole 15 minutes of the company’s time, but that is why I am not a Director or VP and living in my cube.
In these parts the Office Mom is the same lady who fills up the Community Candy Jar. When she requests your signature on a card (which, btw, she’s purchased out of her own pocket) or your presence to sing “Happy Birthday” to MaryLee, then by God and all that is holy, you show up and you sing. Enthusiastically.
I have immunity; I am the container of pretzel rods guy. The local candy jar people are like-minded about the cards being more of a nuisance than anything nice. Maybe math-oriented people are less into these things. My area of the office is IT, Finance & Engineering. Nah, that can’t be it, one of the “Office Mothers” is also our AR & Payroll person. Actually, both “Office Mothers” are the vocally active “Church Ladies”. It took some convincing that people would be happier with a more laid-back system. Maybe there is no rhyme or reason to this.
**What are the “Office Mothers” like in everyone else’s workplaces? **
Jim
Fair enough. Again, you’re right that you shouldn’t have been pressured into signing the card. It just seems to me like the thing to do, for reasons I’ve already outlined. If the arguments in this thread haven’t convinced you, I can’t offer anything else. I do apologize for the egregious troll-calling.
Are you serious? It takes Mother Teresa not to want people to suffer complications from dangerous surgery just because they annoy you? Fuck me, I must be a regular saint after all. Last year, a particularly bitchy old coworker of mine was forced to quit due to complications from terminal cancer, and I felt sympathy for her and wished her the best. Where’s my damned halo already?
Now, if she’d been out with a cold, my relief at not having to deal with her for the day might have overwhelmed my sympathy for her sniffles. But you can honestly say that anything that keeps people you don’t like away from your presence is a-okay with you? And I’m the one who’s lost perspective? My position is simply that there’s a difference between disliking someone and hoping that they die. After full disclosure, it seems SomeUserName would agree with me on at least that much. If you honestly believe what you just said – though, if you were to think about it, I really don’t think you would – then instead of labelling our respective attitudes “saint” and “normal person”, I’d go with “normal person” and “antisocial dick”.
I know the OP doesn’t want this woman to die. I know that, when she was asked to sign the card, her refusal was nothing more than a moral stand against the injustice of requests for interoffice card-signing in general – this particular request just being the straw that broke the camel’s back – and it should in no way be interpreted as a comment on the worthiness or message of that particular card. I know this for the same reason you know it: the OP explained it to us in detail. For the outside observer, though, that’s a bit much to expect them to infer, don’t you think?
My point here is that, by pointedly refusing to take the simple action of signing a card, you’re clearly implying that you don’t give a fuck about the card’s intended purpose. If that purpose happens to be “Hope you don’t die,” then yeah, actively refusing to attach your name to that is pretty much going to be taken as a dismissal of that person’s existence, regardless of any unannounced ulterior motives you may have.
To the folks asking why you’d want a card signed by people who don’t actually like you, well, I probably wouldn’t. First of all, even if I had undergone major surgery, I wouldn’t really want or expect a card in the first place…I don’t care about cards. If I were to receive one, and it didn’t have everyone’s signature on it, I wouldn’t care about that, either. But, if someone did get me a card and collect signatures for it, and someone with whom I’d had a few office tiffs was approached to endorse his lack of desire for me to suffer, and pointedly refused to do so…then yeah, I’d be a little bothered by that. Who knows; maybe I’m just overly sensitive (those of you who know me in real life may commence with the laughter at that notion), but that’s where I’m coming from.
My office mother at job before this one would push for a dept lunch every other month, where everyone would pick something to bring in. A sheet would be passed with items, you’d pick an item by putting your name by it. I was working there 3 months and I was put in charge of organizing it, so I had to pass the sheet around and waste time by making sure everything was picked, and then reminding everyone three days and one day beforehand about what they said they’d bring.
And still people forgot. :mad: I foolishy picked the most expensive item on the list - lunchmeat, and bought plenty, hoping to take leftovers home. Well with so many people not bringing items in - no leftovers. People who didn’t sign up for an item, saying they didn’t wish to participate, even ate to their hearts content. :mad: From that day forward, when the lunch sheet came around, I passed on it, and would bring my own lunch in that day, or eat in the cafeteria. I see how the game is played, and I want no part of you tards.
Oh the cards would come around too, and I would blindy sign at first. Even the upper manager I really REALLY disliked who weaseled me out of paying me my raise as promised. When her mother passed away I paused for about 15 seconds thinking “I dont want to sign anything to her - but damn I lost my mom too, and Mom would be ashamed of me if I didnt sign” I was weak, what can I say?
The bullshit though is that after I was there year and a half - as a temp with no medical insurance - I had to have gall bladder surgery. We had to pay the surgeon up front BEFOREHAND, and we are still paying the hospital and will be for years to come. Needless to say, cash was and is still tight. I was out for 6 days, with no pay. No card was sent around wishing me to get well. Fine, I didn’t need a card, I needed pain killers. 
Well 8 months later, cow-orker across from me is on a camping trip - her first morning unpacking the Jeep, she falls over some tent equipment and breaks her ankle. She was in a wheelchair for six weeks - leg was casted unbent - sticking straight out in front of her and she’d hit her desk 100 times a day, I felt so bad for her. She was also a temp. No medical insurance, no pay for the time being out. Manager (same manager as mine when I was out for my surgery) decides to email everyone taking up a collection for the poor lady, “she’s a single mother and she’ll need the help.”
Now, I didn’t expect a collection to be taken up for me - but if you’re going to do it for one, why not all? I responded to her email request for donations with “Gosh, I’d love to help her out, I know all too well what she’s going through. But funds are tight since my own surgery earlier this year, and I don’t think I can contribute.” Made manager feel like shit, she apologized profusely said she forgot ALL about me. I told her she wasnt obligated to anything at all for me, there was no reason to apologize. I definitely stopped signing and donating anything after that point.
Yes, but did you sign the card? :dubious:
Well, one of them is the candy jar lady and she’s sincerely sweet and sincerely cares about everyone. If she ever croaks (God forbid), I’m going to put an immediate short on Hallmark stock. Good thing she’d be dead because I don’t think anyone else would take it upon themselves to run to Hallmark and buy a card and pass it around. Though we’d we’d all attend her funeral and weep real tears. Not sure what that says about us.
Another Office Mother is the lady who replaced me in a former department. I can’t figure her out. Either she’s honestly sweeter than freshly spun sugar (which is an expression she’d use) and is constantly doing nice things for everyone else OR she is schmoozing everyone so that they don’t realize how embarrassingly incompetence she is…
I remember when I started my job in one department. One of the managers came over and told me that her co-worker was having a birthday and would I organize passing around a card for everyone to sign? I asked how old he was and she said something like 47. I told her to come back to me when he was 50 and I’d consider doing it but that I didn’t want to start a trend that would only add work for me and ultimately cause hard feelings when someone was inadvertently overlooked. I’m sure she thought I was a bitch. Maybe I should have started a candy jar…
Well, presumably the card wasn’t for her, exactly, right? She wasn’t in any condition to read it, after all…
This is the problem we now have in our department. We lost our “Office Mother” which as you pointed out earlier and I agree that calling her that is derogatory.
She made sure all parties were equal and did not corner anyone to participate.
I want to add that the person I mentioned in my OP did have a going away party of sorts, she was not really leaving, just working from home. I did not sign her card, donate to her gift, eat her cake or even attend the event. I was not pressured to do so.
We have no “Office Mother”. We do have several people who try and rally (read: badger) the troops to participate in major office parties and peoples personal events such as baby showers. These are the same people that schedule private clique parties. Which only alienates the department. These mothers’ do not give everyone a birthday party.
In other words I have to be badgered and cornered for signatures and donations for “important” events, but I am not invited to “private” parties. It is not just me either. There seems to be a group that consist of five or six woman that take turns hosting the private parties. Happy B-Day singing and just enough cake for the “guests”.
Ohh sometimes if it has been three hours they might lay the leftovers out for the rest of us to eat. Yeah, no thanks. Those Office Mothers are treating their peers as pee ons and I will be damned if I am going to help them when they want to schedule a major office event.
The only thing I do anymore is make a dish for company wide parties such as the company picnic or Halloween party.
The person cornering people about the card in my OP was not even an imitation office mother. She was the boss of the employee.