It’s part of a slight pattern. Some people are just bolder than others, and she’s someone who comes across as very confident in her own opinion/self-importance. But within normal boundaries, though definitely pushing them sometimes. Unfounded arrogance really bothers me, and she does edge in that direction, which is also a factor in why I was more taken aback than I should have been by her birthday announcement.
That’s a very good point, although I think this is one of those “you had to be there” situations to understand. We don’t play favorites at the office; everyone works together unusually cooperatively - there is none of the backbiting or gossiping I’ve seen other places I’ve worked. The person whose birthday we recognized has battled a lot of illness and injuries and yet has done an insanely great job of building an amazing children’s program from scratch. Given the daily struggles she faces, we all just wanted to brighten her day (it wasn’t planned at all - I think each one of us who did something for her didn’t know that anyone else was going to).
Ah. That makes sense then, especially with your history with your mom.
I’d probably be passive aggressive. “Forget” that it’s her birthday, and when she mentions it, say, “oh, right, today is your birthday! Happy birthday.” And then move on. I’m not saying that’s the best way to handle the situation, but it’s what i would probably do.
I’ve spent much of my career in jobs where many meetings have some “personal/get to know each other” component. I detest such things, but my skin has become sufficiently toughened that I minimally participate and otherwise ignore it (and such crap isn’t that much more of a time waste than the rest of most meetings’ subject matter!). There also was one office where they celebrated EVERY person’s birthday, baby, Tuesday… Not my style.
As I see it, the assistant was either misreading the room (in 4 months, hasn’t she noticed the lack of birthday celebrations?), or she was trying to just be personal - in a clueless manner just making her presence known, and injecting some personal interaction. Depending on your relationship with her, I’d see the options as either ignoring her announcement, or privately telling her that your workplace does not publicly celebrate/acknowledge birthdays and mentioning her birthday might be viewed by others as unprofessional. But it really is not a big deal or any different fro a cow-orker bringing up any other personal matter in the mistaken belief that their cow-orkers care.
I think it IS the best way to handle it. @Wendell_Wagner 's idea might be good in some situations but since we don’t generally celebrate birthdays, I don’t want to set that precedent.
(In case anyone is wondering how we all just happened to know it was that other person’s birthday, she is close personal friends with someone else in the office. That person mentioned it to the rest of us, probably thinking we’d just say “happy birthday” and that would brighten her day.)
My perspective, it was an off the cuff comment in reply to the question any announcements. That the next meeting date was her birthday and she announced it.
I wouldn’t even call it unprofessional or inappropriate, it was just a remark about the date. Okay so she’s a bit of a pushy personality and in my mind I’d say who fucking cares, and it’s sounds like in the moment you said something similar but more civilized. You’re good here do nothing else for the birthday.
Now if she announced the date was for her colonic cleanse or a sobriety chit, that’d get the stink eye.
Get her a cheap drinking set and leave the price tag on it, along with the bottle. Then ask if she wants to do shots at the board meeting since its her birthday after all.
I spent 5 awful years working at a regional office of a national non-profit organization, with 5 divisions under us. Our chapter’s Executive Director had an ego the size of Cleveland. She expected to be fawned over, showered with gifts and cards on her birthday, and woe be it to anyone who forgot. I vividly recall seeing people with panic in their eyes running to their cars, heading for the nearest Hallmark store. This woman was in her 40s, but some people never grow up, and she could be quite vindictive.
Getting back to the original OP: GIve this naive young person a break. Sure, it was an inappropriate thing to bring up, but hardly something to be horrified over days later. I’m sure everyone else forgot about it by the end of the day, if not sooner.
It’s probably not what I’d do if i were annoyed, but i think it’s the best course of action. At the start of the next meeting, mention, “and today is Jane’s birthday. Happy birthday, Jane. The first item on our agenda is …”
It would take no more than 30 seconds, make her feel appreciated, and doesn’t start a tradition you need to do anything about.
At my current workplace managers get an alert from the HRIS system of upcoming birthdays on the team. I asked not to be included in any recognition of my birthday but that was shot down by my boss’ boss. “That’s our culture here”. So it is fully institutionalized here.
Worse, she announced to the whole team on the Monday standup that I didn’t want people making a big fuss over my birthday, which was today. Predictably the team made a big deal about either my birthday or about me being a stick in the mud.
This is a global company with hundreds of thousands of employees. My boss’ boss’ comp package is in seven digits.
Given the toxicity of some people’s “look at MEEE!!! Pay attention to MEEE!" behavior*, a birthday announcement seems like a relatively benign manifestation.
My brother’s old supervisor was like a master of birthday celebrations. She had mastered knowing everyone’s birthday, their children’s birthdays, their favorite cakes, and would organize parties so lavish that people from all over the organization would show up to eat and drink.
When my brother would meet with people from other units, they would say, oh yeah, your unit is the one with those fantastic parties.
Well, after the supervisor left, my brother got the job and he was like “first of all, no way am I going to be able to put in the work to re-create my predecessor’s parties.” “Second of all, this is work and these are all grownups; I don’t care about my own birthday; I barely care about my 15-year-old son’s birthday; I certainly don’t care about the birthdays of people at work.”
(My family has always been very low key about birthdays. We like send a text message. I have several very close friends; I have only a vague idea when their birthdays are. Fall, I think?)
So one of his first acts as manager was to cancel birthday parties. Boy, did he get blowback. Eventually I think the compromise was “okay, you can have your birthday parties. Just don’t make me do anything.”
There’s a lot of movement of employees from being assigned from one office to another where I work. Some offices have a tradition of having people sign a birthday card and some don’t. Some offices have gone back and forth between doing birthday cards. A few times I saw some of them putting a birthday balloon on the person’s desk. One thing that was important was that if there was any net difference in the cost of items going between managers and their employees, it should go from manager to employee. No manager can ever put their employees in a situation where their employees are giving them expensive gifts.
The employee’s behavior wouldn’t excite any commentary anywhere I’ve worked. Even if it did, your reaction seems to be disproportionate and yeah, I agree that the intensity is likely related to your own experience.
Is it typical at the end of a board meeting to announce the date of the next one?
That is, if she had simply said, “Yes, I do. December 2nd is our next board meeting,” would anyone have found it odd or unusual?
Because one possible interpretation that occurs to me is that she might have just been announcing the date of the next meeting, but it jumped out at her that that date was her birthday, so she added something along the lines of “…oh! and that happens to be my birthday!” or “…which is a significant date because it’s my birthday.” I can imagine “so I want you all to know that it’s my birthday” being said jokingly, in a tone of mock self-importance.
Whether that’s a reasonable interpretation or not probably depends on the way she said it, which I wasn’t there to observe.
I can actually see myself doing something like what your assistant did. My motivation would likely just be a nervous desire to fit in at a new job though and hopefully that would be obvious.
But if you don’t care for her all that much anyway, I can see how this would be just one more thing about her that irritates you.
Personally, I’ve always enjoyed birthday things at work though. I was the one in charge of keeping the birthday list up to date and arranging the cake and card. I really love cake. Eventually, our numbers expanded and we went to a monthly celebration.
She’s not a naive young person; she’s in her 40s, has a pretty solid work history, and isn’t naive in the least. If she were quite young, I’d have just chalked it up to youthful enthusiasm/inexperience.
No. They are at the same day, time, and place every month.
I figured what was said upthread: that it was something from her last place of employment’s work culture or something like that. But, yeah, after four months you’d think she’d notice nobody has been announcing birthdays at board meetings.
Eh, I’d just chalk it up to momentary stupidity or cluelessness. You reply, I think, more than sent the message. But, who knows, if she’s really that clueless she might have missed the bite in it. Lots of clueless folks in this world; best for me to avoid wasting mental/emotionally energy on them as best I can and just chalk them up as just quirky.