When I was in medical school, several students in my class hired a stripper to interrupt a gross anatomy lecture and do a happy birthday routine for one of our classmates. Quite a prolonged shitstorm followed.
So … What happened ?
Nothing yet. We haven’t had our next board meeting. I see I said “December 2” in my OP but that was a mix-up. It will be December 17.
D’oh !
Oh, man, now we have to wait 2 more weeks!
I’m sorry! I don’t know where the “December 2” came from.
My guess is that it will be a nothingburger - I’d almost completely forgotten about this thread already and most people cared less than I did to begin with, I think. But I’ll be glad to report, if I remember. (And if I don’t maybe someone will remind me.)
Well, not to be anticlimactic, but the story concludes in a boring way.
Having vented my outrage here, I completely forgot the entire matter. I was then mulling over how we use her time (she’s only committed to 40 hours/month, which isn’t much) and realized that having her attend every single board meeting is probably not necessary. So, I suggested to her that she didn’t have to go all the time, a proposition she agreed to with alacrity. We agreed she wouldn’t need to attend yesterday’s meeting.
I did remember yesterday morning that it was her birthday, and I sent her an email with birthday wishes. Later, we held our board meeting; pretty clearly no one else had given the matter a second thought.
I’m completely sympathetic to the OP, who describes their outrage as unreasonable, asks to be talked down, and, significantly, chose MPSIMS as the posting venue.
I think the Birthday Girl was being cringeworthy in her attention-getting ploy, and in the grand scheme of things this probably rates a 2. I suggest her punishment should be that several people roll their eyes, and some people note each other’s eyerolls approvingly.
Somebody big in my life has, to my way of thinking, wildly overblown and inappropriate expectations as to how her birthday should be celebrated. She expects multiple family members to spend days traveling to destination birthday parties. A few years ago she gave me a list of 18 things she expected to happen on her birthday over a several day trip, including multiple restaurant meals, a formal group picture, several museum tours, a walking tour, visiting several outdoor historical sights, and a parade. I have to grant that the parade was a public commemorative event that was already planned, not a parade for her, and she only expected everybody to watch with her. But still.
This is such a painful misadventure every year that I dread it (I’m really introverted and hate trying to be the life of the party, or act as master of ceremonies). And, it makes me try to minimize my own birthday. I’m not asking for ANYTHING. If they ask me what I want, I say it’d be nice if they took me out to dinner. That’s it. I’m embarrassed about her over the top birthday expectations.
So, I could probably use some talking down, myself, if somebody I work with made their own birthday an item during the Announcements agenda section.
Holy shit!
I like birthday celebrations. I even ask my family to do stuff for my birthday. This year was somewhat typical. I asked my husband to bake me a cake, and take me out to a restaurant for dinner. If my daughter hadn’t been working then, i probably would have asked her to come to dinner, too. And…that actually seems like a lot, and i asked my husband this year if he wanted to stop the cake thing.
I can’t even imagine a multi-day destination birthday party. I mean, how many family members are there? So you spend all your vacation time on birthdays?
I just want to give you affirmation that your discomfort with this is totally okay.
Only one princess allowed per family.
I have never heard of or met anyone who even wanted to have a destination birthday party. Even wanting to have a birthday party for yourself at a local restaurant would be considered barely acceptable (and not common) and only friends from outside of work would be invited. A lot of the people who did get invited and would say to the birthday person, “Well, happy birthday, but I can’t make it.” Even the ones who came wouldn’t have to bring a present. Saying a month in advance when your birthday is hardly compares to that.
I’ve been to several decade birthday parties for friends. One was advertised as a “120th birthday party”, because it was jointly thrown by 4 women all turning 30 within 2 weeks of each other. Another was a contra dance for a room full of people, paid for and organized by the birthday boy.
Gifts have either been discouraged or small (chocolate).
I think they are fun. I’ve never felt i had to attend. But i would think it weird for an adult to have an “I’m turning 43” birthday party for anyone other than their immediate family.
Because I had to look this up, it’s a kind of folk dancing.
… so maybe she was hoping to skip it, but that someone else would suggest it !
You may be onto something. It’s not how I would have handled it - in her shoes, I would have just said, “Is it okay if I don’t attend the next board meeting? It’s my birthday, and I’d like to make plans with my family.” I think she knows that, and she’s also not a shrinking violet by any means, so I’m pretty sure her birthday announcement wasn’t entirely motivated by the hopes that someone would let her off the hook. But it might have been a factor for sure.
@Napier - as @puzzlegal says, HOLY SHIT. I hope this person has more reasonable expectations about life the rest of the year and is only irrational about birthdays. Gawd help everyone in her orbit if that is her M.O. all the time.
No. She’s the only one like this in the family. Like @Mighty_Mouse says, one princess per family.
Well, I think birthdays are one of the things she’s worst about. But we could use some help from gawd about a few of the other things, too. For example, how many medical staff does it take to get through drawing blood for a test? How many times do you complain to the restaurant and ask to be given a different table (3 is her record so far)? There was one time four of us went out to dinner, she gave the waiter a very difficult time, and I left the table and went to find the waiter and apologized to them. Come to find out later that both the other people there independently went off and did the same thing.
I appreciate the compassion! And may I just say the temptation to further hijack this thread is just awful…
The moral of the sake set story is…always (accidentally) include a price tag, preferably from a high-end vendor, with your gift. If you don’t have one, someone with an internet search and Photoshop can probably provide it.
Conversely, if you get a gift with a high-end price tag (accidentally) included, be suspicious.
Of course OPs don’t control threads, but with the full authority invested in me by the Straight Dope Powers That Be (which is to say, none at all), I strongly encourage this hijack. It sounds like you have much to share.
Seconded.