How does your office do birthdays?

[Free4Life11]

We just spent over an hour figuring out (aka arguing) how to do birthdays this year...

Anyways we decided we will celebrate birthdays on a monthly basis by going out to eat. Everyone will contribute $3 per month into a fund to be used to purchase lunch for whoevers birthday we are celebrating. You have to commit to contributing every month or not participating at all. Company will cover cake/ice cream. If you are fired or quit, you can come back during your birthday month to receive your free lunch, provided you have contributed your $3 per month up until the month you leave.

How does your office do it?

 

[glitterkittyy]

We have game day, which is so much fun. We play a different game (pictionary, malarkey, taboo, etc) and spend an hour and a half laughing until our faces hurt. We generally order pizza (everyone chips in $3-5) and different people bring drinks and desserts each time. It's the best office birthday parties EVAH!

 

[MontanaZoo]

We just spent over an hour figuring out (aka arguing) how to do birthdays this year...

Anyways we decided we will celebrate birthdays on a monthly basis by going out to eat. Everyone will contribute $3 per month into a fund to be used to purchase lunch for whoevers birthday we are celebrating. You have to commit to contributing every month or not participating at all. Company will cover cake/ice cream. If you are fired or quit, you can come back during your birthday month to receive your free lunch, provided you have contributed your $3 per month up until the month you leave.

How does your office do it?

I telecommute now so birthdays are a non-issue, thank goodness.

When I worked at a university before, they would have the institutionalized monthly birthday. We all hated it. I'm glad it's working for your office though.

 

[WDWRocksMySocks]

I'm in a department thats at a university. My supervisor will bring in a cake of choice for each birthday. One guy doesn't do sweets, so we did a nacho bar type thing for him.

 

[merekc]

JMO, not a criticism, do what works for all of you.

I'm now a SAHM, however, in my past life...we had a once a month cake brought in to celebrate all the birthdays within the month (paid by company).

$3 a month is $36 a year. Add to that all the meals you are paying for (that appear to be at good restaurants if you are eating $36 meals) and you are spending a fortune celebrating your office birthdays.

I personally wouldn't want to spend that much money on this. If you only have 2 or 3 people in the office no big deal. But if you have 10 people (or more) you are spending several hundred dollars a year to attend all these monthly birthday lunches.

Not to mention, if you quit or get fired, I doubt you will come back to participate in lunch.

ETA: Has anyone discussed how to handle if all the birthdays fall early in the year, yet you are planning to pay money each month. Will the money work out to cover the lunches as they come? KWIM?

Hope it all works out for you.

 

[PatsMom]

We used to do a cake that the company paid for. But it just got to be too much trouble - no one wanted to be in charge of ordering the cake, etc. So now we have no "official" rule. There is a group of about 4 of us that take each other out to lunch on a birthday. No place expensive, just a Panera Bread kind of thing.

 

[ChrizJen]

We have a secret santa each year at Christmas time, and if you participate in that, then the person you had for secret santa is the person you bring a cake for on their birthday. It works well here.

 

[merekc]

We have game day, which is so much fun. We play a different game (pictionary, malarkey, taboo, etc) and spend an hour and a half laughing until our faces hurt. We generally order pizza (everyone chips in $3-5) and different people bring drinks and desserts each time. It's the best office birthday parties EVAH!

I like this idea if you want lunch. Each month order in pizza, subs, etc. and everyone chip in their $5. Good luck!

 

[Northstar]

Wow. Your workplaces do birthdays?

We completely ignore birthdays at my workplace. I have no idea when my coworkers' birthdays are, or how many of them they have celebrated.

 

[puffkin]

Currently my company doesn't do anything for birthdays.

At my old job (large corporation) my department had a birthday club. $2 a month dues. Usually in the middle of the month we celebrated all the birthdays for the month with some kind of treat (usually the birthday people picked out what they wanted so it wasn't always cake). We did everything from ice cream sundaes, pies, cookie platters, cake etc. I always picked ice cream cake since I was the only March birthday. We also got a card signed by everyone. Milestone birthdays (30, 40, 50 etc) also got cube/office decorations. We always had a fun activity/game planned too, so it was also a chance for department bonding.

 

[Quiksilvr]

My colleagues are oblivious to birthdays. No one does anything.

I don't know if that's true amongst the staff. Perhaps they do something, but I would have no way of knowing. Every once in a while I see a birthday cake floating around the secretaries, but I am oblivious generally.

Back in my pre-lawyering days, I worked for a company that gave you your birthday off as an extra personal day and gave you like $50. It was pretty sweet.

 

[SC Minnie]

There are only 9 in my dept and until about 5 years ago there was only 3. When we only had 3 we didn't do anything. Last year one of the ladies decided to bring in a cake that she made for one of the other ladies birthday. We also got a card and put up a Happy Birthday banner on cube. We have been doing that ever since. Our dept budget got slashed this year so there is no way they would pay for cakes.

 

[Youarehere]

We do it by unit- We each have to bring the treat of choice for the person whose birthday is right before ours. And we sign a card. Then we eat said treat at our desks while making sure to keep busy. It's not much different than any other night except that someone puts a treat at our desk.

 

[Darsa]

We don't celebrate at our office, which is A-OK with me, since instead they give us each a free paid personal day off for our birthday

Oh, and a card

 

[Missy1961]

We don't do anything. I used to bake for the birthday person & have everyone sign a card, but that was when we had about 10 people in the group. Now we have about 30, and I don't know all of them.

 

[roliepolieoliefan]

We have everyone's name and birthday listed. The person who has the birthday before you, buys the cake or whatever you want.

I had a cake for my birthday. The person after me, I buy for. She wanted a veggie tray and cookies, I brought those in. Then she will buy for the next person and so on. Works pretty well.

 

[cheermom1]

the owner of our company stops on his way in to work that day of the person in question's b-day and get a the cake they like and we all have cake for about 30min. in mid. morn. and we sing happy birthday. he is so sweet, I have a great boss.

 

[Youarehere]

We have everyone's name and birthday listed. The person who has the birthday before you, buys the cake or whatever you want.

I had a cake for my birthday. The person after me, I buy for. She wanted a veggie tray and cookies, I brought those in. Then she will buy for the next person and so on. Works pretty well.

Do you work with me? Are you in CT?

 

[Praying Colonel]

Our office has a monthly birthday celebration for everyone who's born that month. We sing Happy Birthday and have cake/ice cream/soft drinks.

We have 6 different divisions in our office, and the divisions rotate providing refreshments, so each division provides refreshments 2 times/year.

 

[dalt01]

funny i would run across this, yesterday was mine, i told the GM last week not to get a cake with my name on it as that is the norm. he said ok. then we come to find out that the sales mgr, who was not working in this store last year, has the same b-day. the GM says it would look funny to get him a cake and not me so he asked me to relent. i told him why not just get one cake with both names. HAPPY BIRTHDAY JEFF & DALTON. so that is what we did.................................. the cake came HAPPY BIRTHDAY "JESS" & DALTON. ........................................ we ate it anyway