The Office Birthday or: Why I Hate Forced Socialisation
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- čas přidán 10. 09. 2024
- I’m not against celebrating someone’s birthday. I think it’s nice to wish someone a happy birthday. But what I am against is forced gift-buying and socialisation, especially in the office environment.
I had my first experience of forced gifting during my second stint in Japan. I went over as part of a group of six Australian teachers to represent our city overseas. Each of us were assigned to a separate middle school, so we didn’t actually see each other on a day-to-day basis. However, one of the boys took it upon himself to arrange a weekly social gathering - just with us Australians. It went okay for a couple of months, but slowly as we settled down in Japan, we began to have our own lives.
Girls got boyfriends, boys got girlfriends, and our little social group became a less frequent occurrence. Anyway, the same guy who had originally arranged these groups decided it would be a good idea to celebrate each other’s birthdays. So he went around and found out everyone’s birth date and started planning the first party (which happened to be for the other guy). He asked each of the other members for some money to pay for the party and to buy a gift. I went along with it, as it was our first little party together, so I didn’t want to rock the boat.
But it wasn’t cheap. He asked for ¥5000 from each of us, so like $50 or $60. So in total, he was planning to spend like $300 on this little do ...
This went on for a year until I finally had my “surprise” birthday celebration. The gang had got together and bought me a Japanese boy-band CD - I think the band was called Glay, or something like that ...
The next round of birthdays came around the following year. I already had a steady girlfriend by that time, and had my own social life. I really wasn’t interested in doing this Australian round-robin gift-buying thing anymore ...
In hindsight, I probably should have just gone along with it as our work contracts were only for two years ...
A few years later, I got my first real office job in Brisbane. I was put into a programming team of about 20 individuals ...
Anyway, during my first week on the team, a couple of the ladies came around collecting $5 from each of us to buy something nice for Susie’s birthday. I didn’t want to rock the boat, so I paid ...
The following week, the ladies came round again and asked for another $5 ...
The following week came round, and as seemed to be their custom, the ladies approached me asking for more money. This time, they wanted $10! ...
The next week, a cake was wheeled in - this time a bigger cake ...
Over the following month, a couple of more birthdays occurred. Again, I begrudgingly handed over my $5 ...
Anyway, Jenny’s farewell card came around to be signed by everyone. The person next to me handed it to me to sign. Just as I was getting my pen out, one of the lady’s rushed over, grabbed the card, waved her finger in my face and said, “No, no, no, no. You didn’t contribute, so you’re not allowed to sign the card” ...
After they had finished their cake, Jenny got up to give a speech. I decided to be courteous and go over and listen. The other lady started staring at me and tried to indicate that I should sit back down. I refused, and stayed and listened to Jenny’s speech.
I decided from that day onwards, I’m not going to be coerced into buying people gifts and forced to socialise with people I barely know ...
As I said in other videos, I’m a misanthrope living in plain sight. I don’t get on well with the other humans. I fail to see the purpose of many of these strange customs. I don’t understand why I must purchase a gift for people I barely know. Yeah, it probably ruined my chances of getting any sort of promotion, but quite frankly, I don’t want to work in the corporate environment. I’m happy to muddle my way through life doing odd-jobs here and there, working casually in jobs that don’t require me to deal with large groups of people, and spending my days complaining about it all, here on CZcams.
I’ll finish with a rendition of a scene from Seinfeld. Elaine Benes is in the office, participating in one of these forced birthdays:
“Elaine, cake?”
“Oh, no thanks.”
“It’s Walter’s special day.”
“You know, there are 200 people who work in this office. Every day is somebody's special day!”
Later in Jerry’s apartment…
“What is so bad about having a little piece of cake?”
“It’s the forced socialising! I mean, just because we work in the same office, why do we have to act like we’re friends?”
“Why aren’t you there now?”
“I had to take a sick day I’m so sick of these people!”
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If you have to buy a gift for someone, then it's not a gift
I have never thought of it that way .. but that's true.
This lady planning birthdays reminds me of my high school teacher that made every group hand out at least $20 for a "voluntary donation" just so she could proudly say that the class she handled made the most in donations. When we finally voiced out our concern for the forced donations, she started saying all these things trying to make us little kids feel guilty, well no one was buying it but we kept quiet in due respect of her and the class ended up "donating" around $500. My weekly allowance for food, commute, and school supplies were $10 at the time =_= I wasn't even in a rich class and some of our classmates are on scholarship. Must be one of the things that made me a misanthrope =_=
I am so glad I stumbled on your channel. I relate so much on your videos about misanthrope. Thank you for making these videos. I really appreciate it
I'm so glad!
@@DailyInsightAU just a quick question, did you become a misanthrope after having a family or even before? Because I'm 38 and doesn't see myself as being a mother or a wife because of my misanthropy.
i can relate to this, with some differences. i did not mind the every now and then few bucks given for a colleague in the office (as long as it's not a 50+ office, mine as more like 20-ish), knowing those bucks were collected and given directly to whoever was celebrated. In return, whoever was celebrated bought some snacks, pizza or cake for the rest of the office. It was no burden on anyone's part, nor was it required to contribute.
Where i drew the line though was the "afterwork party" or any group activity ("let's have a city break this Saturday" for example) and i motivated that in no uncertain terms :"it's enough i have to stay with you for a whole day 5 or more days a week, we're getting along fine and we respect eachother, but i'd rather spend my free time with my friends or even alone, if you don't mind" . So i guess it all depends where you're willing to draw the line. For you it was the cake party, for me it was the afterwork party (or the X years high school reunion), for others it may be none of those because , believe it or not, some people enjoy those things.
Although, a few exceptions were made when the manager invited us all to a restaurant, because it was kinda hard to flip her every time :D
Thanks for sharing your experiences. Yeah, you're right -- some people do enjoy these occasions (sometimes too much!).
Uggh so glad i found this video. This is one of the reasons i said bye to the 9 to 5. Just like you i lost $5 every single time there was a birthday, and i had to celebrate my birthday with some douchebags i didn't even like. So happy I don't need to do this anymore
Thank you for this video! Forced socialization in the workplace is counterproductive and downright stupid.
drinking and partying on the job if I were the boss would be frowned upon and even banned as drunk workers mean a lawsuit.
This legit would have made a perfect episode of Curb Your Enthusiasm
I so hate this force socialization. (I've one more thing to say- If you can please make your video available at 144p. Right now its 360 and higher. Mobile data is pretty expensive where I live. Thanks
I've just tried changing the resolution to 144p and it's working for me this end (I'm using a laptop). Can you try again to see if you have it in the option list?
Daily Rant Australia I'll try at my laptop. 144p is not shown in my phone. Anyway, thanks
I'm a misanthrope as i work and when they say your job is in the hands or your co-workers by your boss I quit as i hate drinking and partying on the job.
Jesus, that's like paying taxes lol
Why don´t the company pay for these parties ?
Good question! To be fair, occasionally the company did pay for some parties, but usually to do with visiting business execs, or Christmas parties and the like.
No No No. ...
no more foreplay.
congratulations on life good sir :-)