The Office Birthday Bash

The suspense was over this afternoon. And I’m referring to my birthday treat that my colleagues were supposed to have planned for me as intimated in a previous blog piece.

But it arrived in the form of a full-fledged lunch, complete with sandwiches, cookies, salad, desserts, and to crown it all, a carrot birthday cake, my favorite kind of cake. Lest you think my colleagues would actually go to this length to celebrate my birthday, let me set the record straight: there were nine birthday cards on the table, and only one had my name written over it.

That’s the result of grouping individual birthdays every 2 months or so, which I happen to think is a more efficient use of office/lunch time.

Oh, the food galore is in appreciation of each and everyone in the office for his/her efforts in meeting the clients’ needs. After all, it’s the humanware, the peopleware, that makes the world turn, so to speak, as exemplified by my firm’s mantra: Creative People, Practical Solutions.

The highlight of the birthday bash, aside from the great food, was the birthday card, for the birthday boys and girls of course.

Mine spots a fleet of air balloons with gondolas soaring through the air. It can mean freely roaming and exploring, and looking at the bigger picture from a vantage position. It can also mean the sky is the limit, elevating one’s potential the best way one can. More important perhaps, this is not done alone as others are realizing their potentials in the same unbridled way, mutually supporting each other and at the same time, engaging each other in a healthy competition so as to aspire to greater heights.

Comparatively, my birthday card is more “serious” in tone, possibly because of my status of being “chronologically challenged”, to use a politically correct term. I know that because I have signed the cards for my younger fellow colleagues and some are decidedly hilarious, bordering even on the outrageous. But all are received in good fun.

More telling are the words of wisdom/good-natured criticisms dispensed as contained on the inside of the card. In a way, it is a collective view of one’s colleagues as regards the person concerned, one which they feel comfortable putting down in writing and which they reckon will not backfire.

Again, those words seem more restrained on my card, some are curtly inscribed, not unlike some that I’ve written myself. But I’ve to grant that it’s colorful, no inhibition as to the choice of color to write with.

And they are right on with the message:

If all of the wishes on all of the birthdays [53 and counting] you’ve had so far came true – They couldn’t bring more happiness than those we wish for you!

Thanks guys. You sure make my day with your camaraderie.