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.

Birthday Rambling

Today, Feb 26, is my birthday. Early in the morning my wife said happy birthday to me. And last night my brother-in-law called to wish me the same as it was already Feb 26 in Malaysia, being 13 hrs ahead of us.

I did not get to see my D this morning as she had sleep-in today and was not required in school until 11.00am. So she got a ride from her friend, Christiana who lives in the same apartment complex. But the first thing she said to me when I picked her up after school was “Happy Birthday, Dad”.

Then my D from Oregon was on the phone with her Mom just now when I came home from work. And she wished me happy birthday too. While in the middle of blogging, my S from Malaysia called and wished me the same.It does feel good to be remembered.

How old am I now? I was reminded of that when I exited the apartment gate this morning. There across the road, stands the Fifth Third Bank. Need I say more? Actually my wife is one up on me, she has a bank that is named after her birth year, the Fifth Third Bank.

Rarely does a bank name itself after a set of numerals. So I decided to look up the story behind the Fifth-Third Bank and this is what its website says:

“Fifth Third traces its origins to the Bank of the Ohio Valley, which opened its doors in Cincinnati in 1858. In 1871, that bank was purchased by the Third National Bank. With the turn of the century came the union of the Third National Bank and the Fifth National Bank, and eventually the organization became known as "Fifth Third Bank.”

Upon closer examination, I note that the name is actually separated by a slash in the form of a fraction of 5 over 3, which algebraically is greater than 1. I guess that would seem more appropriate than if it were to call itself third fifth, following the chronological order of merger, as that would connote less than whole or unity.

Actually, I have not celebrated my own birthday for some time now. It comes a point in one’s life where the celebration of maturity gives way to being reminded of one’s advancing years. Then again, birthdays are meant to be celebrated by your loved ones and friends for having outlasted the vicissitude of life for another year.

And my office does have a tradition of hosting a small office birthday party for employees on a monthly basis. You get a birthday card with a theme befitting your personality/behavior wherein all your colleagues would scribble their thoughts about you and your coming year, and a cake that you get to cut and share with them. But it did not happen today, may be they just want to put me in suspense …

And last week I got a birthday letter from Stadium Toyota, the people who sold me my Toyota Sienna, three years ago, and who carry out the car service periodically. While some may view this as a sales gimmick, I think that is starting to become an integral part of customer relation. Repeat business is important, and any personal touch is going to mean something in the long run. Thanks guys.

Well, I guess I get to indulge myself in some rambling on my birthday. Come to think of it, everyday that I blog is a self-indulgent act because we bloggers are, to varying degrees, self-indulgent diarists, as Debbie Weil so aptly puts it in her book, The Corporate Blogging Book (2006).