Birthdays At Work

Do you always need to celebrate a birthday in the office? What are some fun ways to celebrate a birthday at work? Is a party always necessary or should it just be a small lunch with close friends and associates? Does there need to be a cake in order to acknowledge a birthday or are there other ways to acknowledge the special day. Any ideas for fun ways to celebrate in a big office versus a small office?

In a large office, in my experience, at least, birthday parties are usually celebrated differently by each department or team.

Some medium sized offices might do a “month of birthdays” celebration, where the office petty cash pays for cake and soda/juice/other drinks for everyone whose birthday falls in a particular month. Instead of a separate celebration, all the employees with a birthday in April celebrate on the 15, those in May on May 15, etc.

The monthly office birthday celebrations are a really good idea. It’s a good way to make sure that everyone’s included in the celbration and keeps employees from feeling compelled to purchase or make cakes for coworkers that they have friendships with. From the business perspective, it’s a very inexpensive way to boost morale.

I also like the idea of a monthly celebration as a catch-all way of recognizing birthdays.  I think that if you celebrate every single birthday, it can get to be too much.  (Was it on an old episode of Seinfeld where one of the characters was protesting the constant birthday celebrations and forced cake eating at the office?)

The place I currently work doesn’t have any set birthday celebrations (perhaps partly because we do contract work, so we’re not there every month).  However, sometimes people will bring in a birthday treat for coworkers they’re close to.  One idea that I thought was kind of fun was making a “cake” out of a tower of Hostess Cupcakes and Twinkies.  They kept them in the package except for one that they unwrapped and placed on top to hold a candle.  It was easy to put together, and convenient to grab one if you wanted a treat.