AIBU to not want to share my birthday at work?

[SalmonLeBon]

I probably am.

The area of the business I work in has come up with this ‘brilliant’ idea to enhance employee engagement. They want to know everyone’s birthdays and anniversary of when they first started working there. So that they can do a rah-rah yay thing at our monthly telephone meetings (about 50 people, disparately located around the globe).

I can’t quite articulate why, but I feel really uncomfortable with this. I don’t want my birthday razzed up, nor the passage of time working there. It will do nothing for my engagement, if anything it puts me off the place even more!

I have ignored the emails so far, but have just received a snippy reminder with orders to comply by next week.

AIBU to not want this kind of attention? How do I escape? Other than a new job, which I am working on.

“Dear HR bod,

I’m assuming this exercise is voluntary due to GDPR restrictions and the fact that some religions don’t celebrate birthdays. Accordingly I do not wish to be included. Thanks for your understanding.

OP.”

Don't tell them you have frangipan phobia, which is a morbid fear of almond-based desserts.

WeBuiltThisBuffetOnSausageRoll

Your post is worthy of a standing ovation. Truly.

I wholeheartedly agree with every single word you've said.

Oh gdpr, definitely. Processing personal data, with no legal basis, without consent.....

@maelstrop

Contraception?!!

@Jamiefraserskilt omg, contraception. My bloody iPad is determined to piss me off at the minute! It predicts the most random shite!

I fucking hate this. I hate birthdays, I just do and I'm sick of justifying it. Work know everyone's birthdays and make a stupid fuss about it with a card and imply you should bring in cake and then when you don't bring in cake you get people calling you miserable and whatever. I've repeatedly told work people I don't like birthdays and please don't make a fuss and the people I work closely with have realised that and respect my wishes. Others do not. My birthday is in a Saturday this year thank god.

Finally gave in and gave them my work ‘anniversary’, because it is something that LinkedIn tells all my work contacts anyway (and we have an internal system which will tell colleagues anyway). And told them I prefer to keep my birthday private, which seems perfectly reasonable to me, given that if I give that, it is getting into the territory of them having enough info for ID theft!

@RhiWrites response is perfect.