To opt out of this insane work practice?

[Acunningruse]

I started a new role 3 months ago. Everyone else in the team has been there for years and they are a very established group (but have been very welcoming to me). I discovered the other day, that the "rule" in the team is that when it is someone's birthday, everyone buys them a card, you write it and send it TO THEIR HOME ADDRESS!

I just cannot get my head around this. There are 12 of us in the team. It is just so wasteful- 11 individual cards and stamps whereas we could just send one- or better yet- give it to them in the office!!! We see each other every week!

The waste is huge not to mention the fact that I can barely remember my own family's birthdays, let alone 11 people I've just met?

These are lovely women and the last thing I want to do is cause offence but I really do not want to participate in this. How can I opt out without causing offence?

Buy 12 cards now, write the names on a calender and keep them in your drawer at work?

Urgh I would leave before Christmas

Not sure if you've answered this but how do they know everybody's birthday and home address? Did people ask you for yours? Are you supposed to go round and ask everyone their birthday and address. That's crazy.
If HR are supplying them it's a breach of GDPR.
If you want to opt out....
When people ask for your details say that you are not comfortable sharing addresses so will just do cards at work (if you have to do them at all!)

Exactly. There's probably barely a man alive who's taken part in this sort of shit to this level at work.

And it's not stopped a single one of them progressing at their workplace or affected relationships with co-workers, male or female.

Genius. I don't know how we could have possibly got through over 200 posts and no-one's thought of that yet. Oh wait........

No I couldn’t be bothered with this and it would make me feel slightly stressed. I’d happily just say leave me out of it.

For me it would be the sheer hassle that would do me in. I don’t post things. I don’t buy stamps. I don’t visit the post office.

I’d have to make note to make a special effort to get stamps, then to buy the card, then to write it and walk it to the post box.

ELEVEN TIMES A YEAR!

Nah. Stress I don’t need.

'Insane' seems like a bit of an overstatement.

Not to mention the absolute environmental waste of sending 11 cards a year with no real thought or sentiment behind them

And it's not just 11 cards a year, but there's 12 of them at it don't forget. Which would mean 132 cards going round just this one office each year before ending up in the bin.

🤣

My last workplace was like this, I'd noticed pressies given to a couple of different staff on their birthday but didn't really take much notice as presumed they were just extra friendly with each other.
My birthday rolls around and I get a gift from each of the girls, then it's explained that it's a thing they do for everyone's birthday.
I mean it's a lovely thought but I couldn't and still struggle to afford my own shit not to mention 5/6 other people's gifts too, especially at Christmas!
Plus the fact that I hate cards, my family give scratch cards instead.

How is posting a card a waste?
I'd just get over it.

And that is when you can say ‘no, honestly, give me it in the office like I do for you’.

Buy 11 cards and write them all, mark on the envelope "To be opened on your birthday" and distribute them all now. Job done until next year!

'I don't do cards, so no need to include me.' And repeat and repeat and repeat.

I my workplace we do e-cards for retirement, leaving dos and for special birthdays on the team. It's enough :)

I don't get why they need to be posted, can you not just hand to the physical person present??

I bet there’s an elaborate secret Santa at Xmas….see you back here in 6 months @Acunningruse 😜

How do the men in the group feel about this? Do they participate? Or do they get their wives to mail them?

Oh god I couldn't do this. I hate birthday cards and no longer buy them. In my office it's a big thing to sign a card to anyone who has a birthday... there are about 100 people so it's more or less every day, What's the point?

Cards are so wasteful and so pointless, now that it is so very very easy to send a personal message electronically. I would genuinely much rather have that.

And pennies? do you all know how much a first class stamp costs? £1.35 plus a £2 card x 11 is nearly £40! I'd rather buy myself a new pair of shoes tbh.

Well I actually think it sounds really nice and a friendly place to work, I’d really love that.

It’s probably done this way so if people have the day or week off for their birthday they get their cards.

I would pick out 11 pretty cards once per year kept in drawer with dates, quite easy.

Hell would freeze over before I did this. Nothing could make me participate in such nonsense.

From my own experience I would simply refuse to post them on the grounds that all too often the mail doesn't arrive on time, if at all. I had a card posted 1st class, a full week before my birthday last year, it eventually arrived 6 weeks after the event!

Also, having been in hospital for major surgery, my DM who lived a long way away sent me a 'Get Well' card the minute she heard that I'd got through the operation OK. That one arrived 18 months later!!

It would be a card in their 'in' box or nothing for me OP.

I think I'd just hand them the card, they won't say "you have to post it!!" . What a weird practice! Plus, people saying it's a few pounds, just post the card..have you bought a stamp lately?! 😂 if I've got a fiver left by the end of the month I'm so happy.

I’m trying to imagine it from the opposite point of view. You’re off on your birthday and all the cards come through the letter box. First, you’d be impressing the postman with your popularity, then what?

Ah, here’s one from Carol, how lovely.
This one’s from, Jane, nice card!
Louise, I see she’s gone for the 4 for a pound deal, the cheapskate!
One from Emma, what a nice thought(except you know it wasn’t a thought but an obligation).

And so on, 8 more times. Somewhere in the pile will a card or 2 from friends and family who actually want to send you one!

If you’re at work on your birthday, people will already have wished you happy birthday, then you come home to a whole bunch of unnecessary cards from them!

As I have already said, thats reducing it to the level of dull life admin like sending in meter readings or booking an mot and thst to me is ruder than politely refusing to join in.