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?

Sounds like hell, I'd just say you don't want to partake in it, ultimately so what if they don't like that.

I’m wondering if this is another bot type thread. It’s fairly unusual for work team members to send individual cards in the post. The giving out of addresses is wrong, the posting cards feels odd.

Having set up a thread like this, all the people who open cards and then instantly recycle them in the recycling bin without displaying them on the sideboard, the others who don’t wait until the day of their birthday to open cards, all that crowd flock to offer their offbeat approach.

Cards and the environment - just recycle them and don’t stop posting stuff because the postman isn’t Paula Venels and you’d really miss the Post Office if all you got was Evri and Hermes.

No. No it isn't.

I think you’d risk someone complaining to H R about you if you used a feedback card. That’s offensive

Suggest doing one big card and someone brings in cake.

I can’t fathom if it’s sweet and I’m being tight, or it’s a bit overboard for work friends.

not sure I’d like my home address going out to people I barely knew.

E cards for a retirement 😠 is it an e leaving present as well 😂

It’s old fashioned friendly and team building

'Morning Mary, Happy Birthday, are you doing anything nice to celebrate' conversation?

So what that actually says is “I’m just a colleague who doesn’t know why I should give a shit, because no one’s ever explained about the niceties of life”

I have neurodiversity issues and can barely remember the birthdays of important people, let alone those of strangers. I know it’ll sound bonkers to some people but this commitment would be enough to massively send me into a tailspin. It strikes me as an ‘unregulated’ rule that has been created in OP’s workplace that is in no way official and therefore i don’t think she should feel obliged to take part. It may be another thing if it was mentioned in a job ad or in an interview as a ‘fun thing we do’ but, assuming it wasn’t i wouldn’t have a problem baling out if it. A lot of people are saying it’s only a birthday card (or 12) but being coerced into something other people find nice but you don’t (and it could even cause you major stress) isn’t good work practice. I’d definitely want to chat to my manager or HR about it, especially if I thought I might be treated differently in some way if I ended up saying I didn’t want to take part in it.

What my team does is buy a card, a gift and cake collectively. Some colleagues are closer friends and they send me individual cards - sometimes to my address and sometimes given to me at work

Just put it in your work calendar and do it at work. Treat it like a work task. So you now buy your stack of cards, 12 stamps; and then you do it from the office on the relevant day. Maybe you can even mail out from the office?

Are you for real

Same. I know that I would probably remember for the first 3 or 4 birthdays that I’m there, then I’ll inevitably forget and it will be even more offensive/embarrassing that I did it for some colleagues and not for others.

I agree it seems silly when you could all just sign a card and present it to them at work….maybe put the money you would have spent on an individual card and stamps on a small gift for them?
would you feel able to suggest that?

Really why? We have all sorts with balloons on them and flowers when you want to give a compliment. I cant see anything offensive in it.

Agree with you @Gazelda.
I’m retired now but when I was working the only people in a company who knew my full address were the HR & Wages departments, even if I’d worked there for years. Not even my line managers were privy to my address, only my landline home phone number.

yup colleagues....not friends families or besties.

This. Plain common sense from @TheThingsTheySay

Classic 😂 where do you people meet your friends? Who lives to not be nice to people?

Duh as a deliberate act of not buying a card

Perhaps keep your address private as you don't really know your colleagues well.

I used to go out and buy a card for the birthday person, get everyone to contribute 10-15p or so to cover the card and get them all to sign it. So everyone gets one card, signed by the whole team.

I'm with you! It's one thing if you make friends outside with one or two colleagues, but having the whole team know where I live/have my address - rather than the general location - isn't something I want. I prefer to maintain a certain distance wherever possible, especially possible dropper inners from my workplace. Also isn't there a data protection issue? 🌹

This is what most offices do

when (if) any of them became my friends then I would have treated them like my friends. I used to go to work to do a job, not to have a social life.