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?

I think it’s sweet, and I know some people love getting cards, but I’d try and steer it towards giving cards at work as a compromise, and bringing in cakes!

I wouldn’t be giving out my home address.

You can’t cancel this card tradition completely without causing conflict with the team!

@Acunningruse shouldn't have to lie just to make her own choices though.

@Namechange357 she could probably just opt out and let others carry on as they wish - though I suspect there might be others who secretly want to opt out too.

I'd feel like you, but buy a batch of 10 for £1 from Card Factory and get on with it.

Having worked in a male dominated industry for 25 years, it came as a huge shock to me after a career change, when it was completely normal to buy thoughtful, personal gifts for everyone you work with. So, be glad it's just cards.

I'd just hand people their cards in the office, or put them in their in-trays.

I'd also make clear that I would prefer it done that way for me rather than having my personal details shared around the office.

😁That lie would fall apart quicker than a house of cards

😮It really is a female thing isnt it? It makes me so cross tbh, that even though we are at work to do the jobs we are paid to do, we are sitting around talking about birthdays. (Im not working today, hence posting on MN).

I think this may be my only option. Imagine when I inevitably forget one of them though....😫

I would suck it up. You’re new, they’re established. It would be a bad idea to come in and poo-poo something they’re all excited about.

You could go out today and buy a pack of cards and stamps, then half the work is done.

Just tell them you prefer to give and receive e-cards as better for the environment. That way, no need to spend money or reveal your home address.

Clearly no-one on this thread has seen the price of stamps lately, and it would probably have to be a first class stamp as second class stamps are considered by many to be not appropriate for birthday cards.

And what if the card exchangers don't feel that a generic card from Card Factory is sufficiently thoughtful?

This could quite easily add up to the best part of a fiver a time and the mental load of remembering to write and send all the cards and being sufficiently gushing when the avalanche of cards comes through the door on her birthday.

All to take part in some mad tradition that's probably grown out of all proportion.

I genuinely wouldn't thank anyone for sending me all these cards and I'd want even less to be expected to send them to everyone else in return.

I'd happily bake cake and take it into the office though, or even go out for lunch.

It could possibly come from someone who isn’t even there anymore. It could come from someone in the team who knows another member has suffered a great deal and never got to celebrate their birthday properly because of abuse and they’re trying to make up for it in their small way (I had this). We don’t know.
i don’t know how you are getting out of it without upsetting people. I would just suck it up.

That's how they do it at DH's workplace. Cards (usually shared ones signed by the whole team) and cake in the office, not sent home. He's been there for nearly 30 years too so has had some major birthdays in that time. Nothing ever posted home.

The same used to happen when I worked in a big office in the City of London.

I prefer it that way. I don't think too many people actually need the full home addresses of all colleagues on the team.

I bet the person who started the tradition likes the idea of all those cards on their mantelpiece making them look popular 😆

I'd just go along with it for an easy life tbh and hope that someone else who has been there longer gets the courage up to speak up about it

But then I always take the view of starting quietly and not ruffling any feathers till I have worked out all the politics!

You could even go a step futher and write them all for the year ahead, leave them in your desk drawer and set up calendar reminders so you remember when to hand them out.

Now THAT is a plan

Why on earth are they posing them? Is it a hangover from lockdown? Sounds bonkers.

I'd hate this - but I'm not sure you can opt-out without offending and I know that's all wrong but sometimes you just have to suck it up. Home address thing is a bit of an oddity.

The only logical explanation is that someone working there has shares in, e.g. Moonpig or Funky Pigeon, otherwise why on earth would you put yourself through this torture ELEVEN TIMES A YEAR?

Please let us know what the Christmas protocol is. I expect it involves the entire contents of the 12 Days of Christmas...

Aw I think it's quite a nice way to acknowledge a person's birthday without making a huge deal about it (birthday collections, signing a group card, bringing cake in etc) and makes them feel a bit special without putting them under the spotlight, which some people dislike.

I've worked in places where my birthday is completely ignored, despite other colleagues getting the full on treatment described above. I have no parents or grandparents to send me cards anymore. It does hurt even though I'm supposed to be grown up and not care.

(My kids do get me cards but they're too young to buy them themselves so it's me that gets me cards at the moment.)

I would hate this. I don't have my birthday on social media and just get a handful of cards from close family and friends which suits me.

At my new job all of our birthdays display on our profile and it doesn't seem possible to hide it. I really wish I could and have wondered if it's some sort of data breach. But all it means is a group ecard and one or two messages so I let it go. There's no way I could get on board with all this posting cards though. If anyone suggested that I would certainly opt out.

Oh my God I had not even thought about Christmas 😮feel like I should start mentally preparing now..

And I have a summer holiday birthday so I lost out on the "blow out the candles and we all sing happy birthday" thing that my school used to do during assembly for students birthdays. It obviously has had a lasting effect on me.

Send them from funky pigeon or the likes, you can set reminders on there for upcoming birthdays and they'll deal with the posting 😂 just more £££