Celebrating birthday with work colleagues?

[GaynorGoodwin]

Do you celebrate your birthday with them? I much prefer to celebrate with family and close friends (very few of them) but that’s the way I like it. However, it seems more and more colleagues are arranging evenings out to celebrate theirs.

I just don’t want to, anyone with any advice of how to get out of this?

I don't go, and I don't organise anything. I take in cakes on my birthday in an old civil and emergency service tradition.

You are not obliged to do anything, how do you feel about declining invites and not seeing anything up for your own day?

*setting

I think I’ll book the day off (I usually try to most years).

I really can’t be bothered with the fuss of it all and most of them I don’t know that well. Am I being miserable? I’m just not interested...

Evenings out with colleagues on your birthday seems a bit much, but it’s absolutely the norm that when someone has a birthday we go to the pub at lunchtime and birthday boy/girl buys the first round.

We go to the pub for lunch but nothing else!

"anyone with any advice of how to get out of this"

Are they trying to organise something for you then? Just say you'd rather not as you're not a big birthday celebration type of person or something.

If they're not trying to organise it for you there's nothing for you to "get out of".