At your place of work, how do you all celebrate birthdays?

I work with a crew of men. We ignore birthdays
That’s what guys do.

Absolutely nothing.

Our dept. formed four teams from all of the members to create four committees. Each team was assigned three months a calendar year to publicly recognize birthdays (as well as other responsibilities, like community relations projects). Each month, the assigned committee would post a photo and a short description of the birthday person’s interests and biography on a community bulletin board. Then on their birthday, or close to it, their favorite treat was put out on a table below the board.

The cost was minimal, and it was appreciated by those that like public recognition. I personally don’t, but it was nice to learn a bit more about the people I spent 40+ hours a week with.

We are expected to voluntarily bring sweet pie or pastries for our co-workers.
If there is only a suspicion of someone starting to sing for me, I will have to kill them all.

We might say a quick Happy Birthday but nothing beyond that.

At the place where I used to work, they actually put money in the budget to get a cake for everyone who had a birthday in the same month. So the whole group of February birthday people would get a cake in their honor and everyone would be invited into the break room (on the same day of the month, say the first friday) to have cake and sing to them if they wanted to. That way, everybody who wanted to participate could, and those that did not, didn’t have to show up at all, and since there was always a crowd, the no shows were usually not missed. We would even save out pieces of cake for those employees that had to work for those 15 minutes because they were at the front desk or guards. It also made it possible to celebrate without having 6 or 7 different celebrations going on and taking up too much time.

Usually the dept of the person who’s birthday it was, would be taken out and treated (everybody in the dept. would chip in) to lunch on their actual birthday. And small token gifts were given to the birthday person.

We also used to have lots of potluck luncheons for people who were retiring or moving away and sometimes just because it was summer or Halloween, or we hadn’t had one in awhile. We had some really fun potlucks that were based on colors. Everyone had to bring a dish that was orange, for examle, so we had carrot cake, pumpkin pie, macaroni and cheese, cheetos, home made peach ice cream (one gal actually brought her ice cream maker to work) chili, fresh orange juice, cheese enchiladas, and fruit salad with mangos, oranges and cantaloupe. We also had potlucks that were based on an ethnic cuisines, so we did Mexican, and Asian (which emcompassed all sorts of good things from The Phillipines, Korea, China, Vietnam and Japan) and Italian. We were all a real creative bunch, so we had tons of great food and some of the most unusual, but delicious things ever. I was generally the organizer for these events, so I had a stockpile of paper plates, serving bowls and utensils and tupperware. It was a hoot.

I run a crew of biomed technicians. All men. We ignore them, and all holidays, really.

We can add this to the list of why I love being male.

One of my coworkers is an amazing baker, so she usually bakes something great and we all wish the birthday girl a happy day. After work, we usually have dinner and/or go to a bar.

We order out lunch for everybody and a cake/dessert for the B-day’r.

We have a staff meeting once a month and if someone’s birthday is that month we buy their favorite cake and have it at the end of the meeting. You are asked when you start what is your favorite cake or pie and if there is more than one birthday, there is still each person’s favorite cake. This is budgeted for each year, so no money out of our pockets.

The business office passes cards around for their members and some mgrs. but otherwise it’s kind of a thing we all find out on facebook.

Ah, cards…that was another thing. We kept a dept. box of greeting cards sorted by category (birthday, illness, death, etc.) in the office.There was an office form with each team member’s name that got attached to a card and passed around the office for member to sign (the card) and initial (the form). Hallmark has a package where cards can be bought in bulk by specific category or a variety.

My boss will buy you a card, that is passed around for everyone to sign. She also lets you pick any cake you want, and the day you want her to bring it in. You then get a picture with your cake and it goes up on the “Birthday Wall.”

If for some reason you don’t want a cake, she will get whatever else you want. We’ve had pies, veggie trays, pizza, wings, etc.

Usually the birthday person brings in cake and the rest of us eat it!! I always make sure I am not working on my birthday.