tigertail in new york

Today is my birthday - Tuesday March 6th. I'm sitting here on my own in a room in a back office of a large studio. No-one here knows it's my birthday.

I've had some emails, calls from home and a few messages on that omnipresent networking site that everyone here is on - and that has been lovely - soooo good to hear from people. My parents still haven't called me - but I did speak to them last week, so maybe that was it? But other than that, it's kind of like having a secret birthday.

In some respects it's kind of sad to have a secret birthday - no-one wishes you happy birthday, no-one buys you cake, no-one makes a fuss of you. And when you've moved to the other side of the world, not all of your new friends know it's your birthday either, and I'm not one to brag or blow my own horn, so don't really feel like ringing up everyone I know and saying "hey - it's my birthday - make a fuss of me!"

However there is a benefit to having a secret birthday when you're working at a new place - you avoid the horror of the "fake-happy" celebration of your birthday by co-workers who don't know you.

I've had good birthdays, bad birthdays and a few that I don't like to think of cos they're a little painful. In terms of office birthdays, the last place I worked in Australia was great. It was a chance to catch up with people, and everyone was friendly and sociable, so we all enjoyed it. It even got to the point where one of us (in fact that would be you Kimba) bought silver cake forks for our section, just so we could celebrate birthdays in style. Ah, good memories...

But by far the worst office birthday I ever had was just after I'd returned from living overseas and I started working at a music production company who composed music and did post-production for tv shows and commercials.

The place was medium-sized, but had started as a 2 person company, and those 2 people didn't know how to let it grow larger without them having control of everything: 2 employees (including a long-term 8 year employee who was married to another employee) were fired in my short tenure there. There was also a very insecure production assistant who copied everything I did (wearing similar clothes, bringing her lunch instead of ordering, reading the same book at lunchtimes) who tried to make things difficult for me because she thought I was trying to take her job.

Somehow the receptionist found out it was my birthday. She got everyone to sign a card, got everyone in the Melbourne office and the one office overseas to send a birthday fax through, bought a cake and champagne, and organised a get together with speeches.

How nice! - I hear you saying... well, no.. the whole thing was done with such a sense of duress by all the staff, and with such bad grace - including messages such as "I have no idea who the hell you are, but happy birthday" - that it felt totally forced and contrived. The icing on the cake (ha ha) was the speech given by one of the Directors, who I hadn't worked with at all, and who really didn't know me. He made a slightly tipsy speech - this was 11 am - about how he was sure I was a great gal and if he ever got to work with me he was sure he could think of nice things to say, but cos he hadn't he was at a loss for words.

Needless to say all I felt like doing was dropping through a hole in the floor - especially as it hadn't even been my idea in the first place. Either that, or bitch-slapping the stupid we're soooo cool and ironic that we think this is very funny at your expense smirks on people's faces.

I left soon afterwards to make a film. I found out years later that the very young girl they'd hired to "buy lunch / do odd jobs" and was the reason they didn't create a permanent position for me (read: she was cheaper to hire than me and had had no experience) ended up becoming a drug supplier to many of the staff especially when they were all hanging out at some of Sydney's dodgier nightclubs... classy

*don't ask me about the picture - that's what google gives you for "office birthday"..!

Posted by Ness on Tuesday, March 06, 2007 at 12:45 PM | Permalink