Cubicle Chronicles – Office Birthdays
Hey KFC,
Since you used to be a cube monkey like many of your readers, I thought you could she some light of the agony of the office birthday situations.
The awkwardness is off the charts. So in my office, you get randomly assigned someone else in the department and have to buy whatever they like food wise for the celebration to feed everyone. Today was my day and I had the name of some mammoth 55 year old bitch. She requested key lime pie. You got to be kidding me with that. So I have to go to some fucking bakery to find enough key lime pie for 20 people to eat on a Monday morning at 10am. Eating cake that early just brings out all the slobs and makes you realize how all these losers will be dead of a stroke before they can even cash in on their IRA. Of course only like 4 people like that shit an the rest of it goes home with the birthday sea monster. Am I’m out $35.
Then comes singing happy birthday to this fucker. Nothing makes me want to manually strangle someone at work more than having to sing happy birthday to someone that I could care less about and barely know their name.
Oh and signing a card is just awful. You always try to think of something to write other than “happy birthday stupid bitch that all I know about you is your daughter got knocked up at 16 and now you work from home twice a week while se gets a GED.”. You always just write your name and pass the stupid folder to the cube monkey next to you to sign.
It all sucks and now my week is ruined an I’m out $35 for a ritual that is easily one of the worst aspects of being a desk jockey.
Andrew
This email right here is one of my favorite emails of all time. Its so genuine and passionate and accurate it took me right back to my miserable fucking life as a cube monkey. Which is important to me. This September will be my 1 year anniversary of getting out of cubicle life so I need reminders like this to help me always remember where I came from.
I can’t stand any of this shit. Birthday celebrations. Secret Santas. Going Away happy hours. Fuck ALL of that. No joke in my old office we used to have a dude who would sit at the head of a conference room and pretend to be Santa and everyone would have to go up to him and get their secret santa gift. Some people sat on his fucking lap. And then they’d open up their gift which was inevitably an iTunes gift card or a bottle of liquor and they’d crack some unfunny joke about getting drunk and everyone would laugh and I just wanted to blow my skull to smithereens. Every time I unwrapped my present I would secretly hope there was a dirty bomb in there and the whole room would explode.
Birthdays might be the worst though because you’re singled out. All eyes on you as someone cuts up a piece of cake that is 1 inch x 1 inch so theres enough for everyone. Everyone again makes the non funny jokes. And then people are like “So what are you doing for your birthday?” kind of intimating like “Where are we all going for happy hour?” Um, I’m going home to get shitfaced with my real life friends that I’m not forced to see every day at this God forsaken office. But you have fun hanging out with these work people because you don’t have a social life otherwise. Also I’m probably gonna fake sick and call out of work tomorrow morning so have fun picking up my slack.
PS – Key Lime Pie is easily the worst, cockiest and most inconsiderate choice of birthday cake when trying to please an office full of people. Take a fucking hike with that you selfish diabetic bitch. You’re getting a chocolate cake like everyone else.
Got a funny story/picture/video about your miserable existence as a Cubicle Monkey? Send it to KFC@barstoolsports.com to commiserate with me and the rest of the Stoolies.
He should have just brought in some little debbies and said he misheard what she said. Start wearing a hearing aid every couple days, they’re never going to know the truth without violating some law. Faking medical conditions is all office life is about. If I was a chick I’d fake pregnancies and miscarriages all the time.
Old Walt has a polyp in the deuondym – benign, but still a bastard!
Key Lime Pie, For The Win. This bitch has swag for days with that choice. Total Alpha.
Birthday parties, baby showers, wedding showers….they are all brutal. Sometimes, we’d have cake or food or whatever and there would invariably be someone who would bring some of that shit home with them. Even had one woman make a plate up for her husband before a few people had eaten a thing. Who the fuck does that?
Have to disagree with KFC about the going away party happy hours, however. Those always had the potential to devolve into some late night shenanigans. Plus, it was always an easy way to creep on the sexy little minx from marketing.
You guys worked at some awful places. My office does nothing like this.
So true, all of this shit is fucking brutal. If I ever run a company absolutely none of this will be allowed. If it’s your birthday, you don’t have to show up for work and you can go buy your own fucking cake. Also, the birthday song is the worst song of all time.
This is my job, and it sucks so bad other hen the pay. But when does the “office fun time” exceed the enjoyment I get from my online bank report.
At my ol’ job I sang “Kiss me I’m Shitfaced” at karoake night for a going away happy hour. I knew I was leaving but, trust me the expressions on everyones face was worth a lifetime of happiness.
your life sucks if your bitching about spending a whopping $35 bucks once a year on something. Stop whinning about office bdays and start whinning about your pathetic life.
A lady at my office actually recorded a NEW birthday song. So she plays her CD then sings the last verse. Kind of like Beyonce or some crap except she’s pushing 75. Never complain about the regular happy birthday song till you hear this abomination. I’d take five pieces of pie and trash them just so that fat pig could not feed her brood on my money.
1 year anniversary? You mean you were writing straight fire from a cubicle the first two years?
buckyfreakingdent can you get your hands on that CD?
Plaxico – yea i juggled cube life and the blog for like 2.5 years
birthday song is balls. i dont sing along my kids’ birthdays
In my office it’s the birthday person that has to bring in whatever they want. So on my birthday I usually bring in bagels. Bagels are the way to roll. No one wants to eat shitty cake at 10am crowded around the kitchen area. Just post up 2 dozen bagels and some butter, regular cream cheese and veggie cream cheese with a liter of OJ and call it a day. Just hide in your cube the rest of the day hoping to get out of there without the interrogation of your plans for the big night. The day I hang out with someone from my office (except perhaps the HR lady who is early 40′s, divorced and looks ready to go) is the day I Lane Pryce myself in my cube.
The worst fucking thing is decorating cubes.
A+++ YES! Major pet peeve of mine is office celebrations. I hate listening to some phony senior VP trying to drum up some office enthusiasm over this fucking nonsense, when the next day, he’d slit your throat, send you to HR for the Reduction in Force (don’t call it a layoff) package and not think twice as he’s rolling in $750,000 large a year. My old job did this shit and there were people who had to set up a video conference across the multiple offices for it.
2chainz – I couldn’t agree more. I didn’t even have a picture of my family up in my cube before I left my last job. Travel light, like you’re in the military. Be ready to go.
Worst of all? The kiss asses who overlaugh at everything the fraudulent senior VP says during these office celebrations, as if he’s Dice Clay circa 1990.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FcbvKe34Zjw
IT IS YOUR BIRTHDAY.