Comments on: Congratulations! At some point in time, through no effort of your own, you were born.

By: goneamiss

goneamiss — Tue, 20 Dec 2011 21:14:18 +0000

For that, I’d relegate mom to text-message-only birthday and holiday greetings for a while; she seems to appreciate things in writing.

By: Beandip

Beandip — Thu, 24 Nov 2011 03:32:57 +0000

A couple of years ago, I sent my mother an e-card instead of an actual card. She disappeared for three days.

Seriously. I’m not kidding.

By: latin-aggressive

latin-aggressive — Tue, 22 Nov 2011 19:31:20 +0000

you guys are all real funny, it is a delight I must say not to only see the posts, but the comments…

By: Zrana

Zrana — Sun, 20 Nov 2011 18:39:08 +0000

Making my semi-monthly visit to PAN, decided to see if my comment got any comments. Wow, it did, one rather fierce (I admit mine was fierce as well.)

Employee in question is a chronic drama queen for whom the world is supposed to revolve around. Her birthday complaints were just the latest round of her attempting to rearrange the work schedule for her personal benefit without any reguards of how it would screw over anyone and everyone else who worked there. She never returned any favors from when people did trade hours with her (always with BS excuses, no matter how advanced of the actual date the trade was proposed, while her need for trades were always last minute mess with someone’s ability to get sleep deals), so people stopped doing so.

Also, sadly, when a place is 24-7 and there’s only 6 employees, one who shouldn’t count because she can’t work solo (and recently chronically sick at the drop of a hat–and “slow” which for some reason as home office coddling her instead of being strict with policy on her calling in sick so much stuff), one person being gone unexpectedly DOES screw everyone one else over.

Requests are only requests, not a guarantee of anything. If they can’t be accommodated, then they can’t. She didn’t want her birthday off due to any plans that had been made (because believe me, this girl does NOT know how to keep her plans both actual and fictional–she’s full of fiction, so many stories and lies I think she believes them–to herself) it was solely because it was her birthday. She had either the day before or after it off, but due to deliveries or manager having to attend a meeting out of town (home office loves to do those), and the actual plans conflicts of other employees (doctors appointments, kids school travel commitments, etc), the request just didn’t pan out.

That, and I think the manager may have not bothered to try and accomodate it because the girl hadn’t done anything to make the extra time working on making the schedule worth the effort. Act like a non drama queen productive employee, get treated like one. Act like a spoiled brat, get treated like one.

By: Kaz

Kaz — Wed, 16 Nov 2011 11:05:46 +0000

Shoulda said, “check your messages”

By: Joe

Joe — Fri, 11 Nov 2011 21:06:14 +0000

I celebrate my birthday so the kids have cake and ice cream. My birthday is more important to them than it is me!
After they grow up, I won’t be writing any nasty letters to people over it.
This “mother” needs to get over herself.

By: park rose

park rose — Wed, 09 Nov 2011 12:46:28 +0000

I must strongly disagree with you, clumber, after having experienced the PNW for about 10 months last year, and a few months of this. All you have (or Seattle has, anyway) is drizzle and a little more drizzle, and oh, those 4 weeks of beautiful springlike weather in summer. It does have a few nice days here and there, I will admit, but they are not the constant.

By: FeRD

FeRD — Wed, 09 Nov 2011 04:20:40 +0000

Fixed! \o/

By: The Elf

The Elf — Mon, 07 Nov 2011 00:58:11 +0000

Who doesn’t like a good unbirthday? Thank you Lewis Carroll.

By: Andy

Andy — Mon, 07 Nov 2011 00:07:23 +0000

I took my mother to a Meatloaf concert a few weeks before her birthday, paid for great searts and he’s her favourite singer. Sadly, on the day, I did forget to call her (I guess I sort of filed her birthday as ‘done’ in my mind) and it’s the first and only time I’ve ever done it.

My brothers, who regularly forget and only call her when they want something otherwise both remembered and phoned, unfortunately for me! But I don’t think that would make me the bad guy in this situation. Neither of them gave her a present.

If you look at it objectively birthdays can be a great way to tick the ‘dutiful friend/family member’ boxes but I don’t think they’re a great indicator of the true relationship and I kind of object to being told there’s something wrong with me on those grounds.

By: Rattus

Rattus — Sun, 06 Nov 2011 14:58:47 +0000

I actually like this idea. Being the lazy asshole that I am, I’m going to leave it in your hands to get the ball rolling on this new way of doing things, but rest assured, I am absolutely on board with the plan.

By: LizzyBean

LizzyBean — Sat, 05 Nov 2011 23:33:22 +0000

I could see my mom doing something like this. She’ll raise holy hell if I forget her birthday, but if she forgets mine it’s “huh?”

By: bookworm

bookworm — Sat, 05 Nov 2011 04:51:15 +0000

kermit, the people who have to work twice as hard due to her deciding that she’s important enough to not have to work her scheduled hours just because it’s her birthday are directly affected by her selfish decision.

You’re advocating respect for employees while asserting that they shouldn’t have to respect one another. Common sense, please.

By: lyx

lyx — Sat, 05 Nov 2011 02:16:59 +0000

I’ve always thought that (after age 21, say), we should celebrate our own birthday by treating our favorite people to little gifties.

That way, we’d all get pressies all through the year (mostly unexpected – because who remembers everyone else’s birthday?)…AND we’d only have to remember birthday cards & gifts once per year.

win – win.