High Jinx - Birthday Treatment
I really don't know how you deal with peoples Birthdays at your
place of work. At my current place of work the person who is
celebrating "their day" brings in doughnuts or similar for
everyone to enjoy - with 40+ people working here it means you
average just under one lot of free donuts every week. That is
really it, you may get a few e-mails wishing you "Many Happy
Returns of the Day" and the odd joke about your age but that is
far as it goes.
However this is not how it has always been, Birthdays used to be
something to fear at one place where I worked and the end result
was everybody would keep quiet about "their day" and just hope
that nobody found out or somebody in personnel let it slip.
Your "Birthday Treatment" wouldn't actually start
until the end of the day. What was about to happen to you was
not really something that could happen early in the day.
You would know something was going on and that
you'd been found out by the movement around your department in
the building. Maybe there would be a lot of corporate sales and
engineers in the showroom. Maybe the showroom staff had made
their way up to the technical and engineering department. Either
way there were too many people in your department and you then
knew something was about to happen.
Basically you'd be wrestled to the floor, once
three or four people had pounced on you even the strongest
person would find they couldn't move. It was like watching a
pack of lions with a gazelle, the pray would soon be too tired
to struggle.
Once the victim was tired out would come the
packing tape and the victim would soon find their legs and arms
well and truly bound - there was no way they were going anywhere
and it was now down to your tormentors as to what would happen
next.
Usually you would find yourself being sat in a
chair and then being bound into the chair before being carried
outside. You were to be "displayed" as a trophy for all to see
(including customers) sat there in your chair totally bound and
unable to move. Usually this was followed by mugs of water and
you were drenched (Fine for those people with Birthday's in
July, not so good for people with a November Birthday like
myself).
With any kind of luck this would signal the end
of your "Birthday Present". You'd have one arm released and you
would then be free to attack the rest of the packing tape and
get yourself free - everyone of course found the whole event
extremely funny (including managers and managing directors) and
that was it for another year.
If you were very unlucky of if some of the
workers were in high spirits you could well find yourself with a
"Penny for the Guy" sign around your neck and then being dragged
on your chair up and down the main street from the store much to
any passer-by's amusement.
The funny thing was that although you dreaded your Birthday
coming around (especially if people were aware of the date) you
did kind of enjoy getting other people. I guess it was just an
opportunity to get revenge on those people who had got you
earlier in the year.
So you think you could escape?
Many a person attempted to escape the treatment
and there was an "unwritten law" on people who couldn't be
"got". The accounts manager was a definite no and so were the
majority of the female assistants (sorry, nothing sexist here,
it was just in the rules).
Many people would be magically "sick" on their
birthday. Others would simply leave early on that day because
they had a "prior engagement" elsewhere. Other people never
divulged their Birthday, although personnel on more than one
occasion let the information "slip".
The most memorable "attempted escape" was one
that I was involved with.
I was working in technical support and I took
a phone call late one afternoon. Reception told me it wasn't a
support question rather a message for one of the other technical
support people and would I speak to them.
I took the call and it went something like this:
"Hello Technical Support, How can I help?"
"Hi, you don't know me, my name is xxxx xxxxxxx and my brother works in your department".
Of course I immediately recognised the surname and spoke friendly to this person.
"Oh right, how can I help?"
"Well I have a message for my brother Dan"
"Well he's not on the phone right now, shall I pass you over to him?"
"Oh no, it doesn't matter. Can you just tell him sorry I forgot this morning but Happy Birthday mate"
Then there was a click as this person's brother hung up the phone.
Talk about evil! This guy obviously knew what
happened to people on their birthday and this work colleague of
mine had managed to keep things quiet all day until this phone
call.
I hung up the phone myself, stared for a while at
Dan (maybe I was trying to decide on the best thing to do) and
then went to have a chat with some of the other engineers.......
Well you would have done too, right?
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