It was Monday (not the best day of the week) and it had been particularly difficult to get out of bed that morning. I should have been in a good mood but I wasn’t. I didn’t want to be turning another year older. I was the new person at work and lived thousands of miles from my family and didn’t really know that many people in the area. I managed to get myself ready and out the door on time (a triumph on any given day of the week) and didn’t hit any traffic on the way to work. Hey, I guess things were starting to look up! I made it through the lobby of the building, into our company office and to my desk without any major incidents (I am a klutz!) I was about to log in to my computer when I noticed a number of envelopes in my in-box. I didn’t think much of it even though mail at 8:00 am on a Monday morning wasn’t usually typical. On closer inspection, I saw they were all greeting cards including two employee birthday cards personally signed by the executives and managers I reported to. There were also a number of cards from my fellow staff members. I couldn’t believe it! I know human resources knows my birth date as it is all over my paperwork but I didn’t expect such an outpouring of well wishes from people I had only worked with a short time.
The day continued to improve. My manager had brought in donuts and my cubicle mate had made a yellow cake with chocolate frosting, my favorite. I guess her digging to find out what I had ordered for dessert a few weeks back at a new restaurant was really a dig for information for my likes and dislikes not info on the restaurant itself. Later that evening when I spoke to family and friends back home, I couldn’t stop talking about how nice everyone was and what it meant to have someone acknowledge my birthday and all the beautiful cards I received. It certainly made me want to pay it forward and I was hoping I hadn’t unknowingly missed one of my colleague’s birthdays.
I quickly when online to find a company that sold corporate birthday cards in bulk. I work with a number of people and cards can be very costly. I found several companies that sold business birthday cards but none were nearly as striking as those offered by one company in particular. I set about ordering 50 cards to have on hand. I couldn’t believe the specials they were having and I could even personalize them with my name. A short week and a half later, I had the cards in hand and quickly went about gathering everyone’s birth dates and trying to find out their favorite treat as well!