I would never expect or want any recognition or cards or similar from work for events that happen in my personal life. Is this a generational difference or am I just a curmudgeon? (To be clear, I’m a millennial)
I would be surprised if a company knew that much about my personal life too, worked at at least 20 places can't think of more then one that knew my birthday/did anything for that and would have been surprised if they did anything for the surgeries I've behaving lately. Best I can hope for is being able to get time off lol. I recently worked somewhere that offered unpaid unlimited time off but then they thought people took too much time off and back stepped that policy within a month of me joining lol. Boy were people fighting over it since they changed the contract for everyone.
I too fall under millennial on the younger side.
I think if you work for a very tiny company that will really badly miss you, then you have a higher chance of them recognizing you but also have a higher chance of them replacing you quickly too. Anything else, you are generally a clog in a machine.
You know how businesses do things to limit the risk a single employee becomes indispensable? I do the same with employers and that includes becoming to attached to the people I work with.
A clog in the machine? Like when an eggcorn gets jammed in the cogwheels and gears, I suppose...
I've worked at 3 small shops over the past 15 years (wow, 20 as a "young millenial"? You're busy!), and I'm on the older side of millenial...yes, cards get passed around, but no, flowers don't typically get sent out. There's a couple people who make sure that wedding anniversaries, employment anniversaries, birthdays etc. get mentioned at company meetings, most of us engineers shrivel under the spotlight. I have noticed that many of my coworkers glow when they get a compliment - "Take the time off, you deserve it after that hard work on the Acme Inc project", "Your services were rock solid and needed no maintenance while you were out for surgery", etc. but flowers? Cards? Don't care.
We DO make sure to send flowers and cards to the boomer-generation receptionists who pass the cards. I don't think the rest of us would care if the birthday cards stopped going around, but it's clearly of critical importance to those ladies.
I'm mid twenties, and yeah I think it'd be a bit odd, but I don't think I would be put off by it. The occasional coworker messaging me a get-well soon, sure, that's fine and semi-expected depending on the person. I would not expect a bouquet of flowers or a card though; that reeks of entitlement to me.
I’m GenX, and I’m with you. It’s one thing to make genuine friends in the workplace, but I have no desire to treat any company like a social support system. Just pay me on time, communicate professionally and politely, and try to keep my workload manageable. That’s the extent of the relationship I want with the organization.
Depends on the company. A small one where everyone knows everyone else, it actually seems kinda normal.
The way large companies do it is just jarring. When my coworkers find out it's my birthday, it's because a random lady from HR is asking them which one is me so they can deliver the card.
The random lady from HR is why a previous manager sent out a message to my team wishing me a Happy Birthday. In between saying thanks to my teammates, I messaged my boss that my birthday wasn't for another month.
It's definitely not as prevalent as it was in times past. It used to be people would work somewhere and stay for decades.. in that environment it makes sense. Now with the transient nature of employment and most people making 3 years max, I guess the investment from people isn't there.
In smaller firms I've had we've done this but it was precisely because of our size and relationships. In a larger company people might not be connecting the same way.
I work with 6 other people on the product team of a small SaaS company. I definitely wish folks happy birthday, check on them after surgery, see how their kids are feeling if they get sick… seems pretty normal to do so for people you work with several hours a day (and we’re remote, in person I’d be even more inclined to do so). It’s not like structured though, it’s organic.
Perhaps that’s the difference between my experience and others’ posting here: we are small enough that nothing feels like “the company” doing something, we all retain our individuality at this scale.
I think ChatGPT can add just the right amount of sappiness for emails and networking (without all the cognitive load), but if you let it loose on content, it will make you sound like SEO spam, because that's what it learned on presumably.
