Given the Choice, Will You Work on Your Birthday?

Given the choice, will you work on your birthday?

  • Yes

    Votes: 27 62.8%
  • No

    Votes: 16 37.2%

  • Total voters
    43
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I've been wondering about this for some reason lately, if your birthday falls on a normal workday do you switch shifts/take a vacation/call in sick, or will you just work the day? I know there are some people out there who are adamant about not working on their birthday if possible, I'm not one of them, but I'd be curious to see what the majority opinion is.

Note, I'm interested in the decision. If you're forced to work, out of time off, on call, I get that you'll work on your birthday and if you're unemployed you won't, but assuming you have some control over your schedule what do you do?
 
I'm not one to celebrate or do anything for my birthday, so yeah.

Aw shit, I just voted no because I didn't read the question carefully enough.
 
I'm not one to celebrate or do anything for my birthday, so yeah.
Pretty much this. I only celebrate it for other people. When I have tried to not celebrate it, I just get a whole bunch of people feeling sorry for me, so it's just easier to go along with it.
 
When you've had as many birthdays as I have, you don't really celebrate anymore, so yeah, I would work on my birthday.
 
I've had a long string of my b-day falling on Monday or Friday. So I tend to take time off. If it falls on a different day of the week, I'll take a long weekend around that time.
 
I've only had to work on my birthday twice, and that's been infrequent enough that I haven't bothered to book vacation time or call in sick or anything.
 
I don't even tell people it's my birthday...

I might take a long weekend if I have the vacation time, but I won't take the individual day off if its in the middle of the week.
 
No, I wouldn't work, but with a caveat. I'll make it a long weekend the week of my birthday, but that might mean I work the actual day. But, hell yeah, my birthday gift to me is always a day off. Even if my birthday's on a weekend, I'm taking that Friday or Monday off. Now that I'm on salary, I didn't even suffer monetarily for it this year. My day off was free.
 
I usually take time off for my birthday but it isn't because I personally want the day off. It is mostly because my family wants to celebrate and I figure it is not worth offending my family by just going to work. My preferred way to spend my birthday would be to head somewhere over the weekend and just relax and use it as an excuse to treat myself. But sadly my family wouldn't understand that and would take offense so I end up going over to my families house and sitting there pretending to be enjoying myself. One particular thing that is annoying is that my family that I live near are super conservative/fundamentalist Christians and I am not it kinda narrows down on the activities to dinner and a movie and no alcoholic beverages. It isn't so much that it is a horrible way to spend my birthday it just isn't the way I would want to spend the day.
 
I usually work half day in my birthday. My inmediate boss usually gives me permission. I'm the guy who designed the software that calculates work hours so I don't have problems with human resources.
 

Dave

Staff member
Me? I work if it falls on the work week. My wife? She gets her birthday off with pay if it falls on a weekday. If it falls on the weekend, she gets to pick a day.
 
I don't think that I have ever taken the day off for my birthday. I usually don't want to think about it, and do not tell anyone/coworkers about it. I just prefer to spend it with close friends and family.
 
When I was a teacher I has a run of B-Day's that were the first day back from Summer Vacation. Not only do I have to sit through a stupid inservice, miss decorating my room for the year, I normally miss a good day to drive to the beach.
 
While my husband and I are generally too old to care about our birthdays (Heck I had to go to a wedding on my birthday this year), My husband did use his birthday as an excuse for us to go to the movies while our kids were in school.
 
I normally don't take a day off for my birhtday, I celebrate it with a party in the weekend anyway. Sometimes though I get the afternoon off.
 
The last time I took a day off for my birthday was in boot camp (I was the scribe, so I wrote myself a sick-call chit. I actually _WAS_ sick, but so was everyone else in the platoon, as it was still early on enough that everyone got Recruit Crud.)

Since then... I really don't care about celebrating my birthday. It's a day. There may or may not be a present. I get a little cake that my daughter then smooshes in her face. Life's pretty good.
 

GasBandit

Staff member
Yeah, as a guy, the last birthday of importance is when you're 25 and your insurance premiums go down. After that, there's not much point in marking the occasion.
 
Yeah, as a guy, the last birthday of importance is when you're 25 and your insurance premiums go down. After that, there's not much point in marking the occasion.
I use the excuse to relax, I don't celebrate my birthday when I take it off. I've never much been a celebration guy, especially about myself. It's important to my parents to at least to a family dinner for everyone's birthday, so I make time for that even though I couldn't really care less if it was just our normal weekly family dinner.
 

Cajungal

Staff member
It's mostly just another day at this point. It's fun to celebrate it, but that's what the weekend is for. It doesn't matter when, as long as I get to party a little at some point.
 
My birthday's Christmas Eve, so it's a holiday, and I'm not allowed to take off those days. I usually only work either Christmas Eve/Day or New Years, but which one I choose to have free depends on my plans, not on my birthday. I celebrate it a few days earlier or later anyway, since no-one ever goes to a birthday party on the 24th, obviously :p
 
Yeah, as a guy, the last birthday of importance is when you're 25 and your insurance premiums go down. After that, there's not much point in marking the occasion.

A week and a half ago I celebrated my last x^x birthday. Assuming I don't live to 256.

I thought that was worth a get-together. :)
 
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