celebrating someone's birthday when they're not present (an office story)

we had a birthday at work today for someone in my department (it's a 5 person department so it's hard to miss birthdays). but our co-worker who's birthday it was took the day off, to which i say good for her! you should have your birthday off. shit, i think your birthday should be your own personal holiday. do with it as you please, just don't show up to work.

but unfortunately we don't all have jobs that can accommodate this and sometimes even if the availability is there to take the day off, some people still choose to work that day anyways (i myself work during a "black out" period. it's online retail so no days off around x-mas..... sooo robbed again for being born too close to that stupid, glory hogging holiday). so when people do show up to work on their birthdays, it's customary to at the least get your co-worker a cake.

even though it was marked on the calender and planned in advance, we'd forgotten that she had decided to use a vacation day. my supervisor, being the swell guy that he is, got a cake for her before he came into work today. once he got in, he, as well of the rest of us, realized she wouldn't be joining us today.

so what to do? i mean, he got the cake. she's not gonna be back till next week. the cake won't be any good at that point. so we decided that we should eat the cake anyways (side note: we got busy and forgot to eat the cake, but i'm pretty sure cake eating is on the agenda tomorrow once again when the birthday honoree won't be present).

this was one of them odd moments that had me thinking a whole lot about what's the right thing to do. at first i thought, if it was my birthday, i'd find it weird that my co-workers celebrated the occasion with cake while i wasn't there.

but it's not like that was the plan all along. our supervisor meant well by getting the cake. what's a guy to do? what's a department to do? how could we in good conscience let good cake go to waste? and it's not like we're a bunch of bad dudes... we would enjoy the cake eating while sincerely hoping our missing co-worker is having a great birthday.

so i think cake eating is the right thing to do... even if it may seem a little odd at the time of consumption. of course, the next part is telling her. cuz you can't just do something like that and not let her know you did it. if we kept it a secret from her, it'd be like we felt we were doing something wrong... but we're not... right? so the right thing to do is tell her.

"hey co-worker, we had cake to celebrate your birthday while you weren't here. hope you had a good one!"

we'll probably post pictures on her facebook page of us eating it. maybe that will help.

besides, it's not like one of us won't just buy another cake next week. two cakes in two weeks... the holidays are starting early for us!!!