This is the Business English Podcast, episode 159.
It's your coworker's birthday. English skills to celebrate.
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Hey there, Michelle. How's it going? Good, good.
How are you? I'm feeling great. I actually just had a birthday a couple weeks ago.
Oh my gosh. Yes. And I thought your birthday was the month before.
And I thought, wow, I'm going to really surprise Lindsay by knowing her birthday.
And then I texted you, happy birthday. And it wasn't your birthday.
Oh, I thought it was nice though. It was, it was very sweet of you.
And I appreciated it even though I was like, oh my gosh, are we that far into the summer already?
Right. So you texted my birthday was August 3rd.
I think you texted me around July 3rd or something.
I think it's because you love July 4th so much.
Maybe I got it. I don't know. But yeah, August 3rd.
I knew that. So anyway, well, yeah. It's the gesture that matters, Michelle.
It's the gesture. Yeah. I'm going to text you in like November and be like, happy birthday.
You know what? It's so funny. I try to be good about birthdays.
And a few years ago, I said, I'm going to be good about birthdays.
I'm going to remember everyone's birthday, but I need technology to help me.
So I can actually text people on their birthday because I'm not the person that I'm just not good at it.
Right. And so I got an app and I entered, I spent like a year or two entering everyone's birthday.
So then finally I was on it. I was on top of it for a year or two.
I was emailing people, messaging them. I knew it.
And then what happened? The app crashed and I lost all the birthdays.
Oh no. And now I'm just back to square one.
Oh no. That's too bad. So now no one gets a happy birthday.
No one gets a happy birthday. I just don't.
I don't know. I don't know. It's frustrating.
And they had had a happy birthday. So now they think it's weird.
It's weird now. Like Lindsay texted me last year.
Now she's mad at me. Yeah, exactly. Yeah.
Oh, boy. You got to figure that out. No.
So we're going to talk about birthdays today, if you couldn't guess.
But guys, remember to hit follow wherever you're listening to the Business English podcast.
Let us come to you. You don't have to do any of the work.
Yes, you got it. All right. So talking about birthdays, but specifically in the workplace, right, Michelle?
Yes, yes, yes, exactly. And also a couple of days ago, we did an episode, please hold a moment for amazing business English vocabulary.
So go on and listen to that one as well to get some good vocab.
I like that. All right. So Michelle, let's get into it.
I mean, do we have a key question that we want to start with today?
Yes. Okay. Yes. So do you think it's important for people to acknowledge or celebrate birthdays at work or birthdays kind of, you know, like a kid thing?
I think it really depends. I suppose, you know, I think you can have a great I'm thinking about a company culture, especially if you're a leader at a company or you're a participant at this company, an employee. you can have a great company culture without being crazy about birthdays i don't think it's a requirement but i think that it could add to your culture it's it could be a feature of a great company culture or you could still have a great company culture without doing the birthday thing yeah yeah yeah i i agree i think it can be it's it's not necessary it's it's a cool addition but it's not going to make it or break it yes 100 100 yeah Yeah, exactly.
So, I mean, I think this is especially easier, though, if you work in person with people.
I think it's a little hard for the online birthday situation.
But, you know, you could still do something, I guess.
It's just not the same. But today we're going to talk about what can you say if maybe you want to take the reins and organize something for a co-worker's birthday?
Yeah. Yeah. And this is always nice. I guess probably when you worked in offices, you noticed there was always someone, one or two people who would kind of be that office personality and bringing people together, remembering birthdays, right?
Yeah. And you need that person. But yeah, you're right, Michelle.
When we're online, we lose some of that, don't we?
Yeah. Unless you're very, very intentional about finding creative ways to do it, it's just not the same.
So- yeah you know what i was just thinking i wish i wish our team we could just like work together for like a few weeks like just like in this i wonder like how different the dynamic would be of like i just i just had this vision of jessica just walking into the room and being like it's my birthday like yeah she loves her she loves her birthday yeah certain people like appreciate their birthday more than others or care about the birthday right or they have a birthday month A birthday month.
It's my birth month. Yeah. My birthday week.
Yeah. I would like to do that too. I think a lot of remote companies do do that kind of thing where they, they work online most of the year and then they do like a company retreat or something.
And we could do like a photo shoot. It's in somewhere.
Maybe next year we'll be able to do it. Yeah.
All right. Then Michelle, what can our listeners say if they want to take the reins, take that role of letting people know about birthdays in the office? all right so you could say hey guys it's blank's birthday on blank so you could say hey guys it's lindsay's birthday on tuesday and then you could say what could you say okay then then we could also say let's get some blank and celebrate blank oh so boring so many blanks let's get some cake and celebrate in the boardroom during lunch well everyone loves cake right everyone loves right so except my my niece my niece just turned seven and my dad um blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.
It was all very rushed, but my dad had to run out.
We didn't know they were coming over. So he ran out to get a cake and he thought it was an ice cream cake because it did look like an ice cream cake and it wasn't.
And then he told her he had an ice cream cake for her and then she was upset because she doesn't like regular cake.
Oh, geez. I'd be happy with cake or ice cream cake.
But I agree with your niece. Is your niece, you said?
Yeah, my niece. I agree that ice cream cake is better than regular cake.
I think. Yeah. Well, you love ice cream.
So, yeah, I do. I do. Yeah. These are good.
These are nice, nice phrases. Right. What do they do for the.
Well, they show that you're caring about the person.
You're letting everybody know and you're throwing out a suggestion.
And then, you know, you can always say, like, what do you think?
Does that sound good? You know, just something like that. what do you think we should do for X's birthday?
Right. What do we think we should do for Michelle's birthday?
Michelle, your birthday is at the end of December.
I know. That's right. Right. Yeah. Right.
That's exactly right. Yeah. It's at the end.
It's December 30th of December. Right. And yeah.
So I'm I'm you know, there's usually not too much going on time for a birthday.
It's a weird time. And every year, literally every year, I'm like, maybe next year it'll be, you know, we'll do something more.
And then I just realized, like, it's not that we don't do anything.
It's just that it's so busy with holiday stuff and New Year's and it always just kind of gets pushed under the rug.
But I don't know. I guess I'm just used to it.
I just I don't know it any other way. It's fine.
Yeah, I get that. I get that. Did you ever have people doubling up on gifts, though?
Oh, yeah, of course. Or here's your any celebration gift.
Yes, yes, yes, exactly. Yeah, but yeah, I'm just so used to it.
It doesn't really face me anymore. It's kind of funny.
And I always thought, I always like telling people my birthday.
Like, it's always fun for me to say it because then everybody's like, oh, New Year's.
Oh, right, right, right. New Year's, too.
Oh, my gosh, you're right in between. oh wow that's crazy all right well lindsay i mean why might this help this acknowledgement of birthdays why do you think it could help with team building or relationships or motivation like why why could it be a good thing well i think it comes back to our philosophy here in business english right you're a human being outside of work and you don't all of a sudden become a robot when you walk into work so you have a family you have a birthday you have a home you have a favorite flavor of ice cream right you are still a person and i think it's nice especially nowadays companies are starting to recognize that if companies respect that you know we can we can perform even better and be more fulfilled in our career so that's why michelle yeah exactly exactly and some what are some other ideas of things you can do to celebrate a co-worker's birthday oh wow if you're lucky you'll get people to go out for lunch with you that'd be amazing um a little gift basket for the person very special a card signed by co-workers Yeah, I remember that and working in an office, you know, somebody would come around with a secret card and you sign it.
And yeah, so that that's a fun thing or, you know, a little gift, like we said.
But I always think of there's an episode of Seinfeld.
Lindsay, I don't know if you know it. I didn't know that one.
No. Oh, my God. It's hysterical because Elaine. is in so if you work in a big company right so she worked in a big company so it was like always someone's birthday always a birthday yeah there's always cake in the room in the board right so she was always like and it was like always a special birthday song i think and then oh and then they would have a cake for everything like even if someone was sick like if they came back then it'd be like and and and then it's a whole thing with birthday cake but she ends up just like being kind of like the scrooge of birthdays like why do we need to do this all the time that's a really funny episode it is kind of weird when you think about it if you work in a huge multinational or big corporation it probably is someone's birthday all the time and so you're always there's always food there's always a card every day you're signing something it starts to be meaningless Right.
Except, of course, for the person whose birthday it is.
Right. So I'm going to look up that one later and watch it.
I love Seinfeld. I think it might have been the most brilliant show of our lifetime.
Yeah. It is amazing. Yeah. And just a side point, I was watching a show that was highlighting the shows of the 90s.
And they said that Seinfeld was revolutionary because it was the first show that didn't need to sugarcoat things.
It wasn't like that perfect life thing. perfect family in the suburbs where everything ends with a lesson, right?
Is that a CNN show you were watching? Yeah, yeah, yeah.
I'm sure you've seen that. Yeah, there were no lessons.
There was no tie ups. No neat bow wrapped up with a bow.
It's like, this is life. And this is actually funny.
And these are things that we hate. These are things we love, but it's actually hilarious.
And we don't have to end on such a I don't know.
Wiki clean note, I guess, you know, man.
And, and guys, Seinfeld is a good one to watch because there are a lot of things that show the workplace.
Yes. Yeah. Oh my God. But it's, oh my gosh, it is still the best show.
It's a great show. We recommend it guys.
Great way to practice your English classic show.
A lot of quotes in there. Michelle, if we haven't done an episode on all there's English podcast about Seinfeld quotes, we better get to that right away.
Yeah. I, I, Good question. I know we've done it on another TV show.
I know we did. And I know we did. How could we not have done it on Seinfeld yet?
Oh my gosh. I have to look. I have to look through our catalog because I know we talked about doing something like that.
But if we haven't, I'm going to plan it.
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Exclusions apply. See details online. All right, Michelle.
So what else do we want to say about today, about the birthday topic in the corporate world?
What else do our listeners need to know?
Well, if you're in a leadership position, like, or maybe you could develop some sort of system.
So that, you know, something that, you know, everybody, when you get hired, you put your birthday up somewhere.
I don't know. It's a possible thing, like to have a calendar of birthdays or it's a routine.
But I think like we were talking about, I think it's easier with a smaller team.
Otherwise, it's all the time. Yeah, I think there are certain things you could do to use technology as well.
Translating to the online world, you could have a group text with a gift sending out to the person.
A fun gift could be the gift, right? Just something small.
Or you could also have a gift basket delivered to the employee's home.
That's something else we could do, right?
Mm-hmm. Yeah, that's true. Yeah. I mean, but, but here's where it gets like a little awkward, you know, like let's say you're working somewhere where you always do something for the birthday.
Sometimes the coworkers chip in, you know, you don't want to put too much of a financial burden on someone or make them feel bad.
Like I think either the company pays or everyone pitches in just a few bucks, but nothing like crazy where then somebody has to pay a lot.
Yeah. Cause that could be, that could get very awkward sometimes. right yeah i don't want to say no but yeah yeah and then you get into a weird conversation about money at work and we know that's kind of a taboo which we could talk about another day on another episode michelle yeah that would be good yeah let's go into a role play today let's do it okay all right so uh we are co-workers and let's do it okay hey lindsay it's aubrey's birthday on tuesday oh right Uh, so let's get some cookies and celebrate after lunch.
What do you think? Does that sound good?
That sounds great. Let's get a card too.
And we'll all sign it. Perfect. She'll love that.
Nice. So here we're coming together, making a plan.
And again, our philosophy here again, is that in addition to we're all humans at work, what a business actually gets done and connections happen outside of the actual work moments like this, while we're eating those cookies, having a coffee together, that's when we build the rapport, right?
So we want to have these experiences and these opportunities.
That's right. That's right. I agree. Yeah.
So all right. I said, Hey, Lindsay, it's Aubrey's birthday on Tuesday.
Yeah. And then and then you said, let's get some cookies and celebrate after lunch.
So you're using the let's format, right to ask to make a suggestion.
Let's do this. What do you think? Does that sound good?
Like it? And then you said, let's get a card too.
And we will all sign it. Yes. Very nice.
Very nice. All right, Michelle, where should we leave our listeners today?
Yeah, well, we'll definitely do some follow up on like, You know, if you're that person gathering signatures for a card or money, you know, how do you do that kind of thing?
So that could be a good skill to have. But this is a great way to connect at work to make people feel special on their birthday.
But we talked about kind of all the nuances and how it can get out of hand like on Seinfeld.
Yeah. But, you know, think about it. Think about do you do something at work for people's birthdays?
Is that something you could add? Is that a fun thing?
Like be creative with it. Or is it just really you have a great company culture anyway, and it's not going to make it or break it, but it could be fun.
Yeah. And I would also say that, you know, like we said, in every office, there's that one person that's kind of the organizer.
Sometimes it's a specific role, like you're supposed to do it in your role, maybe like an office manager or something.
But sometimes it's a small company and it's just the person that just raises their hand and gets involved.
And for our listeners, for you guys, that might actually be a good role to take on because you would end up speaking a lot more English.
You might want to think about becoming that person, right?
Yeah. You will build better connections.
You'll speak more English. You'll have a stronger career because your relationships will be stronger.
Your network will get stronger. So think about getting more into the inner circle of your company.
Don't just always hang back and do the minimum. okay that's what i want to make sure our listeners come away with today yeah that's a really good idea take on that role you be the one that's gonna do a lot for you exactly i love it so good guys hit follow if you want more awesome career advice here on business english michelle thanks for hanging out i'll see you next time all right bye lindsay see you soon bye Thank you for listening to Business English, a podcast just for you, the high achieving global professional.
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