This is an office, not an Applebee's!

I will admit this right off the bat: a lot of the time at work, I can be a grumpy bastard.

There are several things about my office that annoy me. Among these are the unnecessarily long training sessions, computer systems that seem designed to spike my blood pressure, and the rare occasion that I am instructed to take Tech Support calls instead of doing my normal work. (If I wanted to do Tech Support, I'd work in Tech Support.)

However, at the place I go to pay the rent, one of the top events that makes the bile rise in my throat is the way the managers celebrate birthdays and anniversaries of employment. Any time that somebody has been with the company for a number of full years, or if their birthday is that day or during the coming weekend, a dozen managers show up with balloons and bellow out: "Attention everyone! We have a birthday/anniversary on the floor! Mr./Ms. So-And-So!"

These managers, to whom we look for leadership and advice, then all start to sing.

Together.

If it's a birthday, it goes:

Happy happy birthday, today's your special day
Happy happy birthday, that's why we're here to say
Happy happy birthday, may all your dreams come truuuuuuueeeee.....
Happy happy birthday, from all of us to you!

Ick.

And as saccharine as that song is, it can't even hold a candle (Ha! Candle! Get it?! No? Moving on...) to the Anniversary song, sung to the William Tell Overture, with lyrics that seem written by Rain Man:

Happy Anniversary, Happy Anniversary, Happy Anniversary, Haaaaappy Anniversary.
Happy, Happy, Happy, Happy, Happy Anniversary,
Happy, Happy, Happy, Happy, Happy Anniversarreeeee!

I hate this.

My coworkers are very aware of my dislike for this corporate celebratory nonsense, and understand why I immediately reach for my headphones to drown them out with Metal or Techno music any time I see someone carrying balloons. However, one of them remarked to me the other day that she hates hearing me complain about this irritating distraction from...you know...work. I've been on the phone with clients before, who have to wait until this off-key bellowing is finished before I can continue with actually doing my job.

She can't stand my bad attitude about what is "supposed to be a celebration." Okay, she's a good person, I like working with her, and she has a point. I'll admit that grouchy curmudgeons are annoying. But do you know what's worse, in my opinion? Chipper, happy-slappy optimists who go around all day vomiting sunshine, insisting that everyone act as if we live in a sugary fairy land, filled with puppies, kittens and unicorns that fart rainbows.

And to those of you who think I'm making a big deal out of nothing, and that a few songs once in a great while are not something to get stressed out over: let's do a little math, shall we?

I crunched the numbers on the people who dwell in my workplace. There are 83 within immediate earshot. That means 83 birthdays and 83 anniversaries a year. That's 166 celebratory songs in a year where there are about 253 working days (52 weeks x 5 days a week, minus 7 paid holidays.)

That means, on any given day, there is a 65.6% chance (That's nearly 2 out of every 3 days at work) that I will have to listen to an off-key, ear-splitting rendition of a song that makes me want to take an ice pick to my eardrums.

And several times a month, it is the birthday and/or anniversary of several people at once. Like last week, when the denizens of my cube farm celebrated 6 anniversaries and 1 birthday, within the space of 10 minutes.

Go to YouTube, search for the video "Happy Anniversary!!!" submitted by ViddyBarbarino, and play it 6 times, back-to-back. See if that doesn't make you willing to listen to some other song, any other song, just to get it to stop.

So yes, I am a grumpy bastard. I like being angry about things that anger me. To sum it up, I leave you with a quote by Aldous Huxley, from his excellent novel Brave New World...

"I reserve the right to be unhappy."