Most people who know me, even my friends, have no idea what day my birthday is. It is not like I have not told them before. They just have other things on their minds when I tell them. Or other things on their minds on the day. To be fair, I rarely do much, if anything, for them on their birthdays either. Some of this is a conditioned response. Odds are, if someone forgets my birthday, I will eventually forget theirs. That can be the start of a short but vicious circle.
Part of my forgetfulness is probably because birthdays seemed to be of only minor importance to my parents as I was growing up. At least, my birthday seemed less important than others in the family. Maybe that was because of the day it falls on. Or the fact that much of that day, they may have been hungover.
You all know this day and love it. This is because most workers get this day off every year. A good number get it off with pay. If you must work on this day, you may well get a pay differential of some type. My mom used to tell me that no matter what else, I would always get a paid day off on my birthday. I guess she probably knew I wouldn’t be in a profession that required me to work that day. At the time, though, she may have only been trying to make me feel better, particularly when they seemed to forget to do much of anything for my special day. No present? Not a problem. No cake? Hmm, maybe that is a problem. “Oh, did I tell you that you will always get a paid day off on your birthday?”
She was right about my being paid to be off on all but one occasion. There was one time in my working career that I had to work on my birthday. This one time, I was required to work to verify that everything was really OK after the computerized clocks rolled over into the year 2000. OK, I guess that gave it away. The fixes for the now-infamous “Y2K computer bug” had to be checked and verified to work before running jobs for real in the first work week of the new millennium. Not only did I get paid, but I got paid double-time for less than a full day’s work. My mom would have been proud of me.
I mention all of this now because this approaching birthday is a milestone of sorts. In fact, it is a major milestone. I must be old if I am talking about “major milestones.” This one is my 60th. I am just letting you all know far enough in advance to be able to get your shopping for my presents done before all of the lesser upcoming holidays push my birthday out of your awareness, and yes, even your memory. What’s that? You did not plan to get me anything for my birthday? Not even a card? That’s OK, really. You are in good company. As I said earlier, very few of the people I know plan to do anything either.
Memory is the Key 