For the first time in my life, I had a birthday party just for me. I didn't have to share it with that Jesus kid. 
Ok, that sounds silly. See here for last year's perspective:
http://cptacek.savingadvice.com/2007/12/20/just-me-being-bitter-and-petty_33064/
For the record, I was not on call last week. But something went wrong with our nightly processing last Monday and the guy who was on call called me at 2:30 a.m. and asked me to take a look at it. Well, I didn't know why it broke, but I ran things manually so the reports and things would be right in the morning, and it took until 4:30 a.m. before everything was done. To be fair, this was a very strange problem, so I don't fault him for calling me. In fact, I am GLAD he called me because that means he got the page! (he has been known to keep the pager in his car overnight so if something goes wrong, he doesn't know it) Anyway, I slept in the next morning and called my boss around 10:00 to say I was up working until 4:30 a.m. and was just leaving. She was like "you are coming in, though, right?" and I said, yes. That was strange. She had kind of a different inflection in her voice that I found odd...
Well, I got in and walked straight to this guy's desk and started talking about what had happened the night before...didn't even take my coat off. Talked about what I did to get things running correctly and what I thought was the problem. We talked for about 10 minutes. The lady in the cube next to him kept turning and looking at us, and I thought it was because we were being loud. Well, someone came up behind me and said "Happy Birthday." Huh? I looked around, and right beside me, on the table right beside the guy's chair, was a bunch of food and a cake that said "Happy Birthday (cptacek)". What the heck!?! I was sooo surprised, and the lady who had been turning to look at me laughed and said "I was wondering when you would notice!"
What a day. Lots of people made a point to stop by and say happy birthday. It is silly, I know, for a 30 (almost 31) year old to feel special because people made an effort just for me, but I really felt good. I don't think I'll have "my day" like I talked about in last year's post. We all brought in food the next day for Christmas, so it truly was cptacek's birthday party.
I had a birthday party just for me!
December 21st, 2008 at 07:46 pm
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December 23rd, 2008 at 06:27 am 1230013632
thank you, guys, for the good wishes!