Rhyan\djay

I don’t like signing cards for people at work; you know, birthday cards, get well cards, congratulations on your new wart cards…
This just doesn’t seem to me to be an appropriate thing for the work enviroment.
People send around this card leading up to some event, most often a birthday. Each person includes the appropriates sentiment (“Happy B-Day!”, “Feel Better!”, “Get Fucked Ya Bastard!”) and then sends the card on to the next person. Generally, there’s about .0001 seconds of thought put into whatever is written on the card.
Then the card is delivered to the person on the appropriate day, they glance at it (I’m assuming this part) and maybe set it up on their desk.
I understand and appreciate the idea behind this; I really do. Work is a crappy place to be, and it would be nice for it to feel a little more home-y. And, of course, if someone we know from work is ill, we do want them to get better (both because we don’t wish ill upon anyone, in general, and because we want that person to get back to work).
However, because of the method in which this is most often performed, the whole thing just falls to to crap, and the intended recipient generally ends up getting a card with what is essentially gibberish written all over it.
I, having recently had a birthday, currently have one of those cards sitting at my desk. On the front is a little kid dressed up in a duck costume, and on the inside it says “Getting to the age where it’s just not amusing?”
An oddly appropriate sentiment.
In it are 25 signatures. I only know one person at my work that would know my birthday without having been notified about it by an e-mail culled from employment records. And I think maybe about 2 others might actually care whether or not I have a happy birthday, beyond the general sense of “You’re a person, and I acknowledge your right to exist.”
One person didn’t even write the appropriate sentiment. They just wrote their name, as if to say, “I was here.” I think I respect this person the most. They’re not faking it. Another person wrote “Happy B-Day!” without signing their name; I’m not sure what to think of that; it’s certainly a selfless act, I’ll give them that.
The only card I can think of that’s truly appropriate in a work setting is a congratulatory card regarding a promotion. This makes sense to me. It’s work-related, and the person’s co-workers almost certainly have some feelings one way or another about it. 
Of course, I don’t recall ever seeing one. People seem to think that that is none of their business.

Of course the main reason this is all on my mind at the moment is because a little while ago, someone came by with one of these cards and told me it was for so-and-so and asked me to sign it. So I started writing “Happy B-Day!” like the trained monkey I am, only to be told it’s a Get Well card.
Doh!