Installation 14: The Birthday Card previous
As at every workplace in America, employees at The Museum struggled almost weekly with another office birthday card. What to say? It had gotten to the point where many of them dreaded the sight of another brown interoffice envelope with a list taped to the outside. The list served as a routing guide - next to each employee’s name was a tiny box to be checked once that person had written a birthday greeting and dutifully passed it off.
The best scenario was to receive the envelope, birthday card tucked inside, early on in the process. Then one could open the card and be greeted with a wide expanse of white space. The possibilities at this point were endless. One could write, “Happy Birthday! Enjoy your day!” and be done with it. The worst possible scenario was to be one of the last to sign. The card was a mess of ballpoint scrawls, some of them smudged, with all possible wording taken.
Because she was new, Phoebe usually received cards late in the routing. Granted, she received them before Julia did, but then Julia was at work so rarely that someone had taken to crossing her name off the list to avoid the envelope being put into her mail slot to languish for weeks, often well past the recipient's date of birth. Phoebe usually opened up the card to find that, while there wasn’t an abundance of space left in which to squeeze her greeting, there was just enough so that she had to write more than “Happy Birthday! Phoebe.”
For a few weeks, she drew birthday cakes and signed her name, thinking it might be interpreted as clever or cute. Then she realized this was just ridiculous. No one else drew pictures. For a few cards she found herself trying to say too much, such as, “May the next year bring you joy, peace and happiness in ways you have never before experienced or imagined.” But then she got hung up on that wording. What “ways” was she referring to? Who was she to say such a thing to someone she hardly knew? Maybe they were already experiencing plenty of joy, peace and happiness and didn’t need her wishing they could experience something more or of better quality.
Just when she reached this crisis point, the most important birthday card of the year began its travels amongst the desks of The Museum. The Director ’s birthday was coming up and James Trehorn made sure to circulate a very tasteful card featuring a sketch of water lilies. Phoebe got it midway through its cycle and opened it to find more white space than usual. There were a variety of messages, from generic to those of the private joke variety (“Don’t do what we did in ’84 tonight!”). She set the card on her lap and gazed up at the fluorescent lights.
This presented a big problem. Of course she didn’t want to write something banal on The Director’s card. If he didn’t know her yet, he might think she was a simple person with no ability to imagine and craft an original birthday greeting. But if she said too much she was risking looking unhinged; someone who didn’t recognize boundaries and hierarchies.
Carlotta circulated through the office with an armload of Diet Coke cans and put them in the trash.
“I can recycle those,” Phoebe said.
Carlotta shrugged, dismissing the suggestion. “So,” she said. “Have you noticed that there’s a hickey on Corey’s neck?”
“Feldman or Reeves?”
“Reeves.”
“No,” Phoebe said. “Listen, what should I write on The Director’s birthday card?”
“How about ‘Happy Birthday, you sad, sad excuse for a human being,’” Carlotta suggested. “'You’re lucky to still be alive.'”
“Yeah,” Phoebe said. “I think that will work. But seriously…”
“I don’t know,” Carlotta said. “I have a beef with him. I probably won’t even sign it.”
“Are you kidding?”
“Like he even reads it,” Carlotta said. “He tosses it aside.”
“What’s your beef with him?” Phoebe asked, wondering at herself for so quickly adopting the word “beef” to mean “problem.”
“Money,” Carlotta said. “I want more money and he said no. But continues to assign me too many projects without sufficient help.”
“They let you hire me,” Phoebe said.
“I mean someone who can do things,” Carlotta said. “Someone I can delegate to.”
“Oh,” Phoebe said.
“So you really didn’t see the hickey?” Carlotta asked. “I’m going to walk by her office right now. If she’s in there I might stop and talk so I can look at it. I think she put make-up on to hide it. Want to come?”
“No,” Phoebe said.
“Seriously?” Carlotta asked. “Don’t you kind of wonder why she has one and didn’t have the sense to wear a turtleneck?”
Phoebe took out the birthday card and pretended to be busy composing a message until Carlotta left. Then she did start to write, starting with, “Hey Director…” before freezing in horror. She couldn’t possibly use “Hey, Director,” as her greeting. She reworked the “Hey” into a “Hello” but then thought it sounded stiff. “Hello Director… How are you? Hope you are fine. Oh, and Happy Birthday!” Jesus Christ.
She felt sweaty. She wiped her hands on her skirt and took up her pen again.
“Hello Director! Hope your birthday turns out to be all you hoped it would be! The day and the year. Often things don’t work out as we plan so don’t be disappointed if it all fails to live up to your expectations. Only time will tell. Phoebe.”
It was quite possibly the single most idiotic thing she’d ever written. She shut the card and shoved it back in its envelope, checked off her name and threw it on Carlotta’s desk.