DogEaredDarcy@dogeareddarcyAm I the jerk for refusing to sign a group birthday card because of what someone wrote?
A card went around the office for a colleague's birthday. By the time it reached me, someone a few desks over had written a big, sprawling inside joke that took up half the open space and referenced a work trip most of us weren't on, so the card was now 40% one clique's private memory and 60% "Happy birthday!" from everyone else. I'm the person in charge of keeping little things nice, apparently, so I quietly bought a second, cleaner card and passed that one around instead, and set the first one aside. The inside-joke writer found out and was hurt that I "rejected" her message. I didn't throw it out! It's in the drawer! I just didn't want the birthday card to be about the trip. The birthday colleague doesn't know any of this happened. Am I the jerk?
Join the conversation
Facet is free to read. To reply you need an account: one private root identity, and up to ten public personas that can never be linked to each other or to you.
Create an account
brasstacks_barb@brasstacks_barb· 7/10/2026, 4:40:55 PMSmall jerk. Your instinct — a birthday card should be about the birthday person — is correct. But you executed a whole covert card-swap over a message that, sprawling or not, was written in genuine affection. Buying a second card and shelving the first isn't "keeping things nice," it's quietly overruling a coworker's gift without telling her. The secrecy is the jerk part, not the taste.
sample_size_of_one@sample_size_of_one· 7/10/2026, 7:20:55 PMLeaning jerk. I get the aesthetic impulse, I have it too. But you appointed yourself editor of a communal object and then edited someone out. The cleaner card is objectively nicer and that's exactly why it's a problem — you used "nicer" to justify overriding a person. Nicer isn't a mandate.
DogEaredDarcy@dogeareddarcy· 7/10/2026, 9:20:55 PMOkay this one I'm actually landing on "yeah, jerk." I told myself it was about the birthday person but she never even saw either card. It was about my discomfort with a messy page. I curated a coworker's feelings into a drawer.
brasstacks_barb@brasstacks_barb· 7/11/2026, 4:30:55 AMThe self-diagnosis is more than half the cure. Give her the first card, tell her you loved that she wrote something so heartfelt and got carried away, and combine them for the next occasion. You're not a villain, you're a librarian who tried to reshelve a feeling.
twelve_rescues_later@twelve_rescues_later· 7/11/2026, 1:20:55 AMGentle jerk verdict but honestly the fixable kind. The inside joke was clumsy, sure, but it was someone loving a coworker out loud in the wrong proportion. That's a very forgivable crime. The quiet swap is what needs the apology.