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Be happy you’re not celebrating your birthday in Estonia!

If you forgot to bring in a big plate of sprat sandwiches ("kiluvõileivad" in Estonian) to work on the morning of your birthday, your co-workers will remind you that you need to treat everyone today. Not the other way around.

Hillar Lauri, Entrepreneur and part-time math teacher
Hillar Lauri, Entrepreneur and part-time math teacher

Birthdays are approached fundamentally differently in Estonia compared to Canada and the United States. In Estonia, the birthday boy or girl treats all the others. In Canada, when a co-worker has a birthday, his or her friends at work would announce that the "birthday child" is being taken out to the local bar or pub, and all of the co-workers who come along understand the deal. The co-workers pay for themselves (any food or drinks consumed) plus a little more so that the birthday boy or girl does not have to pay for his or her drinks and food. Birthdays are to be enjoyed by the birthday child.

If you are out of luck and no one else has a birthday around the date of your birthday, you must go it alone.

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