The first time you say to a colleague, ‘Congratulations, it’s your birthday tomorrow’, the look on their face isn’t one of pleasant surprise. It’s one of slight unease, as if you’ve just unwittingly committed a social faux pas. And in a way, in Swiss culture, that’s exactly what it is. Congratulating someone before the day itself is considered a bad omen. It’s not just a minor superstition that people pay lip service to: there are people who will actually ask you not to do it, in all seriousness. For someone from Spain, where wishing someone a happy birthday in advance is simply a sign that you’ve remembered, the reaction is quite disconcerting.
The custom stems from the Germanic tradition of not anticipating one’s fortune or celebrating anything before it happens: doing so is considered to be tempting fate. In German-speaking Switzerland, which includes cantons such as Zurich, Bern, Basel and Aargau, the practice is deeply rooted. In French-speaking Switzerland, the custom is somewhat less strict, though it does exist. Traces of it can also be found in Ticino. The practical result is that if you see on the calendar that your Swiss colleague’s birthday is tomorrow, it’s best to keep quiet until dawn.
What surprises Spaniards most is not so much the superstition itself, but the fact that it operates in completely ordinary work settings, amongst adults, during work meetings. And the other side of the coin is also striking: there are Swiss people who simply don’t mention that it’s their birthday until it’s already passed. You turn up at the office on a Wednesday, someone brings in a cake, and you find out that it was their birthday yesterday. The cake is a belated celebration. In Switzerland, they do celebrate, but only once there’s no longer any risk involved.