Similar things have happened to me. I've gotten pretty good at ditching out on the events stuff and eventually leaving after it gets bad. My birthday is mine,

Similar things have happened to me. I've gotten pretty good at ditching out on the events stuff and eventually leaving after it gets bad. My birthday is mine, you don't get to use it just because I have to give it to you for tax reasons. I don't want you cake pops. I want to do work. This has lead to making things worse and I've had segments of people in companies target me for my unwillingness to mess with that stuff. I have left jobs over things that read like this. I never thought about suing. It would just be such a huge pain and I'd already be looking for a new job. If I end up in a space where this happens again, I'll have my attorney draft a strongly worded letter or maybe add some lines to my employee agreement saying that they don't own my likeness so I'm not going to appear in promotional materials, you can't tell anyone my birthday, and I don't want any weird awards or whatever. They'll sign it... forget... and then when I have to quit it'll make the lawsuit easier.