Office politics aside, there’s nothing quite as frustrating as the constant stream of co-workers asking for donations to their kids’ wrapping paper or popcorn school sales, but you know what might be worse? Contributing to office birthday parties, going away presents, baby shower gifts, and even condolence flowers. One worker has simply had enough and took to Reddit to vent.
While it’s nice if you find a greater purpose in the work you do, we really all go to work for one reason — to make money. It’s kind of how the social contract works in our culture. To get the money to pay for essentials, you devote a good amount of time to working and earning a paycheck. If you’re working to make money, then it makes sense that you wouldn’t want to turn around and give up that money for the very job that’s providing your paycheck. Some expenses can’t be avoided, of course, but is it really right to ask employees to contribute their hard-earned money to group gifts when someone has a birthday or retires?
One employee wants to know how they can get out of contributing to co-worker gifts when they simply attend work every day to actually work.
The worker took to Reddit to share their frustration with having to be a part of office gifts. “I’ve been at my job for three years in a department with high turnover,” they explained. “I’ve contributed to well over 10 birthdays, going away parties, and now management is suggesting we get a card and gift for a colleague who isn’t even in our department but [we] work closely with, whose father passed away.”
Andrea Piacquadio | Pexels
They simply can’t stand it anymore. “I’m so sick of it,” they stated. “I’m here to work and I’m not interested in giving money to any of these events. I don’t even tell my department when my birthday is, and when I do leave, I surely won’t be participating in a going away and don’t want a gift.”
Just like this worker doesn’t like contributing to company gifts to co-workers, there’s a good chance that those co-workers don’t like the gifts very much either.
We tend to think that everyone enjoys receiving gifts, but research suggests this may not be entirely accurate. Gifting company Snappy conducted a survey to determine how employees really feel about having their birthday celebrated at work, and the results were interesting.
89.4% of Americans said they do like celebrating their birthday, which isn’t any real surprise. However, an overwhelming majority (91.8%) like celebrating their co-workers’ birthdays more than their own. Additionally, 67.1% of workers said they would rather have their birthday recognized in private at work — things like “sharing a personal message, card, or gift, versus a company-wide announcement or celebration.”
Despite the general desire for a quieter acknowledgement of birthdays in the workplace, employees do still enjoy it, which may not coincide with the Reddit poster’s feelings. 80.8% of workers thought companies recognizing milestones like birthdays would improve employee morale, and 74.6% thought it would lead to greater employee retention.
The general consensus seems to be that employees have no problem with co-workers who don’t want to contribute to group gifts.
Somebody pointed out, “‘Sorry, it’s not in my budget right now’ is a perfectly acceptable and polite way to decline.” A few people did share horror stories of having done this in the past and being gossiped about around the office or being labeled the workplace Grinch, which is something to keep in mind.
Antoni Shkraba Studio | Pexels
Another commenter shared similar sentiments to the original poster, saying they had “spent hundreds of dollars on other people and have never been gifted anything from anybody my entire time here — because I keep my birthday and family matters private and I don’t sympathy-farm like my colleagues do.”
It seems the original Redditor who shared their frustration about contributing to company gifts is definitely not alone. Feeling like you’re being taken advantage of in this situation is normal. Of course, anyone can refuse to contribute, but they do run the risk of being judged, so it seems like there’s really no good solution to the problem.
Mary-Faith Martinez is a writer with a bachelor’s degree in English and Journalism who covers news, psychology, lifestyle, and human interest topics.
Comments are closed.