It's just a fiver

Stand your ground.
You can't dictate like that anyway, tell her.
People don't need a present anyway. A signed card is enough.

Thankfully, in my last job the CEO was very hot on certain things you would think were not his priorities. One of those was if there was catering for visitors, etc, enough food would be bought for everyone based in the office and people encouraged to come down to the lounge rather than make ourselves scarce because there were visitors.

Anyway, he felt strongly that no-one should be expected to give to collections and collections should only be for 'big' events in people's lives. Normal birthdays the office manager bought a card and a bun with a candle in it. Big events, an envelope was left in someone's desk top drawer and email went round to say people could contribute if they wished. His own birthday was a closely guarded secret.

Reminds me of when I was working in a shop years ago and the manager was turning 50, the assistant manager asked that everyone give £10 because she was going on a cruise for her birthday and she was going to use it as spending money. I gave £5 instead and then a week later the assistant manager approached me and said I still owed her another fiver as I hadn’t put £10 in. I stupidly gave her the other fiver and when I think back to doing that I’m so annoyed with myself for not telling her to piss off! It was years ago and still annoys me.

I've not come across that as being said on here a lot but maybe because it doesn't need to be as it's everyone's rule is it?

Like a PP ims glad to see @FeistyFrankie being challenged by so many

You are forgetting the Mumsnet rule. It’s your money you can do whatever you want with it.
Who appointed you to be the judge of who or what is stingy?

With the exception of @FeistyFrankie, who has quite rightly been called out for her twatty post-it’s incredibly heart warming to see all these comments in support of you saying no.
Normally these kind of MN posts are filled with the “desperately wanting to appear wealthy to strangers” brigade, the kind that pretend they’re on 300k a year and think nothing of forking out 100k for Persephones private school 🤣

This thread is the side of Mumsnet I like to see. OP you were 100% in the right with this. When I still worked in the office (I’m wfh now) I was in a small team of 9, and we felt obliged to put a tenner in for every bloody birthday-which wasn’t too bad when it was someone I genuinely liked, but there was one bad egg in our team, “the mood Hoover” and every single one of us begrudged the fact that she would get £80 spent on her every birthday (we weren’t being mean, she was utterly vile and rude) so we jacked it in eventually and would just sign a card. Which literally nobody minded and it took a huge amount of pressure off

It also leaves people in the ridiculous position of having to have cash on them all the time.

My cash simply wasn't disposable. It went on bills and then it went into my shopping account. Actual "disposable" money went on my child. Really don't understand how in this day and age we can's see that it might be uncomfortable and difficult to have to contribute to arbitrary extra expenses.

I don't mind people doing collections, I do mind the pressure and calling out!

These days you can do online collections and people can donate whatever they like as a named or anonymous contributor. It can go out as one mass email without having to badger individuals. It's much fairer and is the best of both worlds.

That's really presumptuous of her.

There's regular collections for leavers at my work and I decide how much to put in based on how well I know the person.

I would hope that if I get a leaving gift it's because people will miss me and appreciate what I've done, not because they were ordered to give £5.

God I remember those days. I worked in a finance setting in a huuuge open plan office, most people were young, childless well off people or older very well off people with good careers. I was part time in an entry level position, had a baby young and was sole earner in my family. I felt so much shame but as you said, it's not just a fiver, it's a fiver for a couple hundred people. I just couldn't manage and I am so glad I change careers, some cultures and environments really hold on to that bravado culture.

A fiver is a lot of money for someone on a very strict budget; it could buy a family meal. I have previously been on an extremely tight budget and wasn't able to afford fixed amounts for work collections so I fully understand. Manager is unfair to ask this from you. And like many posters, I didn't get involved in birthday collections at work. Well done for being assertive

I think collections for somebody leaving are fine. Birthdays totally ridiculous.

'FeistyFrankie', you've obviously never been on your uppers! Even £2 is TOO MUCH if you haven't got it! I really, really hate all this stupid birthday, wedding, baby collections business at work. As others have said, they are colleagues, and while some may be real friends, if that's the case then you might buy them a gift away from work if you can afford it, but all this 'Oh, it's only X amount', really winds me up! Well done for refusing OP!

This kind of pressure is out of order, I used to work in an office with around 100 people, there was just a stream of these A4 brown envelopes for money doing the rounds with large cards for birthday, engagements, babies, leaving dos, anniversaries, it went on and on I just used to pass them on unless it was one of the closer staff in my department I wanted to contribute to. Some for people I hadn't even heard of 🤦🏻‍♀️ just stand your ground and decline. This manager has no right to dictate what money staff contribute to birthdays. In my office there was also the tradition of bringing in a buffet for other colleagues on your birthday, this got very competitive for certain people and must have cost them a small fortune!

We do online cards for colleagues birthdays.

Only cash collections for Big Birthdays.

I arrange and pay for the cards. I don't ask for money as it's just a fiver a go. Nothing really.

I recently looked through the cards I'd previously bought to make sure I ordered a different one for the latest team members birthday. Can't order the same as last time or someone else!

And that's when I realised I'd spent £120. 😱 WTF.

So all those fivers have added up since lockdown when we started.

You can quote my story and pretend it was your story as it clearly explains why you don't give a fiver here and there.

However I think everyone should take a turn of ordering the card so I'd say I'm up for that when it's my turn so we all take a shot. Happy to put a fiver in for people in my own small team. But not the wider team.

In my last job you were given a choice of contributing to the birthday pool or not. No pressure to do so. Anyone who wanted to bought a small gift for the person whose birthday was below theirs on the list. I thought it was quite a nice thing to do.

Just say you don't want to and don't give it any thought.

Tell her you don’t want to be part of the collections, and you wish not to receive anything when it’s your birthday
Everytime there’s a collection put the £5 into a jar at home and then on your birthday, take the money and treat yourself!

Who wants a manky birthday present from their work colleagues ??

I've always worked at places where the birthday person brings in cakes or similar. That's more than adequate.

Another post menopause lady here who would be telling the manager to crack on without me.

Could you suggest they start using GiftRound or similar, where people can decide what they contribute (or just sign an e card with not contribution)? You are not being unreasoable.

It is absolutely fine that you don't want to take part in work collections. Well done on speaking up and hopefully that will be the end of it. Donations should always be voluntary and (I think) anonymous.

This used to piss me off massively at work. I used to work as a cabin crew for a very large airline so every flight would be a different set of crew. Almost every flight it would be another crews birthday that I had never worked with or met before and you would be expected to contribute at least £10 for a gift out of duty free for them.
I used to use the excuse I didn’t have any cash on me, which was once met with, that’s fine you can bank transfer me the contribution! Conveniently my birthday never fell on a flight day so I didn’t receive anything 😅

I really hate people putting their hands in other people's pockets. Want to buy a gift for a colleague? Just do it. Stop asking everyone else to pay for it.

I'm leaving soon and have already made it very clear that I don't want a collection (not being presumptuous - they are endemic at my workplace), and will return it if anyone tries.

My old work place was like this and I hated it, it was often two people's birthdays in one month and people expected you to put at least £10.The work environment was very toxic and most of the team never even liked each other so it felt odd to be putting money towards a gift.

I think that is making a lot of assumptions. You may be on a high pay grade but contributing towards parent's care, etc.

Now wait a minute … where were all of you when I was being accused of a grouch and a bad manager when I said that managers should not be organizing things like this in another thread about a work leaving do!

Ha.. I still think it’s a bad idea and won’t be changing my mind any time soon.