Left job after 25 years, all I got was flowers 🫣

In our organisation they send out expressions of interest for your post with the email informing people you are leaving.
ClareBlue is leaving at the end of the month after 30 dedicated years of service, who wants their job.😂 keeps perspective that you really are dispensable, even before you even been dispensed with.

Says it all.
A sharp reminder for us all.
I've worked with some incredibly lazy, selfish people and others who have been totally committed and hard working.
All got same send off.

I’ve noticed a change in our work recently too regarding collections. Previously I think we used to be a closer team/teams and collections were generous and meals out arranged but since Covid this hasn’t happened in the same way.

After 25 years that is really shitty behaviour frankly.

It just shows how little workplaces value long term employees and that colleagues are usually ''friendly'' just as long as they might need you for something...

I worked 22 years teaching p/t for an academic institution and didn’t even get a goodbye,

I left my last job after more than 20 years. I got vouchers and a couple of small gifts but there was no presentation and neither my manager nor my head of department spoke to me once in the month between my resigning and leaving. I felt erased before I even left the building.

If you are leaving to go to a competitor in a similar role then I am not surprised that you "only" got flowers. Where I work it would just be after work drinks with colleagues. Why would the business celebrate the fact that you have left and now they have to recruit and train your replacement ? Not to mention your colleagues having to pick up some slack until the new person is in situ and up to speed? When I worked for a Big 4 accountancy firm in the 90s we were specifically forbidden from celebrating departures of this nature. Different if you were going to work for a client.
FWIW where I work now ( national law firm) we do celebrate long service, as long as you stay. When I reached my 10 year milestone last year I got 2 days additional annual leave amd £150 shopping voucher from the business. There are similar ( bigger) rewards at 20 and 30 years. Plenty of people in the business stay 20+ years

I used to have to organise all the collections and I got fed up of people not bothering to contribute and me either ending up out of pocket or hand over £4 73 in copper coins so now I just don't bother even contributing. If I like someone enough I get them something but don't get involved in collections now.

Honestly don’t give it any more thought. It is not nice but it moving on so just think good thoughts and don’t let it eat at you .everyone is struggling, people are finding things hard at thins time of year it’s really difficult but u gotta
let this go.

I think this is true but not because you aren't a fabulous human.

I was just chatting with someone about this the other day. Companies/jobs like to have loyal staff.....develop a language of team/family. If you are the kind of person who is loyal, it only works while you are employed. You thought you had genuine relationships....well, they were genuine but really they are colleagues not your friends.

In a similar situation, but not work, a friend of mine moved to a different part of the country. When they were leaving I overheard many people gush over them and say they would come and see them. I'm old enough to know if you didn't have a coffee with someone while they lived in the same town it would be a miracle if you drove three hours, without an ulterior motive

I retired during Covid and got nothing

What was she anticipating? It was a council, so publicly funded. She was senior so her gift was a whip round of people mostly receiving a lower salary than herself.

What would have been appropriate?

Genuine question as I had to organise similar for a long serving colleague and had to put the lionshare in myself - I absolutely would not expect it and to be fair I don't think he did either, but couldn't leave it like that. Yet when it is my turn, I want to just quietly slip out the door. Personally, I don't even want flowers - they are quite environmentally unfriendly yet we persist in gifting them.

My company generally has a supportive culture and people stay a long time. However im not aware they give leaving presents, after all it is your choice to leave. The norm wouod ne a collection by your team, but will not be that much as it depends how much individuals contribute. I agree that flowers sounds like not much, but if this was in addition to presents (alcohol etc) from colleagues i would say this is good. But i work in retail which is a pretty poor industry!

That’s more than I got, didn’t even get a card after 12 years, their excuse was Covid. Dh on the other hand got an expensive (for us) watch from the company plus things from colleagues when retiring

Brutally put, though. You can say the same thing in a less cruel way.

And I’ve never experienced this in any of the ‘longer’ jobs I’ve had. I’ve still got friends and still get invited to staff events from way back, so it’s not a universal truth that people are just a line on a spreadsheet.

I used to work for a company. I'd had run in's with my manager as she was a power hungry micromanager and constantly looking to pick holes in our work.

The week before my wedding one of her favourites from another department had a milestone birthday and they were given £150 in shopping vouchers, plus small gifts like chocs and alcohol.

In the meeting the following week, she congratulated me on my upcoming wedding and gave me a tablecloth from the Asda down the road.

It’s called being real, after having been in the workplace for almost 40 years.

At our firm you wouldn’t get anything unless you retired (and even then it would probably only be branded merchandise) unless there was a colleague whip round

These days, lots of us are virtual and in different countries so we don’t even do that. I don’t miss the collections but I do miss being part of a team that would celebrate stuff. I still do virtual coffee / cake with my team etc for stuff but it’s not the same

My Mum worked her way up from the bottom in the council to senior management, she too was there around 25ish years and also only
received flowers. It made her realise leaving was the correct decision.

Why don’t you seek work as a counsellor? Your tact, empathy and human kindness shines through!

I’m sorry that you were so unappreciated OP.
Please don’t take it personally.
I think there should be some company policy so it tells everything about the company.
As to collection from colleagues… at my DH’s place there’s been a huge movement of staff in the last 5 years for various reasons so contributing to all of them became a bit tricky financially. They also cut office staff who usually organized these sort of things and guy who is in the office now is not so socially clued so I suspect that people who are leaving now feel very differently then it was 10 years ago.

You are but a line on a spreadsheet and your colleagues will have forgotten about you in a month.

Depends where you work - I work in a school and all we can do is contributions from staff as school money, rightly so, can’t be used for that purpose, it’s there for children’s education.

What were you hoping for / anticipating?